Lady Error
Obviosuly, it is not "true Wizardry", but is it a good RPG? It is AMAZINGLY good as an RPG. MUCH better than Bradleys weak attempts in the series with titles Wizardry 6 and 7.
Thank god Wiz 8 studio told Bradley to go fuck himself before making the game :D
No it is not "AMAZINGLY good". "Good" - i tend to agree, but certainly not "amazingly". Very clearly to me Wizardry 7 (interface issues aside, anyway both games have some problems in this area) is the superior game.
Wizardry 8 has many major flaws - and the really big one (i am really surprised that You Aweigh of all people ignore it) is total lack of difficulty once you are past the early game. The feared Arnika Road is the peak of difficulty, after that it goes down quickly and past level 10 it becomes a joke. At least Wizardry 7 throws at you some challenges as the game progresses if you don't make a party of 6x "knows every skill and spell" guys. And even if you do - if an enemy hits you, you will still feel it. In W8 late game enemies tickle you instead of hitting.
In W8 you get immune to almost anything enemies throw at you by mid-game. Magic ? Pfff... just cast high level anti-magic protection spells (magic screen off combat and the others in 1st round) and all your party memebers will have 100 or close to 100 all res, enemies can barely do a few points of damage past this and they almost never land any status effects. Melee - is a joke too past early game, the only situation where a party memeber dies is when your pure casters - mages/psionics/alchemists/bishops are tageted - and they aren't most of the time sitting safely behind fighters/rogues/samurais/etc...
I wont even mention the dungeons - sure in Wizardry 8 some are are nicely designed using 3D with proper use of height but the puzzles in them ? mostly a joke again. Traps - what traps ?
The main storyline then ? Ok so you learn quickly you need to collect the 3 great artifacts. Sounds awfully ambitious for a party of no-ones, after all they are the most powerful artifacts in the universe used to create the universe itself but ok, story aside you expect it to be hard... right ? To be forced to defeat some devious dungeons and powerful boses. Let's see:
Razuka Boss: "hey guys, i have this Astral Dominae thingy for you for a few bucks, and if you don't want to pay i'm standing practically alone here !",
Mooks: "Yes, we have one of those, want to look at it ? Perhaps touch it ? Or maybe swap it for the fake artifact Dark Savant just left you for no fucking reason ? Or maybe you want to kill a few mooks to take it by force, its your choice !"
Only Destinae Dominus requires a bit of what i described and what should be expected (minus challenging boss).
Compare to W7 where you at least need to explore several (more challenging) dungeons and if you are too slow chase after a NPC who took the map first... And those are only some "maps" with clues not artifacts sought after everyone in the universe.
Did i mention the fact that the game drowns you with hundreds if not thousands of consumables ? And if this is not enough you can make thousands in gold in a few minutes and buy all consumables in the world. I never use any expect a few healing/status removing potions early in game, there is no need but thanks to all those redundant consumables you can easily buy every good item that is for sale in the game... if this isn't a bad design i'm not sure what is.
Sure W8 has some things done better - mostly the character system fucked up in W7 if you want to use its weakness to the maximum is in W8 slightly more solid. On the other hand it is also easily abused because of its "skills grow when used" nature. So only a small advantage here. Other good things are the added combat options like more detailed party positioning inside the blob, certainly an interesting evolution of blobber formula (evolution that sadly never happened). The gameplay itself however ? The winner is clear in my opinion.
I think You are simply prejudiced against Wizardry 6 and 7 because they are not Wizardry 1, 2, 3 or 5 - and you love those and find them superior. They might be, i never got into older Wizardries (and i need to at some point), they might be better but this is W6~7 vs W8 we are talking about not versus Wizardry 1 to 5.
TL,DR:
Wizardry 7 > Wizardry 8
To be perfectly clear and not cause butthurt:
I like W8 - i wouldn't be playing it for the 2nd time if i didn't. I won't finish it (again) because going past dozens of Rapax warriors and casters who occasionally tickle you with their mighty blows/spells of ~10 damage against 150hp guys is too tediosu...
Otherwise a good game, i like the weird mix of SF/fantasy, the silly creatures/races, the world, hell even the low polygon graphics are pretty. Exploration is fun. I like the character building part most - just sad it is not really needed because the game doesn't challenge your party builds enough past early game.
