Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Gragt]

Oh, and to give an idea of what the PSX version looks like:

 

[eric__s]

I'd go so far as to say the Playstation versions are the definitive versions. The interface and graphics are very customizable (you can play in wireframe mode, you can turn off the HUD, there are various degrees of built-in English, great graphics, very good orchestral arrangement of the NES music, built-in party transferring. I'd definitely play it over any other versions.

 

[Gragt]

I'd go so far as to say the Playstation versions are the definitive versions.

I almost agree, and they certainly do a great job of giving a modern coat of paint with customisation while keeping the gameplay intact, but I still find the DOS versions to be elegant in their simplicity so I wouldn't discard those either.

 

[Invictus]

That looks very good Gragt, were can I find the discs for download? In Emuparadise there are several Wiz roms but most are in japanese

 

[TigerKnee]

That looks very good Gragt, were can I find the discs for download? In Emuparadise there are several Wiz roms but most are in japanese

Psst, the games were only released in Japan, those are the exact ones you want.

It's just that the Japanese were nice here and included English as an option in the game for all those Japanese people that are... whatever the opposite of "weeaboo" is (Westaboo?)

 

[DraQ]

whatever the opposite of "weeaboo" is (Westaboo?)

Monocled individual.

 

[Gragt]

That looks very good Gragt, were can I find the discs for download? In Emuparadise there are several Wiz roms but most are in japanese

It is normal you can only find them in Japanese since they were released only in Japan. That's what I wrote. What you do once you get them is go to the option menu and change the first four options to the selection on the right; that will take care of all the text that can be changed to English. Like this:

Load and save menus will still be in Japanese but it's all "Do you want to save/load, Y/N?" so you should figure it out easily. The rest of the options deals with the graphics and sounds. By default they use the new ones but you can tinker with them if you want. The very last option deals with the automap, and if you want to disable it for the original experience you need to move it to the right.

I usually don't trust emuparadise and prefer to get emulation related stuff from groups that try to provide quality images. Look for Redump sets (PSX NTSC-J in this case since these are Japanese discs) and get the two LLylgamyn Wizardry games. You can verify them image later with this and this.

 

[octavius]

My party seems to have been lucky with the encounters in Wiz 1and have killed all opposition without losing much HP (crpgaddict had major problems in his playthrough). And only one trap has been set off, but without killing anyone.
But I seem to have had extreme bad luck with the level ups to lvl 2: all my guys only got 1 HP each, and lost more stats than they gained. Does sleeping in the stables instead of in a Royal Suite affect the gain when leveling up?

 

[Gragt]

As far as I know, stat gains and loss are just randoms, though they are tied to the race. A tried and true tactic is to copy your save (should be SAVE1.DSK) somewhere, rest, and then restore it if necessary.

 

[octavius]

As far as I know, stat gains and loss are just randoms, though they are tied to the race. A tried and true tactic is to copy your save (should be SAVE1.DSK) somewhere, rest, and then restore it if necessary.

Then you may just as well use an emulator with Save States (I must admit I was tempted, but so far MM1 and Knights of Legend are the only games for which I've used it).

 

[Gragt]

Well, yeah. Or if you use the PSX version simply reload the save from the memcard. In my experience things evened out in the end but I've read about people being unlucky. I think this was changed on some console versions, like the NES, because people found the idea of losing stats on level up too unfair.

 

[TigerKnee]

Elminage Original (Wiz clone for PSP) still had stats down on level up but I think uses that mechanic better.

When you create characters, you can choose their age. Older characters have more starting stats than younger ones - if you want a character that starts as an advanced/elite class you basically have to make them older unless you have a very high tolerance for rerolling.

But when you level up, younger characters gain more stats while older characters is the reverse - the former almost never loses stats from leveling up.

