Wizardry Long Live Wizardry! (And The All-New Games By Ex-Wizardry Developers)

[Hirato]

It requires me to press a button to move through ALL combat messages.

You can just hold the button down and it'll just skip through them.
It's a bit less than half as fast as using 'fast apply' at turn start.

 

[aweigh]

Hirato

that can be done in every single Exp Inc / Team Muramasa 'crawler all the way back to their very first one, Wizardry XTH: Frontier Academy for the PS2.

and they still haven't been able to implement auto-scrolling as what you describe causes the feedback to almost instantly scroll in a speed that is too fast to comfortably read thereby necessitating starting and stopping depending on the battle.

i simply don't understand why they haven't been able to implement a sensible speed for auto-scrolling battle feedback text, though to be fair to the studio(s) they are not the only ones with this problem, and in fact this is an old, old problem with japanese 'crawlers.

i am playing through the recent english translation of wizardry gaiden 4 for SNES done by MrRichard999 and Helly (and others) and it suffers from the exact same problem: the speeds available for selection in the configuration menu are either too slow or too fast therefore forcing the player to play with manual text scrolling.

wiz 5 and wiz 6 on the SNES also suffer from this issue. In fact, i'd say Elminage is one of the very few 'crawler series to get the speed for auto-scrolling battle feedback text right!

EDIT: Wiz 8 also got the speed right, for what it's worth. the auto-scrolling of battle feedback text in Wiz 8 is equally as good as in Elminage (i.e. it scrolls at a speed that is both fast but also easy to read by the player).

Truly i don't understand why this is an actual issue still to this day in this sub-genre of games! It's not that fucking complicated.

 

[Hirato]

Can't say that bothered me much at all.
The auto speed was nice when I was just hitting the key to repeat my last turn's actions while fighting weak monsters who posed no threat.

When going through the actions during the regular apply mode, I'd usually just hold the advance key down and pay attention to where the animated flashes were going and what sounds were being made as to whether anything interesting was happening or if I had to adapt my strategy.
The pace here was also slow enough that I could easily read the relevant text that showed up in those bubbles too (namely the hit count of my party's attacks, which told me if I had to spam +hit some more)


As far as combat went, the one thing that annoyed me most was the flashing of the HUGE enemy sprites when struck.
With the smaller foes it's not an issue, but with bigger ones that cover most of the screen, it's quite uncomfortable to observe the action.

 

[aweigh]

i suppose it's entirely an aesthetic issue as me and desocupado's problems are 100% personal (having to press the same button thousands of times over the course of a 50-100 hour game is uncomfortable); this can't really be blamed on the game.

the root of the issue is that auto-scrolling feedback text has never traditionally been part of the Wizardry series, and most if not all japanese 'crawlers are based off Wizardry. it's a convenience thing that i hope is adopted by more devs as they never get the speeds right when they provide options: either too slow or too fast. honestly speaking i think Elminage series is the only one to get the speed right and that's because it's not an option in those games rather the speed and flow of combat was built around a universal scrolling speed.

 

[Hirato]

Hi guys, I'm pretty new to the 1st person Dungeon Crawler genre (so far I have only played Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2).

I'm looking for something similar in terms of exploration/puzzle solving and combat. For what I've seen, the Wizardry games and clones are turn-based, which doesn't botter me at all (as long as it's not an "automatic" game, where you have just to keep pressing attack and wait the outcome).

So, in terms of exploration and puzle solve, does the games mentioned in the thread are in any way similar to Grimrock or should I look different kinds of 1st person Dungeon Crawlers?

You should try the games that inspired Grimrock, I believe that was the 'Eye of the Beholder' series.
You might also like Etrian Odyssey series if puzzles are important.

 

[felipepepe]

Legend of Grimrock is a clone of Dungeon Master, that's a good place to start. It's a very old, but amazing game. Other options are the Eye of the Beholder games, Lands of Lore 1, Anvil of Dawn, Might and Magic VI and Ravenloft: Stone Prophet. These are all real-time blobbers, just like Grimrock.

If you want a TB game, I think it might be better to start with something like Might and Magic: World of Xeen.

