The cartridge is oversized. The boxart boasts "6 MEGA." Might and Magic II is a huge game. But like many western RPGs, the ratio of side quests to main quests is high. In this TAS a thief and a ninja finish quickly and bloodlessly with the help of a clear plan, luck manipulation and glitches.
  • Fastest time
  • Manipulator
  • Glitcher
  • Pacifist; no damage
  • Gens_9.5c
    • There must be no SRAM or a zero-byte SRAM present.
    • Save-load during playback may cause desync.
The script has some cheeseball humor here and there which you may enjoy if you can read fast enough.
Also, keep in mind this is a port of an Apple II game made at about the same time as FF1.

Forbidden teleport glitch

Enter an area where the teleport spell is forbidden. Rest to clear the forbidden flag. Now teleport can be used as normal. This saves walking and skips battles that would otherwise have to be manipulated away.

Weird characters glitch

Choose View Char then press A+C at View which? to reveal a nameless character with invalid stats. You can take his weapons and money. It saves a minute or so of doing the Pegasus quest to get money.

Sequence of main quest events

For detailed info see Andrew Schultz's guides.

Selected discussion

  • It's optimal to just hold ↑ or ↓ to continuously move the party or the cursor.
  • Sometimes it's faster to walk backwards or even take a longer route to reduce screen drawing time. The less stuff in the viewfield, the faster the movement.
  • Walk on Water and the elemental transmutation spells are accessed by manipulating temple blessings instead of a cleric. This has the added benefit of activating Wizard Eye, which shows a small overhead map.
  • Fly and Teleport spells are accessed via Witch's Broom and Teleport Orb items instead of a sorcerer.
  • Whenever TP would save time, TP was used. Whenever TP wouldn't save time, TP wasn't used.
  • There are portals between the castles in their basements. These are faster by a small margin than breaking in through the front gates.
  • You need someone with the Crusader skill to accept the "rescue Sherman" quest. For this I use: Sherman.
  • The Mountaineer skill x2 is needed to pass the mountains in A1.
  • It's only necessary to make one character a "chosen one," so only one juror quest is done. The ninja quest (kill Dawn) can be done on the way to get the orb, so I bring Nakazawa, who is rescued with Sherman. He shirks his job though.
  • The Hermit is chosen because as a robber he may tag along on any juror quest.
  • Sir Felgar is chosen because he starts with some money to donate to the temple.
  • We, the people of Terra, in order to form a more perfect union, establish...
  • If you are dissatisfied that the end screen says "C" to Continue, here's a gmv that presses C to continue.
  • Turns out the SNES version is awful so I didn't use it.
If you like this video, check out this submission.
Edit: Fixed the php errors and uglified the text. I can't direct link an image with link text and without inlining.

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried Might and Magic - Gates to Another World (UE) (REV01) [!].gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.
Dammit: Sorry, NesVideoAgent, you only made it halfway through. Also, I suggest you ignore the file extensions on ROM names. They only make you nervous.

mmbossman: I admire the technical achievement demonstrated in this run, but I believe it makes a very poor TAS to watch. Nearly a third of the action is cursor movement, and I don't think that the rest of the run would be entertaining for a viewer who is not familiar with the game, even with subtitles present. Therefore, I am rejecting this submission.

adelikat: Unrejecting and accepting for publication to the Vault

nanogyth: Processing for publication...

