Completed Let's play Wizardry!

[Damned Registrations]

But you don't need positioning to add complexity. You can still do things like having actions take up more/less than a standard round of combat time, have abilities that disrupt spells currently being cast, have abilities interact with eachother. JRPGS have been rife with this stuff for decades now. FF4 was released in the same year as Wizardry 6 and MM3, and had mechanics like spells taking longer to cast than attacking with a melee weapon (and having different speeds among themselves), and it being possible to interrupt them by disabling a character while they're casting. If you skip ahead a few years you get stuff like the persona games, where enemies get bonus turns/lose their turn for hitting enemies with an elemental weakness/immunity, or Phantasy Star 4 where 2 separate characters casting a fire spell and a tornado spell consecutively combine them into a single firestorm spell striking all enemies, and a system for delaying character actions to better influence turn order is added to facilitate those options. Lufia 2 had an interesting 'limit break' kind of system (the best done in any game so far, ironically) that allowed you to build up a meter by taking damage and use special spells granted by equipment, adding another dimension to equipment choices and making combat more dynamic by encouraging you to react to the enemy injuring your characters, not just by healing them, but also by using abilities so as not to waste energy being earned this way by capping the meter.

I suppose at that point western devs just stopped giving a fuck about combat and focused on world building instead, because even by Wizardry 8, combat still has the same basic rules as wizardry 1 had; everyone gets one action per turn, options are attack/item/spell/defend/retreat. The only real addition is giving enemies the ability to move around during combat, which is a departure from blob combat if anything, and negates the primary advantage of blob combat, the speed and simplicity of the interface, allowing minor combat to be handled quickly while major battles take longer. All the additions I referenced above work well with blob combat because you can completely ignore them for fights where you already have a large advantage, and end the battle in under a minute with under 10 commands, but during a major fight like a boss battle or especially difficult random encounter (or an easy encounter while your party is decimated from a harder encounter you scraped by) they give you many more options and make things more interesting.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Does character death happen often? Do characters lose vitality when resurrected like in later games? Also, did you resurrect any characters yet, or do you just reload the savestate when one of them dies?

Yes, it happens quite often. Not as often in the SNES version as in the AppleII or DOS ones, but still a whole lot. And I do mean a WHOLE lot. Many enemies can one-hit kill you, in a normal or a critical attack (decapitation); poison also means sure death if you're far away from the dungeon exit and can't cast Latumofis (be it because you've run out of spell points or simply are underleveled). I mostly cut deaths out because this LP has a different goal (namely, to walk the readers through the series showing off the enemies, mechanics and dungeon design) as well as to avoid too much tedium. As I explained earlier, I do use savestates. Death is more often that not permanent in Wizardry, and when playing it the normal way, it'd be impossible, or barely possible, to finish the game with the original party, and I need to keep the party intact for obvious reasons. I only save when in the castle, however, not in the dungeon, and reload whenever a death takes place. I could just save scum, of course, but save scumming has never been appealing to me, personally; it tends to take all the fun out of the game.

As for resurrection, there is a possibility to resurrect a character, yes, but the problem is it doesn't always work. Normally, when resurrected, a character is reduced to 1 HP, but no, his Vitality doesn't decrease. You only get 1 chance to resurrect a character, however, and resurrection has a chance to fail, in which case the character is reduced to ashes (literally -- the character gets the ASHED status when it happens). To resurrect an ASHED character, you need to be able to cast a level 7 (!) spell, Kadorto, but again, you only get one chance to do so; if Kadorto fails, that means the character is lost forever.

 

[Crooked Bee]

It's a pity blob crawlers like this stagnated. I'd love to see a MM or Wizardry game that brings up nice combat mechanics like attack combinations or complicated turn order systems jrpgs moved onto when 16 bit consoles came around. Instead all we got was either more of the same, a transition to half assed real time fighting, or games using retro systems for the sake of nostalgia rather than actually playing to the strengths of those systems. Even the japanese dungeon crawlers don't use these systems. Why does Etrian Oddesey not have nice turn order/speed systems like Breath of Fire 3 or FFX? (Or even the old ATB system, which is essentially what FFX has except FFX has the decency to pause the bars when it's time for someone do something) Or combo attack systems like Phantasy Star 4 had?

Agreed, the only blobber I can name off the top of my head that goes for an ATB-like system is Labyrinth of Touhou, adding a character switching system on top. Really, it's the only one I know that does things differently compared to the traditional blob crawlers, and I tend to check out pretty much every one that gets an English-language release. Beats me why there the genre is so conservative. Maybe the developers think only those who wants a traditional blobber will play one, and the rest won't even bother because the combat is blob?

