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

[Courtier]

Fair enough. While inspired by Wizardry, it's a different system altogether. The variety of skills and builds available means you can easily end up with a poorly balanced party, but you can rest to reset skillpoints at the cost of a few levels. I think it encourages you to experiment with different party compositions, knowing a ''standard'' one (heavy warrior or two, healer, mage, miscellaneous) will always work. Also interesting is how every game in this series only allows you five partymembers (occasional guest as sixth). This always rubbed me the wrong way. I hear the developers did this expressly so that you'd never have a traditional ''complete'' party and would have to pick carefully.

Protip: Prince/Princess autorecovery skills make the early game a cakewalk. Also, characters not in the party will still gain exp if you give them the combat study general skill (!)

 

[Siveon]

Heh, all this talk about EO3 makes me wish/wait for an EOU3.

Btw, anyone play Unchained Blades for the 3DS? What's that all about?

 

[aweigh]

yeah after i became dissatisfied with my combat efficiency i did the forum research i should have done BEFORE playing through the first two dungeons completely and found out just how utterly retarded nearly all of my choices had been.

i had pumped tons of points into the monk's unarmed skill tree. (lewl)

i had pumped tons of points into the ninja's evasion skill tree (lewl) and into the bucaneer's (double lewl) lucky strike skill tree (triple lewl) AND to top it off I was using all three characters as my FRONT ROW (quadruple lewl) AND (AND! AND!) i had gone with the bucaneer's rapier skill tree instead of rifles (#$%#$^$%^$%^$ lewl).

oh, i haven't even mentioned that after I "wised" up and decided to pump my monk's healing spells skill trees i foolishly decided to REALLY pump it; so much so that I effectively trapped my lone healer out of being able to effectively heal more than once per battle since his healing spells' TP usage had far outgrown his natural character's MP growth. (this is actually a very legitimate complaint someone could lodge against the games' mechanics, btw).

the exact same thing happened with my elementalist's spells; i also foolishly decided to pump all of her initial points into her fire spell skill tree thinking, "WELL I WANT STUFF TO GO BOOM RITE SO POINTS HERE", and just like with the monk by the time the second dungeon rolled around i had effectively trapped her out of being able to use more than 1 spell per battle due to the spell's skill tree increasing the TP usage far beyond her natural character's MP growth.

that's pretty much when i decided i would quit playing the game. i will play an EO game again, perhaps/probably EO 3 again, and this time i am going to fucking skull-rape every single floor of every single fucking dungeon. the series is GOOD. i am not disputing any of this.

the series is NOT, i repeat... the series is NOT "intuitive" to a legitimately first-time player jumping into it like i did; however as i mentioned in previous posts it is GOOD ENOUGH that despite that experience i had it did not make me write off the series at all and instead made me realize the things *I* had done wrong and what *I* could do to have a better/complete playthrough next time. the only reason i haven't done so is simply because i've gotten caught up playing a lot of other dungeon-crawler RPG's that i have never played before.

tl;dr: the main reason i came away from eo 3 with a complaint about "too much grind" is because i made a bad party and i had to work harder to do simple stuff than non-retard players.

 

[aweigh]

btw some quick positive things i really enjoyed about my brief time with eo 3:

- the many, many spots inside dungeons with special events that could lead to a myriad of scenarios such as gear/loot, traps or simply an unexpected rest (i.e. impromptu camping area). i found the descriptions incredibly lovely and based solely on my limited experience navigating dungeons in dungeon-crawlers (arcana/wiz6/wiz8/elminage-gothic/elminage-original/classofheroes2) the three dungeons i played through in eo 3 are EASILY the most memorable ones.

- i think i mentioned this briefly in a previous post but eo 3 (and obviously i assume the rest of the eo series) features what i've come to find to be the #1 most important thing needed for a turn-based dungeon-crawler to be enjoyable: FAST PACED TURN-BASED COMBAT THAT IS EASY TO LEARN BUT HARD TO MASTER. one crawler i put on the back-burner after an initial bumpy start was The Dark Spire for the NDS simply because even with the message speed turned up to the fastest setting you still have to press the Confirm key after every attack description. the game doesn't automatically continue it's verbose text descriptions by itself like anyone would assume; i ended up getting fed up of mashing the Confirm button repeatedly around the 3rd floor of the the dark spire's Tower. such a simple thing isn't it? but in a game/genre where you are literally doing mostly one thing, FIGHTING, you better make DAMN FUCKING SURE the player can get through fights smoothly! sorry the dark spire! i'll get back to you when DESMUME adds a TURBO FIRE key.

