There is just that feeling you get when you know a game is coming to a close. While I had not done everything in Might and Magic III. I had cleared all the dungeons outside of the pyramids and quite many other things. Now it was time to go back and discover how the place works.

The Pyramids ended up being quite a strange place. As I've talked about before a few of them are connected. While I had thought they all were connected in some way. It would turn out I'd need to head into a couple of different pyramids to fully clear the place and find the game's ending.

I started by going into the usual spot I had in the past. It was rather close to a town and I at least knew where that pyramid was. It put me into the Forward Storage of the ship.

From there I was able to walk into Central Command but only the bottom portion of it. As it would turn out I'd need to find another way into the top portion of Central Command. For now, it just served as a bridge for me to get into the Aft Storage.

I had already cleared most of Aft Storage. There were some walls however I could not break down before. I had hoped this would have allowed me to go into other parts of the ship. There were maybe half a dozen walls that my group smashed thought. Along with robots guarding them.

It turns out they were just protecting a Power Orb. I would end up getting inventories full of Power Orbs in a short manner. While there was another one in this area the tube to take me there always seemed broken. I could not find any hints on how to repair it. So, I ended up just leaving it behind.

I had now hit a dead-end. So, I ended up walking back out to an exit. I then hunted around the map a bit before I found another entry for a pyramid. This time I'd be entering into the Beta Engine sector of the ship. This would end up giving me access to quite a few floors.

Like the other floors I had been on. This area as well was filled with robots to take out. Each area seemed to follow the same pattern almost. One side of a corridor had a bunch of doors you could just open. The other side had a few walls you had to break down and take damage from a trap while doing so.

I ended up learning quite a harsh lesson in the next part of the ship. There were a bunch of crystals on the floor. Most of them if you touched one of them would age a party member in a way that you could not just take them to the fountain of youth and undo the aging. I would however notice some exceptions.

While in this sector I ended up finding four more Power Orbs. Two had been stashed in large rooms on the left side of the dungeon. There were another two I found on the right side down a bunch of different small corridors.

The lower half of the ship also had a couple of tubes I could use to travel to other parts of the ship. Some of them I just had to interact with. Others required passwords that I ended up discovering while I was exploring the first section of the ship and elsewhere in the game.

After I had cleared out the Beta Engine sector of the ship I was teleported into the Main Engine. I would end up finding another four Power Orbs down here as well. Unlike the first ones, these required taking a little bit of a risk.

In one of the rooms. I noticed there was a hallway with lots of crystals that would age you if you touched them. I could also tell there was at least one tile behind them. There ended up being a second set of crystals behind the first. Those second crystals instead of aging teleported you around. Including some hidden compartments on the ship that either had Power Orbs or transportation tubes to send you elsewhere.

I then used the teleportation tub system into the Alpha Engine sector of the ship. I tried even typing in a few different random words hoping one of them was a password for getting into the remaining top section of the ship. Turns out they were not. I’d have to find another way in.

I ended up clearing out quite a few more robots. Once I had nowhere else to clear out it was time to go back on the hunt for a different entry into the ship. I ended up making a stop at a trainer and picking up around 14 levels each for all my characters. It’s a good thing I had like 30 million gold stocked up. I was starting to burn a lot of it.

I started to go in and out of a couple of Pyramids I had found the location of in the past. They all took me to sections I had already cleared out on the ship.

I had a funny feeling I knew where the last Pyramid was. I had been there once before but never entered. I had however forgotten about it. It was in the lava section surrounding the Blistering Heights town. The town itself had quite a few exits.

I ended up wandering around trying out each exit till I'd hit a dead end. I must have picked up another four or five levels. Between killing all the higher-level creatures out in the lava. Along with taking down some creature dens worth between 500k to 2 million experience each.

I had even looted a few obsidian items as well. Making this rather slow going and lots of fire damage being taken from the lava is well worth it. After running into a few dead ends I felt I had one exit left in the town. That ended up being the correct one.

I now found myself in Central Command. The place is also connected to the top section of Foward Storage which I could not access. That then led to the final area of the ship Main Control.

Along the way, I ended up running into a few terminators and other eradicating or death creatures. Getting taken out by one of those would cause all the items in that character's inventory to break. Not just the chest piece but everything. This led to some rather expensive repair bills.

There were quite a few fake walls I had to bash though. I even discovered in one sector a bunch of potions. I ended up drinking one and it gave that character five million experience. While others would not be as lucky. I ended up finding a few more that gave between 2 million to 5 million further experiences. Further draining what little gold I had remaining when I went to train up even more levels on my characters.

A couple of my characters even hit over level one hundred. With how slow level grinding was in Might And Magic I and II. I was not expecting to have a character over level 100 until much later in the series. I have to say I hope the increase in experience is something seen in the other Might And Magics when I check them out at some point.

I knew at some point things would get strange rather fast. The moment I entered into the last section of the ship there was some kind of fight. As it would turn out I'd be the sole reason quite an evil creature from another planet would end up escaping.

I was told to follow along. I first did some exploration of the last section of the ship. In there they had some clever ways of showing the game's credits from those working on it. Quite a legend Jon was. It was also interesting to see how small his team at that time was.

I then entered into the final tube teleporter. I then found myself at the helm of a ship. At first, I thought the game had bugged out and frozen after it talked for a little bit. This had happened a couple of times but overall for how old the game was I was shocked more issues had not occurred.

So I exited the game and re-entered this last section. For the same thing occur again. That is when I realized that I could not have a mouse curser. I could still type numbers out on the keyboard.

It also tells me to enter the startup sequence. I just did not see any letters or numbers appear when I was pressing any. Instead, the different colored shapes on the lower bottom of the screen would be highlighted for a short moment.

The ship then launched us to another planet. As a way to hint that another game in the series would be coming at some point (later that be Might and Magic IV Clouds of Xeen another game I have yet to play). Corak and Sheltem would be going after each other. I would be joining the battle at some point as well on fresh characters. Just not today.

Final Thoughts

Wow, that was such an amazing experience. Makes me a little sad I did not get to enjoy this game back in 1991. That also means however I got to enjoy it for the first time in 2024. What a ride it was.

As is a true fashion with these games the end screen was a score for how well or not, I did. I have no idea how good or bad that score is. It seems they were expecting at least scores a bit higher. I did have some side quests unfinished before ending the game.

It’s also kind of crazy they want you to print this score out and mail it to them. While it’s tempting to do so. Sadly, New World Computing is long gone. Along with many of those who were involved with this one. It ended up all getting bought out by someone else. So, I won’t waste the postage stamp just to get it returned. Keeping a BO box from 1991 and I assume even older than that is a bit of out the question.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic III.