Granted, I haven't played the Japanese exclusives such as Generation Xth, but they're probably the same kind of stuff. Given the variety in JRPG mechanics, I am especially surprised the Japs only imitate the early Wizardries when making blob crawlers. (Not that there's anything wrong with the early Wizardries, mind you, but still, it's surprising coming from the same nation that has produced so many JRPGs.)

 

[Monstrous Bat]

Yes, it happens quite often. Not as often in the SNES version as in the AppleII or DOS ones, but still a whole lot. And I do mean a WHOLE lot. Many enemies can one-hit kill you, in a normal or a critical attack (decapitation); poison also means sure death if you're far away from the dungeon exit and can't cast Latumofis (be it because you've run out of spell points or simply are underleveled). I mostly cut deaths out because this LP has a different goal (namely, to walk the readers through the series showing off the enemies, mechanics and dungeon design) as well as to avoid too much tedium. As I explained earlier, I do use savestates. Death is more often that not permanent in Wizardry, and when playing it the normal way, it'd be impossible, or barely possible, to finish the game with the original party, and I need to keep the party intact for obvious reasons. I only save when in the castle, however, not in the dungeon, and reload whenever a death takes place. I could just save scum, of course, but save scumming has never been appealing to me, personally; it tends to take all the fun out of the game.

As for resurrection, there is a possibility to resurrect a character, yes, but the problem is it doesn't always work. Normally, when resurrected, a character is reduced to 1 HP, but no, his Vitality doesn't decrease. You only get 1 chance to resurrect a character, however, and resurrection has a chance to fail, in which case the character is reduced to ashes (literally -- the character gets the ASHED status when it happens). To resurrect an ASHED character, you need to be able to cast a level 7 (!) spell, Kadorto, but again, you only get one chance to do so; if Kadorto fails, that means the character is lost forever.

Ah, the Old Shit is sadistic indeed. I suppose playing the early Wizardries feels a lot like playing roguelikes? But seriously, at least roguelikes don't have hellishly complicated labyrinths like the ones in Wizardries.

Now I feel so next-gen playing the later titles in the series.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Floors 5 and 6

Back in the dungeon, we make Pete the party leader again since he has better AC.

And now he can get back to his habit of bumping into doors.

If it isn't my old nemesis... A DOOR!

This situation could use a well-placed kick, don't you think, Pete?

I have a better idea, guys. Watch and learn.

Fus - Ro - DAH!

*The door swings open*

Ha! They don't call me the king of role-playing for nothing.

Whoa, man! Now that's something I can relate to!

Good job, Dave. It looks like Bioware is still in top form when it comes to role-playing.

You think we should add a separate door-kicking shout to the next TES, Todd?

No way. Our audience would find that too confusing. Kinda like you did.

Follow my advice, guys. Make it one shout for everything. Call it Awesome Shout.

Awesome Shout, huh? I like the sound of it.

Sawyer casts Maporfic, the spell that reduces our AC by two and lasts as long as we stay in the dungeon.

Our goal now is to descend down to B5. There are two ways to get there: stairs or elevator. To get the full dungeon-crawling experience, we choose the former.

On B3 we encounter a new enemy, Rotting Corpse, who paralyses Sawyer. Rotting Corpses are the undead travelling in groups of 1D5 who have 2D8 HP and AC of 6. Incidentally, since Sawyer is the only one in our party who can cure paralysis, we have to return to the castle to cure him.

Having returned to B3, we deal with some Ogres and Were Bears until we can finally make our way down to B4.

B4 welcomes us with a pack of Huge Spiders. They appear in groups 1D8, have 2D8+2, and their AC equals 6. They can also poison you and put you to sleep, but luckily we're able to finish them off before they can make use of any of their nasty tricks.

Having defeated them, we receive 300 exp and a chest armed with a Teleporter trap. I'm really thankful to Gaider's high Luck; without it we'd be springing traps left and right, and Teleporter is one of the nastier ones since you never know just where it might teleport you and whether or not you'll even be able to get out. So yeah, Gaider disarms it, but the reward is measly 35 gold, so we could as well not bother with it, really. We'll only start finding decent stuff in chests from floor 6 onwards anyway.

And down to B5 we go!

Floor 5 boasts another dark zone, many small rooms and one-way doors, a corridor at the top that loops around and thus may seem unending to a first time explorer, and somewhat tougher encounters. Mapping it can definitely be daunting the first time you play the game, but otherwise it isn't anything special.