TASVideoAgent
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Yay! Dammit is back TASing again! Sadly, will have to watch tomorrow, for bedtime is now. Will edit later with my vote. EDIT: Well, I am giving this a weak yes vote. I began to get bored towards the end, but judging from the reactions of everyone else, 7 minutes is simply amazing. Also, I did enjoy not knowing what the hell you were doing (ie. running on water)
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
I can't get this to play back, even following the guidelines to do so... I am so bummed out.. I've been waiting ages to see this! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Post subject: Re: #2015: Dammit's Genesis Might and Magic: Gates to Anothe
Twisted_Eye
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Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
Dammit wrote:
Whenever TP would save time, TP was used. Whenever TP wouldn't save time, TP wasn't used.
Not usually the thought process I go through but hey different strokes!
Editor, Expert player (2457)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Oh!!! That was surprising! I seriously expected a multihour TAS for this game. My vote is very positive.
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
Yes vote. o_O I don't know the game, had no clue what's going on and the ending confused me even more.
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
I don't like this (TAS) as much as the Might & Magic on the NES... I think it's the amount of menus. Doesn't quite have the same 'wtf' factor for me.
Voted NO for NO reason
Post subject: troubleshooting
Experienced player (574)
Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
I can't get this to play back, even following the guidelines to do so... I am so bummed out.. I've been waiting ages to see this! Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Does it desync? How far does it get? You have the right version of gens and no SRAM? Does your rom has a crc32 of f509145f?
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
O.O;; DAYUM! I mean I know this game really well! [Hence my guides on Gamefaqs] But even "I" got lost trying to keep up! I did recognize a lot of stuff though and think this was mindboggling! I figured maybe 15 mins or so.. but under 7?! Definite yes vote! [Don't ask why it worked.. I am still figuring that one out] Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Joined: 6/24/2007
Posts: 119
i had thought of using the archer and robber in the character list and then spamming free ice sickles to get money because wilfrey goes down in one critical hit from fountain-boosted character; also my testing shows that you only need show up with sherman to fulfill quest; no need to get crusader and accept quest? but yes good run.
Player (120)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Dammit, your movies always seem to make my head hurt; I like that. Yes vote.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
I watched this, and was impressed, but far from entertained. After watching this and Aqfaq's run, I have yet to be convinced that these types of games make good TASes. They seem to only be entertaining to the people who have played the game. Is there anyone who hasn't played this who disagrees with me?
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Player (120)
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I disagree... But I'm probably in the minority. This is the perfect example of a movie in that limbo zone, very amusing to some and not at all to most. Either you publish it and disappoint people looking for another SM64/Sonic/ace-in-the-hole-entertaining movie, or reject it and disappoint people who find (or would find, if they could locate and watch it easily) the run better than a lot of published movies. A solution would be to make this movie and movies like it a larger aspect of the main site, with high visibility compared to current rejects, but low visibility compared to the really totally mind bogglingly entertaining-even-if-you've-never-played-the-game movies. At the same time you could even take some of the borderline published movies and move them "back" a bit into this new area, which would end up making a less sprawling and more highly concentrated "super-entertaining" section. PS: I haven't played this game, in case that wasn't clear :)
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Experienced player (574)
Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103
Accept:
  • It's short and high quality.
  • Rejecting quality runs is bad practice.
  • Subs like it have been accepted (e.g., MM1).
Reject:
  • It's unpopular.
  • Accepting unpopular runs is bad practice.
  • Subs like it have been rejected (e.g., Aqfaq's Madou movie).
So short of refining the accept/reject dichotomy like alden suggests, you're back to where you started. I'm glad I'm not a judge. In any case, I'm unlikely to do any more of these envelope-pushing TASes.
Player (120)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Dammit wrote:
In any case, I'm unlikely to do any more of these envelope-pushing TASes.
And this is why this movie should be published in some form... Why do we want to encourage people not to make movies that entertain (some) people?
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