- the graphics. the art. the music. everything evoked memories of SNES jrpg's i grew up playing coupled with these "newfangled" "wizardry-type stuff" i've begun to enjoy to the exclusion of all other RPG mechanics.

i don't think there's any going back for me now. i'm completely obsessed with the type of gameplay found in wizardry games and ALL of its possible derivatives. a few months ago i was busy pouring my heart and soul into hundreds of hours playing Pillars of Eternity and eagerly awaiting The White March Part 2.

now i couldn't possibly care less. i want to play and finish all of the wizardry SNES ports (wee i'm a graphics whore, suck it purists); i want to play and finish all of the EO games; i want to play and finish GXTH: Code Hazard; and i've gone from fantasizing about Numenara being released and in my hands to fantasizing about either knowing japanese or someone translating the rest of the Generation XTH / Elminage / Wizardry games. i literally can't imagine ever again enjoying such simplistic trash as something like pillars of eternity when there are such incredibly mechanically sound and addictive RPGs out there like the Elminage series.

i spent the entire day today at work doing research on my what my 7th dragon party's gonna be. i'm trying to build up my dungeon crawler muscles before eventually tackling the labyrinth of touhou which from what all i've read seems to be the most tactical and demanding one available for me/us/people/humans to play in english. if crooked bee says it's good and hard then it's got to be.

i credit also crooked bee's absolutely fantastic and possibly life-changing LP of wizardry 4 as a major influence in my stepping outside my comfort zones. i think crooked bee's LP/historical analysis/thesis of wizardry 4 is quite simply the best and most academic and entertaining writing done not only ABOUT a video game but also... ABOUT a video game. by the time you finish reading that masterpiece of a thread you will feel elated and euphoric and will also have a new and deeper understanding not only of wizardry 4 as a game but of the psychology behind the genre and the mechanics that power it and most interestingly of all; a deeper understanding of the crazy, crazy mind behind the main developer of wizardry 4 and his relationship and friendly rivalry with lord british the creator of the ultima series.

please, do yourselves a favor and go read that LP.

 

[aweigh]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-play-wizardry-4.70586/

Summer, lock the thread.

 

[Courtier]

a few months ago i was busy pouring my heart and soul into hundreds of hours playing Pillars of Eternity and eagerly awaiting The White March Part 2.

now i couldn't possibly care less. i want to play and finish all of the wizardry SNES ports (wee i'm a graphics whore, suck it purists); i want to play and finish all of the EO games; i want to play and finish GXTH: Code Hazard; and i've gone from fantasizing about Numenara being released and in my hands to fantasizing about either knowing japanese or someone translating the rest of the Generation XTH / Elminage / Wizardry games. i literally can't imagine ever again enjoying such simplistic trash as something like pillars of eternity when there are such incredibly mechanically sound and addictive RPGs out there like the Elminage series.

Brought a tear to my eye. JRPG forum is where the casuals of today become the grizzled veterans of tomorrow.

 

[Hirato]

AAAAAAAAANYWAY what about persona Q from the EO makers? worth playing?

It's alright, they made a lot of nice improvements to the mapping mechanic.
It's not nearly as much fun as Etrian Odyssey 4 though. The main reasons being that the first 3 dungeons are simplistic and only serve as a very prolonged warmup for the 4th and 5th ones, and that enemies have a tonne of HP bloat.
The last one is sort of understandable because the HP and MP of your persona is a temporary bonus you receive every battle, so if you don't fully expend it, you basically consumed no resources.
You'll want to grab abilities like mamudo and mahama (and higher tiers like mamudoon and samsara) at the third dungeon at the very latest.
Your character's base skills also become prohibitively expensive to use after some level ups, and quite annoyingly, much less effective than regular attacks, even when the enemy is weak to that element.

 

[aweigh]

some random quotes from CB's wiz4 lp:

"The feather is the Dreampainter Ka. "Ka" is the Ancient Egyptian concept of the vital spark, breathed into each person at the moment of their birth, the part of the soul which makes them be alive and also a person's "double" that travels into the spirit realm during dreams or out-of-body experiences related to the divine realm or the underworld. The feather also alludes to the "Weighing of the Heart" ceremony, a trial in the afterlife where if the heart weighed more than a single feather of Maat (the personification of truth and justice), it was consumed by the man-eating monster Ammit. A person's Ka had thus to be in perfect balance with Maat.

There is one further oracle clue related to this: "Seek the Dreampainter's soul". Well, we've just found and taken it. Does it mean the god is now dead? Not really, he'll respawn.