 

[hackncrazy]

Thanks for the recommendations.

So the Wizardry games are more about the evolution of your party and grinding for loot and such?

 

[desocupado]

So. I got to the third level of the first dungeon. My chars are doing 30+ damage on a good hit, and I'm surviving ok.

I see a red dot on the map, and figure "That's the boss. I'll go fight it"

It's a "fiendish monster" that has 3 attacks a turn and dealt 130+ damage to my chars. 3 front row chars dead in the first round, 3 back row chars on the second round. Party wipe. The save was like, 90 minutes back.

EDIT: Is there any good reason to open the fucking chests after the battle is won? The traps can really fuck you, stuff like mp drain and poison (I don't walk around with many antidotes) can really hinder your progress, and you only find junk and crap, and sometimes a little bit of gold, but there's nothing good to buy anyway.

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy

eye of the beholder also has a relatively faithful SNES port (i.e. the dungeon maps are the same), btw, that uses a menu-driven command layout which i find preferable to point-and-click.

it also utilizes the four face buttons of the SNES controller as direct hotkeys for your 4 units (attacking, etc). that's already a step up / upgrade from the DOS version's necessity to click on the portraits.

i should point out however that if your prefernce is strongly tied to the way Grimrock plays it could be very possible that you do not enjoy turn-based blobbers.

yes, there is a lot of overlap in both but in reality they are 2 different sub-genres that concentrate on completely different gameplay systems. for example there are many ppl who love Wiz-clones, like myself, but do not enjoy real-time 1st person 'crawlers like Grimrock or EoB whatsoever.

 

[hackncrazy]

hackncrazy

eye of the beholder also has a relatively faithful SNES port (i.e. the dungeon maps are the same), btw, that uses a menu-driven command layout which i find preferable to point-and-click.

it also utilizes the four face buttons of the SNES controller as direct hotkeys for your 4 units (attacking, etc). that's already a step up / upgrade from the DOS version's necessity to click on the portraits.

i should point out however that if your prefernce is strongly tied to the way Grimrock plays it could be very possible that you do not enjoy turn-based blobbers.

yes, there is a lot of overlap in both but in reality they are 2 different sub-genres that concentrate on completely different gameplay systems. for example there are many ppl who love Wiz-clones, like myself, but do not enjoy real-time 1st person 'crawlers like Grimrock or EoB whatsoever.

I see, thanks for the clarification. I'm gonna start with Dungeon Master or Eye Of The Beholder, and after that I'll try some of the Wizardry games and/or clones to see if the change of pace isn't hurtful to my tastes.

 

[hackncrazy]

Ah, just another thing. I really can`t stand story on videogames. If I can skip without losing important info about the main quest, the best (one of the best features of Grimrock for me is that the story is as simple as it comes and the game is purely made of gameplay).

In this case, does the Wizardry games fit well for my tastes?

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy
i marked that question as funny instead of brofisting it only because Wizardry basically pioneered no-story-only-gameplay in RPGs. there is more story in Eye of the Beholder than there is in a Wizardry game. it made me laugh because there are many people who specifically avoid Wizardry and Wiz-clones (and other dungeon crawlers as well) because they do not emphasize story or narrative and this makes them less RPG-ish in their eyes. (Needless to say I think these people are wrong, and the majority of them ironically do not understand the difference between an RPG and an adventure game).

and, btw, I recommend playing the PS1 remakes of Wizardry 1-5 over the DOS or Apple II releases; the original releases don't feature a soundtrack nor graphics while the PS1 remakes feature both of those things while not changing anything else. If you want to play a Wizardry-clone that is from recent years that is made by japanese ex-Wizardry devs I wholeheartedly recommend also downloading/trying out Elminage: Original on a PSP/emulator as that kind of game, Elminage in particular, serves as a fantastic gateway into Wiz-clones providing the same mechanics that make a turn-based blobber great to play while providing "modern" graphics and sound.

EDIT: or Elminage: Gothic from Steam (Windows PC) if you don't want to bother playing something emulated. it's the most recent Elminage game and the hardest one, and while this makes it my favorite of the series some prefer Elminage: Original because it isn't as hard-core.

