The new installment of this cult series resumes the storylines of its predecessors. Pursuing the fleeing Shelten, the player-controlled party of adventurers gets to a land oppressed by the mysterious Lord Xeen. The villain imprisoned Xeen’s governor, known as Crodo, and wreaks havoc in the world devoid of legal authority. To stop this, we will have to forge a special magic sword since this is the only weapons capable of defeating the demonic ruler.
Mechanics
From among the novelties introduced this time, the especially notable one is a special note system that lets us write important information concerning quests, clues, s, and visited locations. For the first time in history of the series, the game lets us choose one of two available difficulty levels: Adventurer or Warrior. The choice has no direct impact on the course of the game — it merely increases the endurance of the encountered enemies. Moreover, a special compartment for story items was added to the equipment screen. It prevents us from accidently selling or discarding plot-critical items.
On the technical side, Clouds of Xeen doesn’t introduce as many revolutionary changes as its predecessor did. Since both games were released in a relatively small time interval, the fourth installment of the series is powered by the same graphics engine and features nearly identical gameplay mechanics. Because of increasingly capacious hard drives, larger emphasis was put on the amount and quality of cutscenes. Thanks to the popularization of CDs, the CD edition of the game was enriched with professionally voiced dialogues recorded on a PCM disc.
The developers of the Might and Magic decided to implement an unusual solution, a kind of a tribute to all fans of the series. All owners of the fourth and the fifth installment of the franchise can combine both games into one great world called the World of Xeen. Thanks to this, after the completion of the Clouds of Xeen, the gameplay resumes in accordance with the sequels plot. Additionally, we receive access to areas and quests that are unavailable in either game separately. All players that complete both campaigns are awarded an extra third ending that crowns the journey around the world of Xeen and the entire saga.