So it's basically a balancing act between your old veterans holding the guard but eventually needing to be rotated out versus younglings who's weak at the start but will eventually be the future generation. (Sort of like Darklands, now that I think of it)

 

[bloodlover]

A friend of mine has the GOG version of the game and he's been running into a small issue: loading up the map takes a long time and even after it does load, it lags like crazy so he can't move it around. He's using wizfast but that should not be an issue. I ran the same thing on a similar PC and had no problems and besides, hardware specs should not be an issue. Anyone else encountered this?

 

[octavius]

So far my experience with Wizardry 1 has been that it's surprisingly easy; definitely easier than Wiz 6 and MM1-2. I've reached lvl 3 of the Maze without a single character death, the most annoying things to happen so far (besides getting only 1 HP when leveling half the time) was being Paralyzed twice by some gas bags, setting me back 1000 gold at the Temple. I've been playing very cautiously, though.

It's been interesting to compare with CRPG Addict who really struggled. But I guess I'm better prepared, making sure I got 15-19 bonus points for all my characters, reading the manual carefully (Addict seems to have missed the fact that the Light spell detects secret doors, for example), and with 18 Agility and 18 Luck for my Thief traps have only been set off twice.

I don't see how I'm ever gonna get a Lord, let alone a Ninja, with the stats totals never increasing. It's almost like the game encourages cheating...

 

[Jaesun]

Interesting. I was always curious how the earlier (1 - 3) Wizardry games were compared to the later ones.

 

[iZerw]

Well, floors 1-3 were pretty easy for me. Only once my party got slaughtered but it was my mistake - I got lost in the maze. After that the difficulty jumped somewhat (permanent level drain, gas dragons, pretty high level wizards and priests).

I don't see how I'm ever gonna get a Lord, let alone a Ninja, with the stats totals never increasing. It's almost like the game encourages cheating...

They did fuck up something in the PC version like someone here said. Actually, I had to add only 2-3 points to 2 attributes (Piety and IQ) and much more to Luck for my Lord.

 

[octavius]

Well, floors 1-3 were pretty easy for me. Only once my party got slaughtered but it was my mistake - I got lost in the maze. After that the difficulty jumped somewhat (permanent level drain, gas dragons, pretty high level wizards and priests).

Seems like Wiz 1 has the opposite difficulty curve of the other games I mentioned.
I nearly lost my party the same way, getting lost on lvl 3 and getting poisoned by Giant Toads. I'm glad I saved gold and didn't buy any magic gear. With my savings and by selling a Longsword +1 I was able to resurrect three of my dead guys, but the fourth one is now Lost. Yes, I'm playing it Iron Man. I'm also grinding, for the first time that I can remember. Those Paralyze attacks is such a huge money drain to fix at the Temple that I won't enter lvl 2 again before my Priest gets the DIALKO spell.

 

[octavius]

Grrrr....I'm sick and tired of getting paralyzed all the time in Wiz 1. What a fucking money drain to fix it! I'm forced to grind on upper levels to get more money and XP for my Priest so that he can finally cast the un-Paralyze spell. I thought lvl 1 was safe from paralyzers and then I got surprised by a group of Zombies.

 

[octavius]

Holy shit! I made a new Human Fighter while the old one is waiting for the party to be afford to Resurrect him. New guy got paralyzed at lvl 3, so I started rolling a new one when I got this result:

28 bonus points?!? I thought 25 was max.

 

[TheGreatOne]

whatever the opposite of "weeaboo" is (Westaboo?)

Monocled individual.

That was back in 1994, in 2014 it most often translates to this

 

[DraQ]

whatever the opposite of "weeaboo" is (Westaboo?)

Monocled individual.

That was back in 1994, in 2014 it most often translates to this

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Grrrr....I'm sick and tired of getting paralyzed all the time in Wiz 1. What a fucking money drain to fix it! I'm forced to grind on upper levels to get more money and XP for my Priest so that he can finally cast the un-Paralyze spell. I thought lvl 1 was safe from paralyzers and then I got surprised by a group of Zombies.