There's nothing for us to do here, really, but let's search around for new enemies at least.

Look Pete, it's the Companions!

Whoa! How the hell did they escape from our game, Todd?

It looks like even NPCs can't stand playing a Bethesda game. *chuckles*

Hey Dave. You're a writer, aren't you?

Damn right, best romance writer in the industry.

Good. Then prepare me a report on those Werewolves. At least fifty-pages, single-spaced.

Not a repooort! Geez, if I liked writing reports that much, I'd be a freaking reporter. ...Fifty pages seems about the right length for one of my pieces, though.

Now that's truly troubling, man. What COULD you write fifty pages about?

Wait and see. Werewolves, you say?

*Half an hour later*

Finished already, Dave? You're fast, I like that. Let me take a look.

*Begins reading*

What the hell? What's this?! It reads like a bad love letter!

*Reads on*

A ... werewolf romance? Ugh. On second thought, Dave, there's no need for a report. It's all clear as day. Werewolves, listen here. For the crime of escaping from Skyrim, Imma chop you up into DELICIOUS LITTLE PIECES!

Werewolves appear in packs of 1D6, each having 4D8+3 HP and AC of 5. Thankfully, their attacks don't inflict any status ailments, so dispatching them is easy for us and earns us 487 exp.

Lvl 5 Mages can be nasty. Like most mages, they're squishy and only have AC of 10, but they know all the Mage spells up to level 3. That means they can cast Mahalito, and believe me, we don't want them to. Luckily for us, we've surprised them this time and so kill them all in one turn, receiving 310 exp.

In the chest left after the fight, we discover some kind of armour. We'll be sure to identify it later.

For now, let's see what B6 is all about.

Okay, it's now bitch and moan about the SNES version time!

The above is floor 6 as it is supposed to be. Note the clear-cut pattern, the symmetry, the spinners, etc. Note the two dangerous pits surrounding the stairs down to B7. Looks elegant and well-designed.

The Japs, however, weren't satisfied with it for some reason, so they took it upon themselves to redesign this floor, as well as the ones that follow, for the NES version. The SNES one, being an upgrade of the former, unfortunately inherited the re-imagined floor design.

So this is B6 as it is in the SNES version. A couple of things not marked on the map: you start at (19,19), and (7,7) is a spinner. I still can't figure out why they would significantly change the original design in the first place, but that aside it's an okay floor, actually, even if it doesn't look as elegant as the original. At least it's arguably even more hardcore than the original. First you have the centre spinner coupled with the four dark zone corridors leaving you unsure which direction you're facing. Then you have the nasty 1-1' teleporter tricking you into thinking the corridor continues if you head west from where you start -- funnily I did just that when exploring this floor for the first time and had a pleasant WTF moment. Finally, there's a one-way door at (6,15) that traps you in an area that you can only exit by stepping right into a pit at (6,16)!

To sum it up, if you're a first-time Wizardry player or simply going for the original experience, you're better off avoiding the SNES Wizardry. It makes for a good replay, though, so maybe that's what the Japs had in mind when designing it? Thankfully, gameplay- and loot-wise the lower floors have remained the same as in the original version, and this LP can only benefit from comparing the level design in the two versions of the game. Naturally, I have some things to say about the redesign of the other floors as well, but let's wait until we get there.

Not being aware of the redesign, I even had to cast DUMAPIC to find out what the hell was going on.

It seems that the lower we get, the more imposing the dungeon grows. The doors are now metal, not wooden, and have some kind of ancient pattern on them.

We also encounter our very first vampire here!

Vampires! They're out for our brains!

You know, vampires aren't interested in brains.

Oh, really?

Yeah, really. Not that you'd have to worry anyway.

It's a lone Lifestealer accompanied by an Unseen Entity. Lifestealers aren't technically Vampires, but they can do the same thing that the latter -- they can level-drain you, and yes, it is as bad as it sounds. Lifestealers travel in groups of 1D1, i.e., always alone, have 5D8+3 HP and AC of 3. But more importantly, if they manage to drain your exp, you'll find yourself up to two (!) levels behind while retaining your current experience points, which means the exp necessary for a level-up will remain as high as it is currently so that catching up on the lost levels will take you much longer than it normally would. In other words, level drain is just plain BAD and a real pain to deal with.

Lifestealers can also resist spells, but melee attacks work just fine on them.