I went into this TAS really really hoping to enjoy it... but 90% of it is a blue inventory screen... where I have no idea what the player is doing. It's sort of Tool-Assisted Excel Spreadsheet when it is all one screen of an item list. Which is really sad to me, because I agree this site needs more videos that are not 'Walk right for Victory!' Additionally, it is clear that the author spent quite a bit of time making sure the menus were optimized, as well as route planning, and finished an epic game in 6 minutes... Really cool concept, but not the most interesting movie. I'd feel guilty voting even Meh, so I withhold my vote.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
adelikat
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Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
Well, I vote no for "Did you enjoy watching this movie". Maybe this is one of those you need to know the game to enjoy it. Lots of menus I don't have time to read, and no action. As far as publication, I don't know. Might and Magic for NES looks an awful lot like this: menus, stuff I don't understand, somehow teleporting & skipping most of the game. So it seems to be a rehash of something we already have.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Player (120)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
adelikat wrote:
...it seems to be a rehash of something we already have.
Unlike the published runs on this site, which are all beautiful and unique snowflakes :)
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Post subject: Yo, Saturnalia!
Editor, Expert player (2457)
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
I wonder what TASVideos would look like if alden and I could be judges for a week. We could call the week "The Saturnalia Week!" Actually, according to Wikipedia, it has happened, almost:
Wikipedia almost wrote:
Origins The Saturnalia was a large and important LAN party in TASVideos. The Saturnalia was originally celebrated in Ancient NESVideos for only a day, but it was so popular that soon it lasted a week, despite adelikat's efforts to reduce it to three days, and Truncated's, to five. It involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public off-topic discussions there were a series of WIP TAS exchanges and customs celebrated via private messages. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special gruefood (sigillaria). Voting was allowed for all, even lurkers; however, although it was officially condoned only during this period, one should not assume that it was rare or much remarked upon during the rest of the year. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. The mood avatars were not used, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "dinosaur clothes"; and the pileus (megaman's hat) was worn by everyone. Lurkers were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect. The lurkers celebrated admin privileges: before, with, or served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was mostly superficial; the submissions, for example, would often be prepared by the lurkers, and they would encode their masters' AVIs as well. It was license within careful boundaries; it reversed the social order without subverting it. The customary greeting for the occasion is a "io, Saturnalia!" — io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").[/quote] I only had to change a few words, so it's almost true for the most part!
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adelikat wrote:
Might and Magic for NES looks an awful lot like this: menus, stuff I don't understand, somehow teleporting & skipping most of the game.
Yeah, unlike, uh, most RPG runs on the s… wait, nevermind. Apparently, the NES M&M publication did a very good job of explaining what's what by embedding subtitles with relevant information into the stream. This is a highly beneficial course of action that is often overlooked here. I, for one, didn't have a single question about the run after I watched the avi.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Experienced player (574)
Joined: 1/11/2007
Posts: 103
Try saving the following as a SUB file and loading it in your media player with an avi. I would upload a video but mencoder gives me nothing but errors. This chore makes me wish for a feature to load plain text subtitles into the emulator alongside the movie file.
{0}{300}Might and Magic: Gates to Another World|played by Dammit|Play length: 06:15.33|Rerecord count: 4886
{400}{640}This is a tool-assisted recording.|For more information, visit http://tasvideos.org/
{711}{951}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{958}{1198}Steal 3.2 million gold from a glitch character
{1212}{1452}Paid portal to Sandsobar town
{1659}{1899}Paid portal to Tundara town
{1979}{2219}Buy Witch's Broom for 1,000
{2366}{2606}Fly to B4, rescue Sherman and Nakazawa
{2870}{3110}Fly to A4, enter Atlantium
{3119}{3359}Pick up Sherman and Nakazawa at the inn
{3555}{3795}Buy 2 Teleport Orbs and 3 Black Tickets for 103,000
{3891}{4131}Black Ticket at Atlantium arena (1 of 3)
{4184}{4424}Fly to B2
{4454}{4694}Portal to Luxus basement
{4808}{5048}Get A1-Tolidor (1 of 4)
{5385}{5625}Portal to Hillstone basement
{5731}{5971}Get N-19 Capitor (2 of 4)
{6158}{6398}Portal to Woodhaven basement
{6796}{7036}Get M-27 Radicon (3 of 4)
{7333}{7573}Portal to Pinehurst basement
{7829}{8069}Get J-26 Fluxer (4 of 4)
{8174}{8414}Sherman quest done
{8563}{8803}Travel to year 800
{8936}{9176}Hide from guards, enter Xabran
{9483}{9663}Get Earth disc (1 of 4)
{9688}{9868}Get Fire disc (2 of 4)
{9877}{10057}Get Air disc (3 of 4)
{10090}{10270}Get Water disc (4 of 4)
{10316}{10556}Temple blessing for Water Transmutation
{10615}{10855}Buy Mountaineering skill x2 for 4,000
