Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Alchemist]

Not much Wizardry 1-5 in this thread (from what I skimmed). Skippable?

side question - anyone make a list of blobbers anywhere? Brief google search yields nothing.

I'd say playing one of the early Wizardries is worth a shot if you want the full perspective of the blobber CRPG genre - since that's basically where it all started (aside from mainframe blobbers like Oubliette - which heavily inspired Wizardry.) At least play the first, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord - it's classic. There is a certain charm in the minimalism of those days, and the experience is definitely different than Wizardry 6-7-8.

I don't know of a master list of blobbers - would be nice to have indeed.

 

[Cadmus]

How long are they approx. each?

 

[TigerKnee]

Not much Wizardry 1-5 in this thread (from what I skimmed)

I mostly can't get into Wiz 1,2,3,5 because what drew me into the series was complex builds and character development, which 6 to 8 has but the complexity wasn't quite there yet by the time 5 rolled around.

I guess for a "historical purpose" thing they might be worth playing.

Come to think of it, is it really liking a series if you only like 1/3 of it? Ah well, whatever.

Also whenever the Japanese game makes a Wiz clone, it's almost always based off 3/5 with bells and whistles, so I never felt the need to play them since it's pretty over-saturated in that regards... yeah yeah, feel free to burn the heretic.

Now, Wiz 4 is special, very very special and stands out against the rest of the series. First off, it has a different concept: instead of creating and playing a group of heroes, you play as the villain from the 1st game who summons monsters to do his bidding way before games like Pokemon even came into existence.

That's the interesting part, so what do I think is bad? Well, I think it's less of a dungeon crawler and more of a puzzle game trapped in an RPG engine. Not the fun kind of puzzle games but the kind which makes you wonder exactly what mental problems the creators were suffering from which some people claim is what put the puzzle game genre into a comatose state for a while because it takes a RIDICULOUSLY specific subset of knowledge that most of its players are not very likely to have in order to complete... and this was before the popularity of the internet!

Not only do you need a ridiculous in-depth knowledge of obscure parts of Wizardry Lore and mechanics, you also need to have very through knowledge of religious mythology to "get" Wiz 4. Most people get stuck in the first room of the game.

I mean, on a design level, I suppose there's some merit in a game where the game isn't "hard" because the authors are terrible at game design or balancing mistakes. Instead every thing in Wiz 4 is specifically designed to kick you in the balls and maybe some people might enjoy that but I don't really think it's a "fun" game.

It's an "intellectual curiosity" game to me.

 

[Wizfall]

Wizardry 5 (the snes version, maybe the best one) was my first Wizardry.
It's a great game where all the adventure take place in a dungeon.
The dungeon design is very well made, the best dungeon i know in fact.
You even meet and talk to some NPC (a very limited amount though), atmosphere is great and diversity of monster quite huge.
Combat is good too.
The only but unfortunately critical issue (at least for me) is character development, especially if you have played Wizardry 7 or 8 first.
You have roughly the same stats system and the same class system (class ability are different and not so good) but no skills so the leveling and character development is much less interesting.
And like character development is one of the main interest of Wizardry, it's hard to enjoy after having experienced W7/8.
Wizardry 5 with the same character system than W8 (or even W7) would be absolutely awesome and an immediate must play otherwise (if you liked the latter Wiz game of course).

 

[ZodoZ]

Not much Wizardry 1-5 in this thread (from what I skimmed). Skippable?

Not here to dissuade you from slogging through pre-VI Wizardry.
If your curious but not sure if your curious enough to invest time in to those early versions
{and the computer set-up sometimes required}
you could vicariously experience these via CRPG Addict's blog
--------->
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-5-wizardry-proving-grounds-of-mad.html
<--------
He does pretty good job of illustrating what these games were like.
I crossed quite a few early games off my to-play one-day list due to his write ups {Added a few to re-play or blind-play too}
Huge time saver - but possible spoilers if your on the fence about a particular game.

 

[Cadmus]

So guys how long are the early Wizardry games? I'm considering playing them just to see wtf but I don't want to spend 80 hours on them.

 

[Jaesun]

Joined: Dec 28, 2013

 

[treborSux]

So guys how long are the early Wizardry games? I'm considering playing them just to see wtf but I don't want to spend 80 hours on them.

Don't fucking play it then. I don't think you will make it out of Proving Grounds in less than 100 hours. 2 and 3 you need to import your parties, 2 is fun and shorter than Proving Grounds. 3 is kind of bullshit.

I'd say just play part 4. That's what you should do.

 

[victim]

Labyrinth of Lost Souls on the PSN store is a pretty good proxy for experiencing the old Wizardry games without..actually experiencing them. Which has its pluses and minuses.