 

[hackncrazy]

hackncrazy
i marked that question as funny instead of brofisting it only because Wizardry basically pioneered no-story-only-gameplay in RPGs. there is more story in Eye of the Beholder than there is in a Wizardry game. it made me laugh because there are many people who specifically avoid Wizardry and Wiz-clones (and other dungeon crawlers as well) because they do not emphasize story or narrative and this makes them less RPG-ish in their eyes. (Needless to say I think these people are wrong, and the majority of them ironically do not understand the difference between an RPG and an adventure game).

and, btw, I recommend playing the PS1 remakes of Wizardry 1-5 over the DOS or Apple II releases; the original releases don't feature a soundtrack nor graphics while the PS1 remakes feature both of those things while not changing anything else. If you want to play a Wizardry-clone that is from recent years that is made by japanese ex-Wizardry devs I wholeheartedly recommend also downloading/trying out Elminage: Original on a PSP/emulator as that kind of game, Elminage in particular, serves as a fantastic gateway into Wiz-clones providing the same mechanics that make a turn-based blobber great to play while providing "modern" graphics and sound.

EDIT: or Elminage: Gothic from Steam (Windows PC) if you don't want to bother playing something emulated. it's the most recent Elminage game and the hardest one, and while this makes it my favorite of the series some prefer Elminage: Original because it isn't as hard-core.

Thanks a lot for your answer. Is funny to me how you say about people thinking that that games non-story driven can't be RPGs. Because, let's be honest: A great, amazing, beloved written game can't stand even a B or C movie or book in terms of quality or writing.

So, I'm all in for gameplay. I've seen someone replying along the thread that the CRPGs over here are just "Dungeon after dungeon after dungeon". I mean, if this dungeons have nice puzzles, are well made, have nice fights, and are fun to map/uncover, why would we need to go to a shitty village and talk to 25 NPCs that doesn't say anything important?

Anyway, to each his own. I know that what drives my love for games is purely gameplay. One of the features that makes me love the Souls series so much is that I finished every single one of them at least 10 times and I don't have the slightest idea about why do you have to face Gwyn, or kill Kalameet, or use the Storm Ruler. And even with this, I have tons of fun with (which is I play videogames, after all).

Edit: As a matter of fact, I have my good old PSP over here, which was only being use to play Castlevania SOTN in the last few months. I'm gonna take Elminage Original in it and the PSX versions of Wizardry 1-5!

 

[aweigh]

here is some dungeon gameplay from elminage: gothic that shoes a puzzle from a mid-game dungeon called The Royal Tomb that i recorded:


theoretically i believe you can easily convert ps1 .iso's into PSP compatible ones so you can play wizardry 1-5 on there two. the ps1 remakes are divided in two releases, one that contains Wizardry 1-3 and one that contains Wizardry 4 and 5.

- both ps1 collections are in japanese AND also in english. you have to change the game's language output to English in the game's menus.

here is a video (not mine) of some random gameplay and music from the Wizardry 5 remake on ps1:


the two collections also provide the option of playing them with original Wireframe graphics (no textures or polygons only white lines) or playing them with the polygonal graphics; here is a video i recorded of me playing the ps1 remake of Wizardry 1 in Wireframe mode:

(the very beginning of the video shows me changing the language options to english if you need a reference)

CryptRat

perhaps cryptrat can give you some recommendations to play as far as real-time blobbers are concerned.

 

[hackncrazy]

here is some dungeon gameplay from elminage: gothic that shoes a puzzle from a mid-game dungeon called The Royal Tomb that i recorded:


theoretically i believe you can easily convert ps1 .iso's into PSP compatible ones so you can play wizardry 1-5 on there two. the ps1 remakes are divided in two releases, one that contains Wizardry 1-3 and one that contains Wizardry 4 and 5.

- both ps1 collections are in japanese AND also in english. you have to change the game's language output to English in the game's menus.

here is a video (not mine) of some random gameplay and music from the Wizardry 5 remake on ps1:


the two collections also provide the option of playing them with original Wireframe graphics (no textures or polygons only white lines) or playing them with the polygonal graphics; here is a video i recorded of me playing the ps1 remake of Wizardry 1 in Wireframe mode:

(the very beginning of the video shows me changing the language options to english if you need a reference)

CryptRat

perhaps cryptrat can give you some recommendations to play as far as real-time blobbers are concerned.

