Alright, I finished WoX a few days ago but didn't have the time to post a few impression
like I did many moons ago when I finished Isles of Terra.
In most ways both games are very similar, same engine and all, so I am not going to repeat everything I said there. WoX had a few cool improvements over M&M3 like the auto-notes feature, the little screens with the voice over when entering certain towers and dungeons and more story tid-bits, which was really cool and added a lot of atmosphere to the game. The atmosphere in general was great, with the awesome music, the weirdo enemies (like 'Flying Feet', wtf) and the pretty and colorful graphics, I particularly liked the Darkside and its skies. Quest items don't clock up your inventory anymore, which is good. The game also does a better job at giving you directives, what to do and why, which was one of my gripes with M&M3. Still, I feel 3 is better in some ways..
M&M3 had a better sense of pacing and the way the world felt like it was gradually opening up to you was an integral part of how fun exploration was, which was something WoX did not do quite as well. One reason was perhaps because you get mountaineering and swimming more easily than in 3, at least as far as I remember it, so you can go anywhere right away. Perhaps it only feels like that because the novelty wore of a bit, since M&M3 was my first. At the same time WoX railroads you a bit more by not letting you enter certain dungeons and only opening them to you as soon as you get a specific item, meaning that you were now 'ready to do that certain dungeon at that point in time'. In M&M3 you could do whatever you pleased whenever you pleased and there were certain dungeons where I would encounter harder enemies further in that made me retreat and come back later when I was stronger. I never had to do that in WoX. I agree with
Ether that the puzzles were more challeging too. With M&M3 I had to refer to walkthroughs a few times because I got really stuck on a puzzle, in WoX I could figure all of them out myself. I'd like to think that I just got better at puzzle solving though, having played LoG too in the meantime.
I was worried that the balancing would be horrible but I was surprised how well it worked out. Maybe I just suck but there were plenty of challenging fights once I reached Darkside and I got my ass handed to me several times. As a matter of fact, I think WoX was actually the harder game for me and towards the end I really had several full party wipes with all those Phase Dragons and Mummy Dragons (another awesome concept for an enemey, who came up with that shit). So while M&M3 felt more consistent in that regard, considering that WoX is basically two different games tacked together its really quite amazing how they were able to make it work that well. I have to say though that I followed advice earlier in this thread and played through Clouds first without going to the Darkside, it would have been probably quite different if I did otherwise. Another minor fun thing from M&M3 that I really missed were
Coraks Notes, the little tidbits of information you could get when you entered certain regions that helped fleshing out the world a bit more.
So which one do I ultimately like better? Its really hard to say, M&M3 felt a little tighter, a little more focused in certain regards, while WoX had some really nice additional features and probably a better atmosphere (even though, the scifi element fell a little short compared to M&M3, which is regretable. I know many people dislike the mix of fantasy and scifi elements, but personally I think its awesome). Well, thankfully I don't have to make a decision right now, I'll relegate that to another time.
I will say however that there was this moment in WoX, when my party was finally fully equipped, leveled up, buffed and ready to go.. and while I started walking towards Castle Alamar - suddenly
the Xeen theme hits, and its just one of those magical moments where you feel like
I currently play a lot of games and I have to say many of them, even plenty of those that I actually like, often don't grab my full attention right from start to finish. Even though I try to finish most of them eventually, I often take smaller or longer breaks and play other stuff in between. Just like M&M3, I played through WoX right through from start to finish and had a blast while doing it and days later I find myself listening to the OST just to reminisce about the good times.
Just like last time I'll take another break now to prevent burnout and eventually get to M&M6. I am a little worried since it changes so much, with the free movement, the graphical style, four man party and so on, but I know it is probably the most beloved of the series so perhaps I am in for a pleasant surprise.
post scriptum: Did you know that you can unify the two sides of Xeen without actually activing the four satelite dishes in the corners of the Cloud Side? Because I did just that.
also, another observation: both games do not offer you a real boss fight, which is a strange decision from a narrative point of view and arguably pretty anticlimactic. Any of you experts know if there is a special reason for that? it just seems strange to me. At least Xeen had a cool cutscene though. On the other hand, Clouds had a boss fight, one that was far too easy though, being able to kill Lord Xeen and his pet in like two hits.
