Good, bad, and ugly. The good is that the Might and Magic franchise has finally moved away from its long-in-the-tooth, sprite-based roots and reached the now expected and demanded world of 3D gaming. The bad is that the same tired gameplay formula has come along for the ride. And the just plain ugly is that the 3D graphics all look positively amateurish.

You’re dumped into this fantasy RPG without knowing who you are. A shipwreck leaves you stranded on the Isle of Ashes, where a friendly transient is kind enough to let you know that you’re the savior of the troubled land of Chendian.

But this premise leads to an experience that seems threadbare. You’re given just four races from which to choose your party — Elf, Human, Dwarf, and Half-Orc — and an equally paltry number of faces and voice options. There are only two pictures (one per gender) to represent each character. A tiny number of spell and skill options are available initially, and it takes far too long — well into the double digits of gaming hours — to develop your characters’ “might” or “magic” capabilities. It took me 15 hours to move from “initiate” to the path for Crusader.

Might and Magic IX’s world may now be fully 3D (thanks to the LithTech engine), but it manages to feel remarkably empty. You’ll find yourself continually feeling déjà vu thanks to the lack of variety in the appearance of NPCs, monsters, and architectural design. In each quest area, you’ll do battle with the same two or three monster types, and NPCs look the same from town to town. That’s a real tragedy given that the expansive game world sets you up for a filling, and fulfilling, experience.

The character and monster models themselves are extremely crude by today’s standards. And all the structures have a similar “cubist” design, with endless repetition of familiar textures and item placements. Everything blends together, giving you the sensation of treading water as you explore.

Add a list of other smaller grievances to this mish-mash of irritants, and it’s tough to recommend this game to all but the stoutest Might and Magic buffs. These hardcore fans will have to get past the fact that blood spray appears with both hits and misses, and characters continually get stuck while trying to move past items and obstacles. And — it came as no surprise — you’ll have the occasional unexplained fatal crashes to the desktop.

With the recent layoffs at New World Computing, it seems that No. 9 might be the end of the road for the Might and Magic series. Or perhaps a new crew will imbue the venerable series with more vigor in a 10th installment. It’d be a shame to see a series that started out with such an explosive debut — and that deserves a lot of credit for the growth and popularity of the genre — go out with such a sad little sigh.

— Steve Klett