My great regret WRT Wizardry V is playing it without being aware of the aging mechanic. By the time I got anywhere, all my characters were senile old coots who could barely lift themselves out of bed and didn't remember basic enemy names.
I started with the Bradley trilogy, then went back to the earlier games, and while I like them and think they are one of the few really old games that hold up quite well, for me Wizardry will always be the later games + Grimoire
Wiz7[...]best itemization
In that case, I might leave level 5 for later, just to complete my maps
The only Wizardry game I tried is 5, Heart of the Maelstrom. It was one of the games in my grandparents huge SNES collection.
I enjoy it immensely and once in a while will still pop it in, but i've never finished it and refuse to use a guidebook. These games are made to be explored.
By Jove, Wizardy 5 is getting tedious!
Currently exploring level 4, which boils down to mapping a long, long maze, get beheaded by some monks and ninjas, then head back to the castle ('cause my guys haven't got any Teleport, Life or Recall spell yet), then spend all my hard earned money, explore a few more squares if I'm lucky, and then have party member getting beheaded again. And those that don't get beheaded get magic drained, paralyzed or poisoned.
I've searched hundreds of wall units, but not found one fucking secret door so far. And you have to hit several keys just to search one wall unit, which is tedious.
After my last foray I had not enough gold to resurrect two of my guys, but my Priest was only 7,000 XP away from a new level (hopefully getting the Life spell), so I decided to systemetically search the whole perimeter of lvl 1 for secret doors.
I finally found one, leading to a large area, inside which there was a new secret door in a buidling of four rooms. There was a message - Adix Non Viote Monous - which apparantly means "Don't Enter Alone". Does this mean I need an NPC in the party? From CRPG Addict's blog I seem to recall him talking about NPCs that could join the party.
Anyway, the last of the four rooms contained a chute which ignored my Levitate spell (how cute), which dropped my party all the way down to lvl 6. Needless to say my weakened party did not last long against monsters with a fuckton of HP, spell resistance and Paralyze attacks. I could swear I could hear Dewey Bradley going Mwahahaha! while twirling his mustache...
This game is so fucking SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.
It started very promising, with large levels (reminded my of the Dungeon Master levels), that are more properly interconnected than previous Wizardries (stairs and elevators line up properly, but pits don't), and more unlinear levels.
Sadly, there does not seem to be any short cuts, so there is a fuckload of walking back and forth the same corriodors over and again and over again.
Of the first five Wizardries the only one that is prefectly balanced, both difficulty wise and game pace wise, is the first one.
As it is Wiz 5 is starting to become interesting only to see how Bradly reused puzzles in later games, Wiz 6 used things from Wiz 5 like the Dwarven smith and the engineering puzzle, while Wiz 7 used the Swimming skill, an object that gives 100% Swimming skill and the silly Priests.
Wizardry 5
Does anyone recall their average party level while they were exploring level 5/6? My characters are all around 14-15, but I feel extremely underpowered. Most every encounter seems to be a dozen enemies split into 4-5 groups who all cast high level magic, have magic resistance, drain you, and can stone you. I honestly don't see what the strategy is for these encounters now, other than Tiltowaitx2 and praying for mercy. I could throw up some magic protection, but that means one less Tiltowait during the first round, so...
I guess at this point I'm on the fence about this one. I liked the NPC interaction and adventure game-like item puzzles at first, but I don't think they mix particularly well with a game that gets so brutal in the middle/end. The massive levels were also cool at first, but again, trekking through these over and over to run through quest chains while nearly any encounter can completely ruin your day (level drain, stolen quest item, destroyed high level armor; death is the least of your worries at this point) is just getting kind of annoying to be honest. I glanced at a walkthrough just to get an idea of how much game I've got left, and it doesn't seem like something I can just run through in a night, so I'll be putting this game on hold to play something a bit more enjoyable (likely M&M1), and will pick away at it here and there until I seem to be making progress.
[edit] After posting that I launched Wiz 5 right back up and finished exploring level 6 (or at least, what I could access, there's a puzzle there I'll need to solve later and an NPC that didn't seem to provide much of anything, so I'll need to look in that too). The addiction is real
Much rather have good 20x20 dungeon floor than superfluous 50x75 one.