Apart from being a key item, the Dreampainter's Ka, in keeping with its "life force" nature, casts Madi when used, which is a 6th tier Priest spells restoring all hit points to the caster. It is extremely helpful, particularly in the heat of the battle."

and

"A bell, a book, and a candle. Sounds familiar? In Ultima IV, a game on which Roe Adams worked as well (he collaborated with Garriott in designing the system of Virtues, and was the official scribe of the History of Britannia), you were required to read from the Book of Truth, light the Candle of Love and ring the Bell of Courage to enter the Abyss and recover the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. A similar procedure showed up in Zork and Nethack, the original source being the Catholic excommunication ceremony.

Anyway, let's have a go at entering the Abyss. What harm could it possibly do?"

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Have you played Strange Journey yet Aweigh?

 

[aweigh]

i started it a few weeks ago and gave it an initial time-sink of about 5 hours' worth. it did not hook me; but at the same time i did not dislike the game. it's very slow-paced and the never-endngin introduction didn't help any.

still i was able to recognize definite qualities that were good and legit so i put it on the back-burner for after i'm completely burnt out on elminage and now generation xth.

i have to say though the music is fucking AMAZING. i'll probably give it a real playthrough right after i'm done with generation xth.

edit: to be precise the extent that i played was getting the starter faery (with her cute wizardry-named healing spells, oh SMT series) and recruited knocker and a zombie and cleared the first "floor".

 

[Viata]

Here is all the games I have installed in my pc that I wish to finish(and re-finish some) in 2016. I do love Dungeon Crawler/First person RPG. I'm already at Wizardry 4(because I was doing Wizardry marathon):

Took me the whole day to configure every game(that is a rom using a emulator) to run as soon as I click them(couldn't do with PS1, but it opens the games folder so that's good) and to make icon for each one.

 

[Siveon]

I don't think I could stomach all that raw content/wapanese, but damn that is impressive.

Curious, you included the SNES ports of Wizardry VI even when you have the original with you. Any particular reason?

 

[Viata]

The original is for when I'm going to do a run using the same characters on the 3(vi, vii, viii) games. The snes version is because I've never played it. There's even the VII for PS1 there. I love Wizardry, so playing them with different graphics feels like playing a "new game" for me.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Viata

What's your top 3 in the genre?

 

[Viata]

Viata

What's your top 3 in the genre?

I'll avoid using more than 1 wizardry game(so that it's not 3 wizardry games):

1- Wizardry 1. Okay. It's not the best in the series(7 is the best for me, but at least 1 is better than Wizardry 3), but it was the first I played and that was on PS1(the version with 2 and 3 together). In my country, everyone had a modded ps1 and you could buy pirated game everywhere, so it was not strange to be playing japanese game here. I loved the simplicity of making a party and going to this dark place to get lost while trying to win battles and to not die by opening treasures. When I discovered I could let most of the game in English, it was just some days to understand that Thief could examine treasures for traps. Ironically, it took me a long time to decide I should map the game so I didn't get lost everytime. I think that not having dialogues or a big plot was what made me love this game, I was able to enjoy it without feeling like I was missing something for not being able to understand the plot like any other rpg.

2- Shin Megami Tensei 2. I love mythology and this series used it in a great way. I like how every enemy is from a mythology/fairy tale instead of the generic enemies in rpgs. But what sold it for me was being able to talk with demons, negotiate and have them join you/attack you based on what you say. 2 had everything that made 1 great, but made it better and bigger. The plot was pretty good compared to any jrpg I had played so far and the first one that allow me to beat abrahamic god himself and that was good. Using demons in your party was what make the game better for me, as I always made party based in mythologic beings I admire and whatnot. I'd say SMT 1 is top for being the first in the SMT series, but this one is bigger, has you fighting god, angels, satan and even make a naked demon became a goddess of love and fertility.

3 - Generation Xth. To be fair, this was hard to decide. I avoided Wizardry games, so it removes a lot of great games and there is also some I have not played yet(Strange of Sword City, Labyrinth of Touhou and Class of Heroes being the most important ones) so this will be more like a placeholder until I have played them and see if they are better(going by Bee, Labyrinth of Touhou is great). This was the first Wizardry clone in futuristic setting I have played. I really wish more games use futuristic setting in a non-cyberpunk way. Don't get me wrong, I love cyberpunk but I want different things takes places in futuristic setting too. Still, this game is not that futuristic and besides some things here and there, it looks pretty much like current day japan, but compared to fantasy settings, this was a new thing for me(in the dungeon crawler genre) so I enjoyed the scenary. Generation xth is as faithful to Wizardry as they come, no fun allowed, hard and if you go expecting easy jrpg game, you'll be dead way too fast. The only thing I find bad in this game is how badly is your character pose in the status menu. They should have used a better pose, not this.

After I have played them all, I'll know if the third place is for any of those new games or not.