I'm impressed by your resolve in playing through early Wizardry titles without save-scumming; the sort of extreme variance, which the player has little to no control over, really dampens my enthusiasm towards replays. All of the effects-on-strike (paralysis/death/petrification/level-drain) are so devastating, yet there is little the player can do to negate the effects or counter them. Spells effects like Protection From Paralysis/Petrification, Death Ward, and Negative Plane Protection simply don't exist. And given the punishment for taking hits in melee is so great, one would think reliable methods to avoid them would exist...but no such measures exist. Everything is reliant on Armor Class, on dice. Frustration can easily mount when the RNG doles out a string of unfavorable rolls in critical junctures.

And that's to say nothing of total-party-kills as a result of ambushes, possibly the primary reason I would never seriously ironman a Wizardry title.

 

[octavius]

All of the effects-on-strike (paralysis/death/petrification/level-drain) are so devastating, yet there is little the player can do to negate the effects or counter them. Spells effects like Protection From Paralysis/Petrification, Death Ward, and Negative Plane Protection simply don't exist. And given the punishment for taking hits in melee is so great, one would think reliable methods to avoid them would exist...but no such measures exist. Everything is reliant on Armor Class, on dice. Frustration can easily mount when the RNG doles out a string of unfavorable rolls in critical junctures.

And that's to say nothing of total-party-kills as a result of ambushes, possibly the primary reason I would never seriously ironman a Wizardry title.

Yeah, it's quite brutal...I think I actually was too lucky at first since I never met paralyzing Zombies on lvl 1 or decapatating Highwaymen on lvl 2 (or is the game level scaled? (I did notice that at higher levels I'd meet two Murphy's Ghosts)), but now I keep getting ambushed by those damned zombies and my useless Priest still hasn't learnt the un-Paralyze spell, nor the global -4 AC Shield spell. So the game forces you to grind for more money and XP, and what I thought would be a quick game is dragging out.
I found that grinding on lvl 2 is probably better than on lvl 1, due to chances of finding Long Swords +1 which I can sell for 5000 gold.

Another thing that annoys me is that when targeting enemies you are apparantly targeting individual enemies within a group. So if I Fireball 3 out of 5 enemies often the warriors will do nothing.

What kind of party do people usually play?
I started with:
Samurai
Fighter
Priest
Thief
Bishop
Mage

But I found out the Priest was too weak as a front line fighter and due to poorer AC was more prone to Paralyzis, which again means less XP.
So I dropped the Bishop and replaced him with a second Samurai. The Priest usually has enough things he can do from the back ranks. The Thief is totally useless outside of his job at opening chests. Too bad there is no Hide ability like in later remakes for (S)NES.
Not sure if it's a good long time plan to replace the Bishop with a Samurai, though.
I usually return to the surface when someone has been killed or paralyzed, so I just Add the Bishop and have him Identify new items, before replacing him again with the Temple's new customer.

 

[octavius]

Andrew Greennerd and Robert Butthead hates me...my Priest is now lvl 9, but still no un-Paralyze spell (lvl 3), Cure Poison (lvl 4) or Big Shield (lvl 4).
Crooked Bee got at least two of them much earlier in her Let's Play.

The Nintendo version(s) seems to deviate from the DOS version in more ways than I was lead to believe, that is, more than just cosmetic ways:
More varied loot.
Hide and Backstab for the Thief, making him not useless in combat
Poison is much more of a pain in the ass. In the DOS you lose HP much slower, so unless you're lost you usually have time to head back to the surface.
The Locate spell comes with an Automap.

 

[Desktop Commander]

My frontline usually consists of 2xSamurai+Ninja, or Ninja+Lord+Samurai (though alignment shenanigans can make the latter bothersome). I only ever use thieves temporarily if I can't be bothered to roll a Ninja on character creation. Though I usually regret that once I see their pitiful stats right after the class change.