Holy shit, man!

After watching your video of Elminage Gothic I totally NEED to play this game.

That feeling that your video passed, of being trapped in a dungeon that is a puzzle itself is exactly what I'm looking for. And as for the battles, the little bits I could see looked like the standard JRPG type, which I can enjoy if it have depth enough to require that a player develop strategies to overcome harder enemies.

But the atmosphere itself of Elminage looks really amazing.


Also, from the Wizardry 5 video you showed, something surprised me: The map screen. This feature is only present on PSX, right? I mean, I can't see an 80's game having an automap function (even though I don't care for it at all...I really like to draw my own maps and make notes on them, it is just out of curiosity that I ask).


And thanks for the reference on how to translate the Psx Wiz games, I'll certainly use it in english. As for the wireframe view, I think it looks a bit limited in terms of field of view, I think I'd be easily lost in there.

Finally, let me ask you something totally off topic: I've seen you have a bunch of Auto HotKey scripts on your desktop...do you know how can you bind some key to the numpad of the keyboard?

Let's say I want to bind the letter S to the numpad 1.

Generally, I use "s:something)", but I need this something to be numpad 1 and I've tried different things and couldn't do it.

 

[CryptRat]

CryptRat

perhaps cryptrat can give you some recommendations to play as far as real-time blobbers are concerned.

There's nothing I can add after felipepepe's post, but I can reiterate that Dungeon Master is particularly good, more fun than most if not all of its followers.

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy

elminage battles (and wizardry battles, for that matter) definitely feature depth. lots of character classes, multi-classing options available for later on, different races to choose from, 100-200 weapons, armor and accessories and misc. items to be looted or gained in battle; these are all staples of Wiz-clones (and wizardry games of course). in fact, replaying wizardry games (and elminage games) comes mostly from a desire to continue trying out different party compositions of different classes and different races.

of course this is assuming the player enjoys the turn-based combat. i should point out that historically speaking all real-time blobbers were born from a desire to make a real-time version of wizardry (wizardry debuted in 1981 if i'm not mistaken, while dungeon master is from 1985); with a stronger emphasis on puzzle solving inside dungeons and a change from turn-based spreadsheed gameplay over to real-time combat.

as for the auto-map you mention, yeah, none of the wizardry games featured an auto-map until Wizardry 7 (although wiz 6 received a pseudo-auto-map feature added in for later versions, along with being the first game to receive mouse support). the auto-map from the ps1 remakes can be turned off in the options.

as far as dungeon difficulty goes not all are of the same caliber: for example the dungeons in elminage: gothic are far more devilish than the ones in elminage: original specifically because they aimed at doing a hard-core wizardry-style game with 1980's level of difficulty; whereas elminage: original is basically the same type of game but just a tiny bit easier (less devilish dungeons for starters). it's all good though, i consider both games to be the best turn-based 'crawlers outside of classic Wizardry.

as far as the elminage devs actual wizardry games IMO they made the single best wizardry game ever made with wizardry empire 2 which rpgcodex members MrRichard999 and Helly translated into english. you can get a .zip of wizardry empire 2 here: http://frd.li/e362b9a95a05adf0

as for the most recent english patch for it check their thread on this very JRPG forum about the game. thread title literally says "wizardry empire 2 translation", etc.

basically, in my honest opinion, i've never played better or more devilish dungeons than the ones in Wizardry Empire 2. the game doesn't require installation just downloading that zip, which is like 120mb, unzipping it and replacing the .exe with the most recent one from the translation thread. i recommend reading that thread btw, and it would probably serve you much better as an introduction to a traditional Wizardry game than jumping straight into wiz 1-5 as wizardry empire 2 was basically wizardry's last hurrah coming out from japanese devs (same ones who are now doing Elminage) way back in 2001, one year after Wizardry 8 was released in the west.

once you begin playing wiz empire 2 you will be astonished at how amazing its dungeon design is and how well it plays and how it is such a natural evolution of classic wizardry mechanics while having come out barely a year after Wizardry 8 from the western branch of devs; while Wiz 8 is a fine RPG in its own right it is by no means a good wizardry title or a good dungeon crawler. in fact, i don't think wiz 8 even features dungeon crawling at all!

so my recommendations are:

- elminage gothic (available on steam and on GOG; officially localized into english)
- wizardry empire 2 (not available anywhere at all except on japanese auction sites and long out of print; recently fan-translated into english)

so go ahead and click dat link if ya want an introduction to a wizardry game, hehe.

