I usually love games with short intros, long party creation screens, and open swim-or-sink gameplay. And this is why the first Might and Magic game infuriates me, because it certainly tried, but god, I hate it.
First of all, having only six classes to choose from in games with six party slots should be illegal, especially when all other choices like race or alignment seem almost cosmetic at first, and dump stats abound. Compare this to Wizardry, where you can pick from 4 base classes (leaving two character slots to experiment with), where character alignment immediately determines what kind of party you can build, and where class swapping mitigates the dump stats problem (IQ may not be useful for fighters, but it does matter if he wants to eventually become a samurai).
Then there's Sorpigal, which for no good reason feels like a monster infested hellhole instead of a town. It would not be a particularly offensive place, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to leave before hitting at least level 3 which can take a while, especially for first-time players. Combat is fun, but this initial part of the game places the player too close of the save point, gives food almost for free, and gives very few spells to play with... And as a tutorial it also fails, making the player fight almost impossible foes (like Sprites) naked and with no money, never letting him flee from combat, and even hiding chests for those who did not RTFM, for no good reason.
And then the game gives the player the choice to explore either the outside world or a dark dungeon... And against all common sense the game expects you to do the latter, monsters outside are beasts. OK, they're not that difficult, the game just tricks you into thinking that placing almost impossible ambushes three steps out of Sorpigal, what the hell... Most other random encounters are quite manageable, but the player will not figure it out easily. And did I mention it is almost impossible to flee from combat?
This may be my fault since I certainly enjoy the Ultima approach more (an open world to fully explore at once sprinkled with some easily avoidable encounters, opposed to the more challenging dungeons), but I don't think I'm the only one annoyed by this.
The game eventually becomes quite good once the initial grind is over, exploring different landscapes far away from save points to find caves, towns and castles is very entertaining, its combat doesn't get old with an ever-increasing amount of monsters and spells, and some early customization options like alignment and gender become more important... But seriously, fuck Sorpigal.
