Sometimes you wait forever to see something in a video game and it just feels not worth it. On top of that, I end up going around doing some random stuff that will help build up my characters further over time. First, however, I needed to progress along the main storyline.

The biggest thing holding back my main storyline progression was running through The Walls of Mist. This was a zone I'd have to just take all damage and could not kill anything.

This place also heavily debuffs. So, coming in here with a full set of buffs just seemed like a wasted time after trying that more than once. The entire zone also resets every time you enter. So, you can’t just run every creature to the far edge of a room and hope for the best.

What I had to do was go through three different portals into different sections of the dungeon. I then needed to find a chest with a key from each section. Some of these keys were locked behind a puzzle of levers or buttons needing to be pushed first.

The only good news is as long as you don’t use any of the keys. Once you get one and escape. You hold onto that key even with the place resetting.

In my first couple of runs, I ended up just focusing on getting a single key. It had a simple button puzzle and I just spammed some buttons to get the solution. It then became clear I was quite not ready for this dungeon. So, I ended up coming back quite a few levels later.

The biggest issue was running into heavy dense areas and just getting nailed with lots of ranged damage and spells. My healer can only do so much healing at once. While I did try and use things like health regeneration and even get items that provide some as well. That was far from being enough.

Sometimes I'd luck out when I made it to one of the chests with a key in it. There would be a spot I could hide behind. There I could heal up the group before making a mad dash back out and into the main room of the dungeon.

The second key required me to jump off a massive platform. I then had to ride a lift up to a chamber that had the chest in it. I then had to jump off that platform as riding the lift down was too slow. The hardest part was surviving all the damage while waiting for the lift to go up and running back up a massive ramp to use the portal to get back into the main room.

Once I got the second key I had the crazy idea of not leaving the dungeon. I was finding enough spots I could duck behind and heal from. My group also had about double the heath I feel than I did in some of my early attempts.

So, I did the insane thing and ran for the third key as well. That one required me to push a bunch of buttons to drain water. I then had to jump down and collect from a chest.

Once I had all three keys. I went back into the main room. By this point, everything was quite locked in at shooting at me. I ran to the back of the room and inserted each of the three keys. That opened a door to another exit where I'd get credit for beating the dungeon.

Once I got that done it unlocked three further quests for me to run in Celeste. Along with a massive amount of experience gained for doing the main storyline quest. That however was not the big thing I had been waiting for this whole time.

My castle finally getting some kind of upgrade worth exploring the place. Since I had helped out the people of Celeste they had sent some builders to my castle in Harmondale and build up the second floor of my castle.

They also left behind some vendors for me to interact with. I’m kind of sad one of them was not a trainer for levels as that would have been rather nice. At least now many of the empty rooms near the middle of the castle I have a place to sell things like herbs, armor, and weapons.

All of this still just feels rather not worth it. I ended up getting some tiny amounts of loot and gold by exploring and looting the new floor I now had access to in the castle. I also now have some vendors.

It just took so long to get to this point. If this is about as good as my castle in the game gets. I’m rather disappointed by it. It’s not like I get to decorate a room in it either. At best I found a room that had a bed in it that I can’t sleep in that I can only assume is my room.

I feel the arena system in Might and Magic is just never quite what I wish it was. In World of Xeen, you had this massive arena that took forever to explore through finding any creatures. You could at least re-enter it as many times as you like without limitations.

In Might and Magic VII, you can only enter into the arena from the stables in Harmondale. It also has to be a Sunday. You can also only do one fight.

I had a quest that required me to get a few wins in the area and that was going to take months of in-game time. I also was not about to waste almost an entire week in the game to just fast forward time till Sunday of every week. So I was going to have to work on this quest randomly when I found myself lucky enough to be within a day or two of it being Sunday and in Harmondale.

My first attempt at the arena did not go well. I thought I surely by now could take on squire difficulty. I killed two things before I was taken out and that chance was wasted. From now on I'd have to just farm these on page level of difficulty.

I was then just doing some random nonsense working on some quest somewhere that I've long forgotten about. When I noticed some strange-looking armor on the ground. It ended up being quite a nice piece of chain mail. I even enchanted it and landed some extra hit points.

I ended up putting this piece of gear onto my healer. At this point, she is quite tough to kill. If enemies are going to target anyone down now first it’s my sorcerer who is always getting killed. It is kind of disappointing that more things don’t try and focus on the characters at the front of the party who are built like tanks and meant to take damage in the first place.

After doing some random things and paying to level up my character a few times over from all the quests they have been finishing off. I decided to head back to Harmondale to double-check check I was not missing something about my castle (I was not.)

I am however glad I did. As I realized finally the Harmondale zone and the dungeon within the region had reset. I also discovered that Tularean Forest and Barrow Downs have also rest. So, I went through and re-cleared those places while I was at it.

I have been waiting forever to see some zones respawn other than the Barrow Downs. I thought maybe it was due to the main storyline progression so far along. However, other zones I checked out had yet to respawn. I am hopeful soon enough they will be.

Final Thoughts

As one of my favorite things to do in a Might and Magic game that has areas that can respawn. Is going back though when I'm all-powerful and just melting the faces off of anything that moves.

It was also nice to get some major and minor things finished or at least worked towards on this one as well. As usual, I was once again running around looking for master trainers for magic skills.

I must have also spent a good 100k gold in new spell books. I finally now had the town portal spell. It seems like it took forever to get this one as well. I was kind of shocked not every town has a spot. It just seems most of the towns with a giant fountain in them are on the list. Still, this will make getting around the game so much better.

Information

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