 

[aweigh]

for binding keys use this key map from the auto hotkey website:
https://autohotkey.com/docs/KeyList.htm

to bind S to the the numpad's 1 is...

S::Numpad1

I use autohotkey a lot because these blobbers from japanese devs, especialyl old ones like wizardry empire 2 which i just linked for you above, don't allow keyboard remapping. elminage: gothic does though because it is much more recent (by almost 15 years, heh).

also sometimes you want to do something which an emulator's key config won't allow such as binding numpad Enter as the "X" controller key which for whatever reason ePSXe wasn't allowing me to do. it let me bind X to "ENTER" but not not the numpad Enter which is what i prefer to use as my Confirm Key in these games; so i had to map it to SPACEBAR inside ePSXe and then in an Autohotkey script map ePSXe's SPACEBAR over to NumpadEnter key.

Here is some video of just how "devilish" a wizardry empire 2 dungeon can get:


to be fair tho, that bullshit you see in that video is not original to that game; the wall-bombs first debuted in Wizardry 4.

 

[hackncrazy]

Wow, thanks a lot for the link..I'm totally interested in playing Wiz Empire 2 and already downloaded it (along with the last patch).

The recent discovery of this games makes me feel like a child discovering the world again. I mean, during my teenage years I've always heard about Might & Magic games and Wizardry (mainly Wiz 8) but never gave them the attention they deserved. Just after I discovered Grimrock is that I realized that the 1st person dungeon crawling genre (or blobber as you call over here) can offer a lot of fun.

Let me ask you something (I hope I'm not abusing of your good will over here): I've read along the thread (still couldn't keep up and read it and it's entirety) someone saying about Wizardry 4 being the hardest game on the series and probably the hardest game ever made. And yet you spoke about how devilish is Wizardry Empire 2 (by the way, the video made me curious: when you entered the dark zone, your map stopped "working"?), so, in comparison with Wizardry 4 (and the other games in the series), it is on the same level of difficulty?

And thanks for the tips on the AutoHotKey. I was pretty sure I already tried to use the S::Numpad1, but maybe I got the capital letter wrong or something like this. This is going to be very useful for me!

Edit: Just to picture what I said about the difficulty, I saw this map from Wizardry 4:

And it looks like one of the most evil things a human being can make, with rotating floor, one way walls and such. Is this example a "child's play" map or it is indeed a devilish creation?

 

[Emmanuel2]

Wow, thanks a lot for the link..I'm totally interested in playing Wiz Empire 2 and already downloaded it (along with the last patch).

The recent discovery of this games makes me feel like a child discovering the world again. I mean, during my teenage years I've always heard about Might & Magic games and Wizardry (mainly Wiz 8) but never gave them the attention they deserved. Just after I discovered Grimrock is that I realized that the 1st person dungeon crawling genre (or blobber as you call over here) can offer a lot of fun.

Let me ask you something (I hope I'm not abusing of your good will over here): I've read along the thread (still couldn't keep up and read it and it's entirety) someone saying about Wizardry 4 being the hardest game on the series and probably the hardest game ever made. And yet you spoke about how devilish is Wizardry Empire 2 (by the way, the video made me curious: when you entered the dark zone, your map stopped "working"?), so, in comparison with Wizardry 4 (and the other games in the series), it is on the same level of difficulty?

And thanks for the tips on the AutoHotKey. I was pretty sure I already tried to use the S::Numpad1, but maybe I got the capital letter wrong or something like this. This is going to be very useful for me!