 

[Scroo]

Labyrinth of Lost Souls on the PSN store is a pretty good proxy for experiencing the old Wizardry games without..actually experiencing them. Which has its pluses and minuses.

I tried the demo on PS3 and even bought the PS2-Wizardry but somehow I never got into it. I don't know, I really like Wizardry but those... maybe because it's on console and steering your party with a controller somehow sucks, at least for me.

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

 

[felipepepe]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

Did you try Generation Xth? Was damn good IMHO.

 

[Scroo]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

Did you try Generation Xth? Was damn good IMHO.

Nope, haven't tried that yet, thanks for the advice! Is it fully play- and beatable in english?

 

[felipepepe]

Nope, haven't tried that yet, thanks for the advice! Is it fully play- and beatable in english?

Yes, I beated it to the end, only had some very minor issues, like a kanji appearing at the end of a sentence. Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/rd4t856s6ugjg6p/G-XTH1eng0.5a.rar

 

[Scroo]

Nope, haven't tried that yet, thanks for the advice! Is it fully play- and beatable in english?

Yes, I beated it to the end, only had some very minor issues, like a kanji appearing at the end of a sentence. Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/rd4t856s6ugjg6p/G-XTH1eng0.5a.rar

Amazing, thank you!

 

[Alchemist]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

Grimoire - ITZ coming May 31st! (supposedly)

 

[Scroo]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

Grimoire - ITZ coming May 31st! (supposedly)

 

[Essegi]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

You could check Paper Sorcerer too (there' s a demo). Probably it's 30-40 times simpler than any Wizardry game, but it's a good play and has syle.

 

[Scroo]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

You could check Paper Sorcerer too (there' s a demo). Probably it's 30-40 times simpler than any Wizardry game, but it's a good play and has syle.

You are right, I even have this in my steam library. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[TigerKnee]

Man, I'd kill for a new Wizardry or Wizardrylike on PC

Grimoire - ITZ coming May 31st! (supposedly)

He didn't even hit the April 1st demo date.

 

[Azrael the cat]

So guys how long are the early Wizardry games? I'm considering playing them just to see wtf but I don't want to spend 80 hours on them.

Wiz4 is definitely worth playing through for a very different take on the game - it's also the hardest, to the point of often being put forward as the most difficult crpg ever made.

 

[railway]

Recently began replaying Wizardry VI for the first time in ages. I was a bit worried the game might not hold up to my nostalgic memories before I started. I always considered Wizardry as one of my favourite game series but several of my other favourite games of olde turned out to be rather mediocre when I replayed them in recent days.
Wizardry, however, has aged really well in my opinion. The graphics still look great, the dungeon design is brilliant. Dungeon structures make sense and only very few games give me this sense of actual exploring.
Combat is fun as well; I'm also playing the Geneforge games at the moment and while they're great games, too, the overly simplistic combat gets more of an annoyance about halfway through each game - no comparison to Wizardry.
It's surprising how the game conveys much more atmosphere and better story than most modern games although it has much less text (or maybe it's because it has less text; in the same vein describing much of the contents of rooms instead of showing it in the game world might actually be an advantage over games with highly detailed graphics - but maybe that's just me).

The one thing I just don't like is the UI. Oldskool or not, it's just bad, even for a game of it's age. F.ex. having to use the identify spell to see weapon stats, even of non magic weapons, is fine but going through the trade window to get the weapon to the character with the spell, then going through the sluggish magic menu and finally trade it back to the character that's supposed to use the weapon is just a pain in the ass.
Worst of all is the inventory, though. I don't mind in the slightest that each character's inventory is limited to a couple of items. But being able to give items to characters whose inventory is already full without any warnings and the items simply disappearing? That's just annoying, especially in a game without multiple save slots. I find myself checking all inventories before saving out of fear of deleting an important item and thus screwing my game.

 

[octavius]

Funny, that's the second time in a few days I've seen somome praising the graphics of Wiz 6. Sure, it was a huge improvement over Wiz 5, but still crude for a 1990 game, thanks to being limited to only 8 (I think) colours. The monster animations were relatively good, though.

Agree about the atmosphere of the game. Just like Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back the game manages to convey a good atmosphere despite being limited to only one tile set for the entire game.
I like the background story to Wiz 6 - quite dark and sinister stuff.
And the whole castle area is one of my favourite areas of any CRPG.

 

[TigerKnee]

I shall praise the graphics of Wizardry 6...

The SNES port, that is.

But the enemy with bare titties are now covered up, so it's CRPGAddict approved.

 

[DashiDMV]

OLD SKOOL ALART

Wiz 6 and 7 for 1 dollar right now.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

I don't talk about the Brenda stained one but you can get it for 8 dollars more if you wish.

 

[Jaesun]

What version of 7 is that?