"Even if you like old-school RPGs you may want to give this a pass."

Might and Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum is the first entry in what became one of the titans of the classic computer RPG genre. The game broke a lot of ground, but unfortunately it has not aged as well as its successors and will likely not be of interest to those who are not completists.

The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played other old RPGs such as Wizardry and Bard's Tale. You begin by creating a group of six characters -- rolling their statistics, and choosing their race and class (from the standard pool of Knight, Paladin, Cleric, Archer, Robber, and Sorcerer). After this you are deposited into the world with almost no indication of what you should do or where you should go (a formula which was copied with success in all of the other Might and Magic games). The game consists of a series of 15x15 grid maps that you see from a first-person viewpoint. As you explore, you will find clues as to your ultimate goal, and eventually you may find the titular inner sanctum.

The world is fairly large, but suffers from sparseness. It seems at times like there is little to find in your travels but mountains of random encounters. You may explore a four level dungeon and find nothing but a few cryptic messages which cannot be decoded until late in the game. In addition, this is the only M&M game lacking an automap, so you'll have to get out the graph paper or find maps on the Internet. The dullness of the exploration is not helped by the primitive graphics, which mostly consist of the same white walls and scratchy trees over and over again. The text in the game is all in upper case (increasing the primitive feel), and contains an overuse of exclamation marks and generally terse, bland writing.

There are a few quests, but they hardly seem worth your while due to the randomness and lack of appreciable rewards for completion. Once you complete the first section of the game you are told that you have completed a "major quest", but your reward is a mere 10,000 exp -- at that point, probably not even a tenth of what you need to rise a level. One other quest is essentially incomprehensible without a walkthrough. All in all they have potential and can be fun, but it's frustrating to be given almost nothing for your hard work even if you can figure out what to do. Often you feel like you're making no progress at all; you're clueless for almost the entire game until you figure out near the end what you need to do to win.

The battle system involves finding encounters -- some random, some fixed. You'll see a picture of the monster you're about to fight, and then the rest of the battle is text only. Only a few of your front-rank people can directly attack the monsters; the others must fire missile weapons or cast spells. Each round, a random factor puts the "handicap" in favor of either you or the monsters, though it's not entirely clear what effect that has on damage or hit rates. Combat can be sped up by holding down a quick attack button that makes everyone either attack, shoot, or block depending on their capabilities (this is a nice touch). Once you beat the monsters you are given experience, and you can search the square you had the combat on to possibly find a chest (which your Robber will have to search for traps and disarm). If you happen to die, you will continue the game at the previous inn you saved at (which is less frustrating than some other early PC RPGs which permanently kill your party or otherwise make it difficult to recover).

Other than gold, you may find items in the chests. There is a large variety of items in the game, but many of them are nearly useless, and there simply isn't that much excitement in finding a LONG SWORD+1 to replace your LONG SWORD. Spells are more interesting, and the game did manage to put some useful ones in the lists other than just increasingly powerful damage and cure spells (although that is what you'll mostly be using).

Plot is almost nonexistent, but those who have played the other Might and Magic games may enjoy seeing the roots of some of the elements of the later games. But the previously mentioned side-quests have little or nothing to do with the overall goal of the game. Even the instruction booklet lacks any sort of background information on the world or the situation to help you along. The ultimate "secret" from the title is a bit silly, and feels like an anticlimax after all the work it takes to get there.

Overall, the game may have been an inventive and interesting game at the time, but even people who enjoy older RPGs may find this one hard to get into. The second entry in the series has many improvements and is a far superior game, making it a much better choice for nostalgia-seeking gamers.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/29/05