Might and Magic IX

Might and Magic IX (Sometimes referred to under its working title as Might and Magic IX: Writ of Fate) is a RPG game in the Might and Magic franchise and the last canonical entry in the series prior to it being acquired and rebooted by Ubisoft in 2003, as well as the last proper RPG for over a decade. It was also the last game (not counting The Winds of War expansion for Heroes of Might and Magic IV) released by both New World Computing and The 3DO Company prior to them going bankrupt and the first game of which the series creator Jon Van Caneghem had no involvement with.

Story
The land of Chedian is under attack by the Beldonian warlord Tamur Leng and his army. You play as a group of raiders from the town of Ravensford which are shipwrecked on the Isle of Ashes where they meet Yrsa the Troll, a hermit that tells them their fate. Joined by another shipwrecked warrior by the name of Forad Darre, they set out into the world to unite the six clans of Chedian against the threat of the Beldonian Horde.

The story itself takes place in the same world as Heroes of Might and Magic IV, following the destruction of Enroth as depicted in Might and Magic: Heroes Chronicles.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Both New World Computing and 3DO was under severe financial stress before development of it began, which gave the game a much smaller budget than previous entries. It also led to 3DO imposing a release deadline for the first time.
 * 2) Its the first game in the series to not use the 3D engine introduced with VI, instead going for Monolith Production's LithTech engine. This change can be seen as a contribution to the game's state as it meant having to learn using said engine on top of regular development.
 * 3) The game is full of glitches and bugs. The most notable probably being its tendency to corrupt it's internal save data (keeping track of which towns you have visited and so forth), which you have to constantly delete in order to resolve oddities that might otherwise appear.
 * 4) The game just drops you into the world with little to no set up. The story is also boring and uninteresting.
 * 5) The character creation tool has been severely downgraded compared to the previous games. You can no longer change basic attributes beyond character classes and race.
 * 6) Despite taking place in the same world as Heroes of Might and Magic IV and the rest of the series by extension, there is no attempt at a crossover with it, meaning it might just as well have been an original setting.
 * 7) The game only runs in an 800x600 resolution with the only way to change it being editing the autoexec.cfg file. Keep in mind though that higher resolutions might break the interface.
 * 8) Very little enemy variation.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Like the rest of the series, the game has an active player community, which has stepped up to fix many of the game's problems.
 * 2) The front cover of the game, as in the previous parts, looks quite nice.
 * 3) The soundtrack is great, courtesy of composers such as Barry Blum, Paul Romero, Rob King and Steve Baca.