And did I mention they're immune to sleep? Thankfully, the combined strength of Todd, Pete and Sawyer allows us to quick bring the Lifestealer down.

But, in a staggering turn of events, the Unseen Entity also turns out to be a Lifestealer!

One good thing about Lifestealers is that they're very slow. We bring it down before it even has a chance to strike at us. Killing it earns us 746 exp, but also presents us with a chest. Inside, Gaider finds a not yet identified shield.

And Laidlaw grabs a Stick.

Now I can stick around, haha!

Wanna stick together, Mike?

Eh... nevermind.

We reach the stairs down to B7, but let's not go there just yet. The enemies down there are probably tougher, and we wouldn't want any of our characters killed, would we? WOULD WE?

The next encounter has us pitted against three Men in Armor.

They turn out to be Champ(ion) Samurai, and those fuckers are tough. They come in groups of 1D6, have 10D10 (!) HP and AC of 2. They hit for 1D12 points of damage and know all the first-level Mage spells. Luckily for us there are only three of them in this encounter, so we may just make it through.

MCA attempts to put them to sleep, but to no avail. The Samurai get more lucky, alas, and both Sawyer and Gaider are asleep now.

Next turn Laidlaw casts a Mahalito, and the combined effort of Pete, Todd and MCA puts another Samurai to eternal rest. Just one left now!

Take that, you Japanese abomination! JRPGs suck! WRPGs forever!

The fight was pretty risky, but the reward is more than worth it. Let's now identify the items we've found so far.

Hmm, a Chain Mail, a Sturdy Plate, a Large Shield... nothing too interesting... but wait! The stick is actually a Mace of Pounding, and it's the only unique item we've found so far. It has the price of 12500 gold, hits for 2D4+1 damage, has +3 to hit and +2 swings. It also has +1 Magical Adjustment, which represents magical protection for a character so that the character has a chance of not being affected by an enemy's spell.

And the Mace of Pounding goes to... Sawyer!

Todd and Gaider stand ready to level up, so let's head back to the castle.

In a surprising turn of events, both Todd and Gaider improve their IQ. The rest stay at the inn to replenish HP.

Then we go back to B6 to face even more enemies!

Were Tigers appear in groups of 1D8, have 5D8 HP and AC=4. Interesting, they have the ability to regenerate 1 hit point per round. They attack up to 3 times at once, dealing 2D6/2D6/1D4 points of damage, and can poison you or put you to sleep.

This time, however, we manage to put them to sleep first, and Sawyer does some insane damage to them with his Mace of Pounding!

I see you're growing stronger, Josh. Soon you'll be able to travel on your own.

Please don't ever leave me, MCA-sensei! I'm not sure I can make it alone.

You can, Josh. You can. Trust me on that.

T-thank you, MCA-sensei.

Hey Todd, what are those Obsidian folks always mumbling about? What's their problem?

Eh, who cares about their problem, Pete. But hey, you and me? Man, nothing's gonna pose a problem to us! You know why, Pete?

Why, Todd?

We're in it together, Pete! We're PALS!

Next up are 4 Lvl 7 Mages. We put them to sleep and one-hit kill them before they can try anything funny.

Killer Wolves travel in groups of 1D6 , have 6D8 HP each and AC of 0. They also attack up to 2 times per turn dealing 2D4 damage with each hit. 973 exp is our reward for killing the four of them.

Let's now experiment around a bit. To give you a taste of the game's difficulty, let's save-state and try taking on enemies we'd normally run away from.

Such as a group of six Spirits.

These ghosts - are they... singing?

*sings* Soon the fantasy ends, and you're all going to be like us - ghosts! We're ghosts, yeah! Soon you're gonna dis-ap-pear!

They creep me out. Shut up and go sleepy-bye, you ghosties!

Spirits appear in groups of 1D6, have 7D3+2 HP, AC=2, regenerate 1 HP per turn and have 25% magical resistance. They also know all the Mage spells up to level 3; and yes, that means they can cast Mahalito.

We can attempt putting them to sleep, but they resist our spell too often and they can one-hit kill our spellcasters, so it's all no good.

And if we encounter the above group...

...well, bad things can happen in the very first round of combat.

But enough fooling around. Let's go bring Pete, Sawyer and Laidlaw up to level 8!

Between the two teleporters on B4, we bump into 2 unidentified Dragons. They breathe fire on us, but are pretty low on HP so we slay them in a single turn. Unfortunately, that means they remain unidentified so I can't say for sure just what kind of dragons they were. Anyway, 691 exp is our prize. Laidlaw also finds a Shield, but it turns out to be a simple Large Shield, so meh.

