Like a lot of areas in Might and Magic VIII despite how massive the town in Ravenshore was the zone just felt kind of small. It also felt a bit emptier than I was hoping with how far along this game is in a game series.
There would end up being some features brought in from former Might and Magic games. This would house one of the biggest towns in the game with lots of trainers and a spot to buy magic spells. A contest shrine to gain skill points. Along with an obelisk and a couple of dungeons.
After I arrived at Ravenshore by boat into the main city I started to explore. At least one of the cool things about Might and Magic VIII is that skill trainers end up popping up on your map after you talk with them with little pined notes of what they trained.
It’s a bit of a shame that not every house that offered a quest or other things in the game had the same kind of notes auto-populate as a pin. This would have made exploring this town a bit easier.
Despite it being the biggest town that I'm aware of in the game. It was still rather small. It did expand a bit past the river. With a few more quests and even a place to sell the region's special creature drop for a bit of gold.
There would also be quite a few houses here with NPCs that I could ask to join me in my adventures. They all however were not willing to deal with me as I was a nobody to them.
I ended up heading west after crossing the river in exploration for some dungeons to run. This place mostly had things like dire wolves and centaurs that I would be fighting.
The first dungeon I ended up running into was called Smuggler’s Cove. I had a bit of a heads-up from some context clues of a quest that I should have found something along a cove. I had a letter I needed to give to the leader of the smuggler that more or less was blackmail to get him to lend his boats over for scouting purposes.
This also ended up being a main quest and one I thought was broken. I’d turn in the letter after clearing this dungeon out to the leader. I then went to head back to where I thought I met the NPC that gave me the quest.
Yet he would not be there. Instead, it was a house that had a locked door that I could not open. For quite some time I thought I had to do something to unlock the door to get to the NPC I needed to advance the quest. As I'd later discover. I needed to be far enough in the main quest to even have access to the areas that were locked away by a hidden door I could not open.
At one point I decided I only had two options. I could restart the entire game and hope this time around I would not run into what I thought was a bug. My other option was just to keep going and accept that I could not do the main quest line in the game.
What I did not quite realize was that there were two entryways into the building where I met the NPC. I kept going to the left side not thinking much about it. One ended up not taking you inside the building like I recalled happening. Instead, that was where the NPCS I needed to speak to was housed.
It took me forever and so much wasted time thinking I needed to do other things before discovering this. While I can look back at this now and laugh it off. I’m so glad I did not decide to restart and run into making the same mistake more than likely twice. I think by that point I would have just given up on the game and moved on to something else.
Now back to the Smugglers Cove. I ended up finding a restriction section that I was told not to go in. I even thought for a while that perhaps entering and looting in those areas broke the quest arc in some way. I’m so thankful it did not.
I would end up feeling most of the chests I'd loot in Might And Magic VIII were horrible. This was perhaps one of the nicer ones where I'd end up getting a few upgrades and even some spell books to learn.
This dungeon which I'd go to enter almost half a dozen times to see if I could get over the “bug” would always reset. This made me think perhaps the zone itself at one point was broken.
I can recall in Might and Magic VI that so many chests would just leave you jaw-dropping happy after opening them up. That feeling was rather lacking in this game. Even more so since I lacked a character that would learn grand master for disarm trap with only expert. So opening chests would become a bit of a pain since I could not get the massive bonuses for having the higher rank of the skill learned later on.
I would even go on to toss out the letter I was supposed to turn in. I then went over to the Oracle that was in Ravenshore as well and told him I “lost it.” this is a game mechanic in many of the Might and Magic games that allows you to get back any quest items you mistakenly tossed out. A clever way for the game to try and resolve such possible issues. He however told me I lost nothing and I did not get the letter back. Thankfully that would also not be needed either as I was already done with that part.
After that dungeon, I went back to clearing the rest of Ravenshore till I found my next dungeon Dire Wolf Den. This was more or less it and I even had to zoom in quite a bit on the map so it did not look so tiny.
This would end up being another in a long line of dungeons I'd discover that just felt so lacking. Like the game developer just did not care so much anymore. I kept thinking maybe I was just expecting too much. Then I’d find an even smaller dungeon and be disappointed.
Such as the two other dungeons that I'd end up going on to run at one point or another. There was one called Escaton’s Crystal and another called Chapel of Eep. A couple of rooms or tunnels and that was mostly it.
Final Thoughts
Sure, I'd run into some smaller dungeons in the other Might and Magic games. They would however usually be connected to other floors or dungeon networks. Time again and again I'd keep hoping I'd run into something like that. So far however I'd come up empty and disappointed.
This ended up being quite a turning point in my adventure. I was for quite a few reasons considering just calling it and uninstalling. After getting through this point, however, I pressed on. I wanted to see what else the game had to offer. Even if I was somewhat disappointed by it as I continued to move forward.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic VIII.
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