{10942}{11182}Fly to A4, enter water plane
{11365}{11605}Get Water talon (1 of 4)
{11722}{11962}Temple blessing for Air Transmutation
{11981}{12221}Fly to A1, enter air plane
{12522}{12762}Get Air talon (2 of 4)
{12847}{13087}Temple blessing for Earth Transmutation
{13091}{13331}Fly to E1, enter earth plane
{13392}{13632}Get Earth talon (3 of 4)
{13721}{13961}Temple blessing for Fire Transmutation
{13986}{14226}Fly to E4, enter fire plane
{14376}{14616}Get Fire talon (4 of 4)
{14731}{14971}Black Ticket at Middlegate arena (2 of 3)
{15034}{15274}Fly to D4, enter Dawn's Cavern
{15502}{15742}Ninja quest: Kill Dawn
{15869}{16109}Get Element Orb, dismiss hireling
{16123}{16363}Run to exit
{16727}{16967}Get back hireling and orb
{17270}{17510}Fly to A2, enter Pinehurst
{18029}{18269}Travel to year 800, give orb and talons
{18472}{18712}Temple blessing for Walk on Water
{18869}{19109}Black Ticket at Sandsobar arena (3 of 3)
{19208}{19448}Fly to D2, get credit for ninja quest
{19709}{19949}Hide from guards, enter Luxus
{20164}{20404}Receive final quest
{20560}{20800}Fly to C2, enter Square Lake
{21862}{22519}We, the people of Terra, in order to form a more perfect union, establish...
Post subject: Re: Yo, Saturnalia!
Player (120)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Aqfaq wrote:
I wonder what TASVideos would look like if alden and I could be judges for a week. We could call the week "The Saturnalia Week!"
Yo, Aqfaq! LOL To be fair I don't think we're demanding or suggesting a total reversal here... Also, your avatar is melting! Awesome.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Banned User
Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850
I'm seriously beginning to question if having adelikat and mmbossman as judges is the right choice. If only because they seem to hold everything to an insane standard, and anything possibly below the "Full of action, no glaring errors, perfect TASvideos material" is rejected regardless of how many people liked it. Yes, yes, blah blah whine not a democracy, etc. But I have had several people I introduced to here talk to me that it always seems that these two reject every questionable movie... which means that none of the other ones is added. (Honestly, another question: Why are we still accepting Deja Vu/Shadowgate/Uninvited TASes if this run is getting rejected? Those are almost 99% cursor movement and unless you know what is going on beforehand, all the text/movement happens too quickly to follow.) I'm sorry to see that Dammit will not be trying anything "out of the ordinary" again.
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Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
I fully support mmbossman and adelikat's decision. From an outside perspective it's easy to criticize, but once you work with some of the runs it's fairly obvious they suck ass. I'm sure that one of them will reply to you, but I personally think they shouldn't have to answer to anybody for the decisions they make. Things aren't going to sit well with everybody, those are the breaks.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Xkeeper wrote:
I'm seriously beginning to question if having adelikat and mmbossman as judges is the right choice. If only because they seem to hold everything to an insane standard, and anything possibly below the "Full of action, no glaring errors, perfect TASvideos material" is rejected regardless of how many people liked it. Yes, yes, blah blah whine not a democracy, etc. But I have had several people I introduced to here talk to me that it always seems that these two reject every questionable movie... which means that none of the other ones is added. (Honestly, another question: Why are we still accepting Deja Vu/Shadowgate/Uninvited TASes if this run is getting rejected? Those are almost 99% cursor movement and unless you know what is going on beforehand, all the text/movement happens too quickly to follow.) I'm sorry to see that Dammit will not be trying anything "out of the ordinary" again.
I do not try to hold things to an impossibly high standard. I do try to think about the audience in general, and think of whether they will be entertained. If a run is full of action, and has some smaller errors, it will likely be accepted. If a run is mediocre on action, but is impeccably done, it will also likely be accepted. But this run, and runs like it, are boring (I also agree that the three storybook TASes you mention are boring, but take that up with whoever originally accepted them in 2004 and 2005, not me. We don't unpublish movies here, so that's a topic for a different thread, or a different PM). If you believe that we should cater to everyone, and publish any movie that makes at least one person happy, then we seem to have a difference in ideals, and I can accept that. But this site is different because it provides both high quality and entertaining movies, with very few instances of one being present without the other. If we accept every run that is well done from a precision standpoint, we'd get bitched at for being too lenient and decreasing the entertainment value of the site. If we reject a run that a few people enjoyed because of nostalgia, we get bitched at for not accepting enough. As the saying goes, "You can make some people happy all the time...." I do hope that dammit (and others) continue to think differently with his submissions, however. This should not be seen as a rejection of his work or technique, but as a suggestion for improved game choice.
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