We'll have to wait until floors 9-10 to be able to find some really rare stuff, by the way.

Back at the inn, Pete finally catches up with Todd by making level 8. Unsurprisingly, IQ remains Pete's weakest attribute. But his HP is pretty high now.

Hey, anybody knows what HP stands for?

Um, Hentai Power?

Oh. Hmm... I'll keep that in mind!

Sawyer is now more agile! Also, he gets new lvl4 Priest spells.

Those are Badial, which is the reverse of the healing spell Dial and does 2-16 points of damage to a monster, and (finally!) Latumofis, the spell that cures poisoning. Now we don't have to be as scared of being poisoned as we have been up till now.

Laidlaw is the last to level up. His stats are pretty good now, but he only gets one new Mage spell.

Then again, the new spell is the extremely powerful Lahalito, the powerhouse version of Mahalito dealing 6D6 damage to an enemy group.

Alright, now that we can cure poison and cast Lahalito, the time has finally come to hit the lowest floors. Stay tuned as we battle giants, shout at dragons and put vampires on fire!

Hey Underlord. Where's that madman gone?

Retreated like a spider to his lair. Waiting for your arrival, plotting revenge. The usual.

I MUST be allowed to defeat him! I nearly DIED in the weeks I spent training!

Have patience, Josh. You aren't yet strong enough to confront him.

Wise words. Just be aware: his powers do not extend to the seventh and eighth floors, and neither do mine. Another... entity is in charge there.

Hm?

Soon you'll see for yourself.

 

[Azira]

Ooo, the suspense!

 

[Mrowak]

Another great one, Bee

 

[Sceptic]

Awesome update. You're really doing great with this LP

The whole bit with changes to level 6 is odd. Now I want to find out if the PS (and adapted PC) version kept the original design or the NES design.

 

[lightbane]

Take that, you Japanese abomination! JRPGs suck! WRPGs forever!

Too bad that there aren't Wrpgs anymore, only romance simulators, barely interactive films and hiking simulators M:

 

[Kz3r0]

Great job bee-chan almost too good.

Too bad that there aren't Wrpgs anymore, only romance simulators, barely interactive films and hiking simulators M:

I get a slight feeling of trolling here by the apidae.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Now I want to find out if the PS (and adapted PC) version kept the original design or the NES design.

Hmm, dunno about the PS version. I'll check it out as soon as time permits (i.e., not really soon).

almost too good

I wonder what you mean by that.

 

[CappenVarra]

"Hentai Power" goes really well with "Healing Surges" - before you know it, we'll have Bizzaro D&D all worked out

 

[Kz3r0]

I wonder what you mean by that.

That is practically at professional level.

 

[abnaxus]

The Codex actually has a Wizardry IV ironman LP, which ends after one update.

 

[spekkio]

That is practically at professional level.

Le wat? Some people are LPing professionaly?

:/

 

[Crooked Bee]

"Hentai Power" goes really well with "Healing Surges" - before you know it, we'll have Bizzaro D&D all worked out

What would AC stand for, then?

Le wat? Some people are LPing professionaly?

:/

No shit. Just look at some of the SA LPs.

The Codex actually has a Wizardry IV ironman LP, which ends after one update.

Yeah, I know. Appropriate, given the nature of the game.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Ah, the Old Shit is sadistic indeed. I suppose playing the early Wizardries feels a lot like playing roguelikes?

Dunno, never really felt like playing a roguelike to me; just a traditional blob crawler with ramped up difficulty. The first five Wizardries are definitely more sadistic than the later ones. For one, I don't remember having to flee from encounters in Wiz 6-7, but here I'm doing it all the time. Not Your Baby's First Dungeon Crawler, that's for sure.

 

[CappenVarra]

What would AC stand for, then? :p

Hm, "Actionable Consent" perhaps, since it determines how much "close physical interaction" a character can engage in?

 

[Cenobyte]

Great. Now down onto the next floor

 

[Derper]

Onto the next page!

 

[Kz3r0]

Onto the next page!

Onwards.: x

 

[Humanity has risen!]

The moment in level 6 or so where you can encounter bands of high-level mages is where it starts getting ridiculously unfair. They hit so hard, and they hit everyone with their spells. They also are fast, so often your mage and cleric are guaranteed dead, and possibly all other party members, before you've had the chance to do a single thing.

 

[Jaedar]

Onwards and updownwards

 

[spekkio]

Fur teh Fuhrerin!

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

We haz da bump.