Edit: Just to picture what I said about the difficulty, I saw this map from Wizardry 4:

Spoiler

And it looks like one of the most evil things a human being can make, with rotating floor, one way walls and such. Is this example a "child's play" map or it is indeed a devilish creation?

Wizardry 4 is the undisputed (well, for me and even I have yet to touch it) hardest Wizardry entries. You don't level in a traditional way, you can only have a party of presets, and the enemies you encounter are actual player-made parties that cleared the first games which are all farmed up, ready to stick blade cuisinarts in your body, ninjas ready to behead you and mages to annihilate your entire party with Tiltowaits.

Maps in Wiz Emp 2 (and in Elminage gothic) still work inside Dark zones.

As for that Wiz4 map, yes, it's a very evil creation made by the devil himself. Example of child's play are most of the maps in Stranger of Sword City.

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy

yeah whenever i talk about a crawlers dungeons it's with the assumption that everyone knows that Wizardry 4 is set aside. wiz 4 is in its own league and will never, ever again be duplicated in terms of "devilishness". there is no competition. and, btw, this is not all complimentary: the game is simply too punishing and obtuse for its own good.

but if you want to play the most ridiculously hellish dungeons ever then yeah, by all means go play wizardry 4 and luckily for everybody who wants to do this we can play it with a bombastic and brassy orchestral score that is incredibly effective and with excellent, PS1-era polygonal graphics in the ps1 remake (contained in the disc called "New Age of Llylgamyn").

even the first puzzle of the very first room you originate in when you start the game is practically unsolvable except for already firmly established Wizardry fanatics, and even then it's incredibly obtuse. i didn't get it on the first try simply because i assumed the game wouldn't be so... obtuse about it. (in the game's original print run they had to include a hint sheet with the solution for the 1st room puzzle because when they released the game they realized nobody would solve it).

i would not call the 1st room puzzle smart or well designed either. it is just fucking o-b-t-u-s-e.

EDIT:

- it also contains other fun things like a ghost that is chasing you right from the beginning of the game and moves a step whenever you move a step and if it touches you it is instant game over.

- all encounters respawn when you reload a game so the game effectively punishes you for not solving a floor in 1 run.

- an example of just how punishing the game can get is one floor which is simply a giant minefield and there is only 1 correct route through it; and each encounter can easily wipe your party if you're not playing smart and will respawn if you save and quit, and of course, there's a goddamn fucking ghost chasing you the entire time.

have fun!

 

[hackncrazy]

Hahaha I've just asked out of curiosity, I'm not planning to play it very soon...gonna start with the simpler ones first.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the help and for your amazing thread. I discovered a lot of new games to play over here.

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

I'm starting college tomorrow, and the cute lil' netbook I got for the purpose can't handle most games, but DOS stuff is fine, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to dive into the Wizardry games. My dungeon-crawler experience pretty much begins and ends with Labyrinth of Touhou (which I love very much, mind), so this is probably going to be a bit of a trial by fire, but I've got squared paper and a ten-coloured pen, and I'm ready to go. This thread has me pretty hyped for it, honestly.

 

[hackncrazy]

I'm starting college tomorrow, and the cute lil' netbook I got for the purpose can't handle most games, but DOS stuff is fine, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to dive into the Wizardry games. My dungeon-crawler experience pretty much begins and ends with Labyrinth of Touhou (which I love very much, mind), so this is probably going to be a bit of a trial by fire, but I've got squared paper and a ten-coloured pen, and I'm ready to go. This thread has me pretty hyped for it, honestly.

Honestly, this thread is a little gem.

I've had an account over here for over a year now and never had posted anything. By chance I discovered this thread and was amazed with the amount of info and the love people show for the blobbers.

As soon as I finish some games I had already started (Ys Seven and Slain: Back From Hell), I'm gonna dive into some Wizardry and Might and Magic. Already bought a ton of grid paper to have some good time.

 

[desocupado]

aweigh, how do you increase your carrying capacity in elminage gothic? A fully equiped char only has one single slot for carrying items found on chests, and we're not even talking about sheephair brush and magic map and alchemy ores.

Also, about meeting the stats for a class change, do you have any way of raising them, other than at random at lvl ups?