Holy mother of God, what I've missed in my absence for so many months.
Just hearing about this now and my reaction was exactly like Cleve's in his initial post in this thread; this style of game is the peak of perfection in my opinion, and I forever lament that the style of Wizardry 7 wasn't elaborated on by other artists and developers. It is barely even imitated. Grimoire is the only game I'm aware of to approach its magnificence. There is no question about it, I will buy this the absolute microsecond it becomes available, and will share my discovery of this game as widely as I can.
I love a good party-based dungeon crawler, and although I wouldn't say there is an abundance of them (at least in terms of being worth playing more than once), there are a significant amount and through emulation, especially of Amiga or Atari ST there are even a wide variety of settings with some novel ideas implemented (like Captive, or Federation Quest 1: BSS Jane Seymour). But full open-world type games made in this style are probably the rarest kind of video game I'm interested in, yet I think it is by far the most engaging.
The few games that are even remotely comparable all fail to match Wizardry 7 in at least a few areas. That game was so radically unique and is an ultrarare instance of high art implemented in a game with a remarkable leveling and multi-class system. The oppressive and bleak atmosphere is really unmatched, to where I find its depiction of a collapsed, post-civilization era more attractive and mysterious than even that of the original Dark Souls. The themes explored are practically Spenglerian; the infamous introductory dedication line that the CRPG Addict made fun of in the manual, to "those who would stand against the weight of a universe to rise but one step further over its horizon" is an expression of the epitome of the Faustian soul that seeks to conquer and render a nonentity the very nature of time and space. Illiterate losers laugh at the 'purple prose' in an age where using 'fancy words' is something to be ridiculed, to be ashamed of. We are living through the very civilizational phase responsible by unconscious impetus for bringing about the self-destructive closure of its allotted lifespan which the game portrays the aftermath of in a fantastical science fiction context.
If this upcoming game is even a fraction as good as Wizardry 7 it will be one of the best games to be made in a long time.