 

[aweigh]

wiz 6 for the snes is a near identical port mechanically. none of the mazes were changed, no npc was changed or left out or added for that matter; encounters come in the same sizes feature the same enemy groupings. even the loot drops just the same.

no skills were left out and nothing was truncated. you get a handy automap and quick-save built in along with much better graphics and frankly a much better input configuration: playing it on an emulator using only the keyboard the game plays fast as fuck. there is absolutely no need for a mouse or clicking anything: that only slows down selecting commands.

i refuse to play it with a joypad though. it's a psychological thing.

edit: i'm crunching through GXTH 1 right now and i decided to play through the the Beginner's Brush dungeon of Class of Heroes to gauge for myself which of the two i should spend my time on and actually finish the game. tl;dr Generation XTH is more for people who enjoy wiz 1-5 / elminage series and CoH is for people who really dig some of the elements present in more recent japanese crawlers, SPECIFICALLY etrian odyssey. and no, i'm not referring to the anime art.

both are good, but i decided i prefer GXTH1 over CoH; although i'll play 'em both anyway eventually.

for my money (and limited exposure) i'd say the best rpg crawlers are:

1. elminage gothic (fuck you all it's amazing and it's truer to the wizardry DNA than wizardry itself after the sixth game). in the same breath i include elminage original (though far, far inferior to gothic) and from what i've played of GXTH 1 so far i see no problem recommending it in the same sentence. it's basically elminage's little brother.

2. a toss-up between wizardry scenario 3 and wizardry 5 heart of the mealstrom. i have finished wiz 5, and am i dunno about 30-35 percent through wiz scenario 3 right now. it is truly amazing how true elminage is to the wizardry core; you can switch between those games at any moment and play them with the exact same skill set and exact same mind set.

3. the dark spire on 3ds. absolutely the most punishing and most difficult game of this genre i've played so far. i'm almost surprised they didn't implement limited amount of footsteps just to round out the package. this fucking game is no joke. the entire game is basically on the level of elminage gothic's post-game 20f Ibag Tower but... with less hand-holding. heh. it deliberately abuses most of wizardry's classic player traps and and then waterboards you for fucking playing it. the options screen lets you switch the graphics to vector lines, btw. the mapping system forces you to either manually graph out the dungoen or use the 3ds to do it. they don't fuck around with the map. although i only mentioned how unwelcoming it might seem the game has a ton of subtle innovations that spring forth quite organically from its unabashed wiz 1-5 core mechanics.

the warrior class can always do a regular attack or, you can choose to thrust, lunge, charge wildly or aim precisely. each one changes the hidden turn order of your attack and modifies both you and the recipients corresponding combat modifiers.

sure, wiz did it first, but TDS improved on this. and that's just a small bit of the game. you can cast spells carefully to increase the chance of landing a disable, but obviously it'll fire off later in the turn order and also leave you wide open to a spell breach/barrier/interrupt being utilized by the intended recipient before yours goes off; or do a "standard" cast or do a "frantically cast the spell" and hope for the best. making wild decisions like that really add a lot of flavor to the encounters.

now, as for the tl;dr version if someone were to ask me NOW what encapsulates an rpg with 100% perfect mechanics i'd just say wizardries 1 through 5. before bradley's spaceship landed COMPLETELY instead of just being part of the team.

 

[getter77]

Always worth noting that whatever devil's bargain wrought Dark Spire into existence---the outstanding boon above all others for it is the original soundtrack which absolutely trounces most others in this wizardry/crawler niche. Absolutely nailing that element of the game instead of just falling into the lazy traps that are ambient and "pop" is something that more projects would do well to strive for---as this style of game needs every feather in the cap that can be mustered to get people to spend time on them to discover the goodness within and raw potential thereof.

 

[Nostaljaded]

...configure every game(that is a rom using a emulator) to run as soon as I click them(couldn't do with PS1, but it opens the games folder so that's good)...

For the completionist in you, retroarch works with direct commandline rom loading, so just paired it with mednafen psx core.
Just have to mess with cue sheets to point to the image file.
Not sure whether it's my eyes acting up, your wallpaper looks to be vertically squashed.

 

[aweigh]

yeah te TDS ost is PERFECT for a dungeon crawler. the battle tracks alone are masterfully edited and composed. the shorter the battle the more simple and generic the thumping, electronic melody and beats are but as the encounter continues, most always due to the enemies putting up a real fight and you having to stop and make hard tactical decisions, so does the very same track start subtly changing until by about the 1:20 second mark it completely lets loose into something fucking awesome beats and arrangements.

the boss music is also great. but it's laid out as such right from the start so it's a bit less "interesting" than the couple of normal battle tracks. even after each "section" or "movement" from the standard intitial battle track you STILL find yourself a bit surprised when it starts going through its several changes in rhythm the longer the battle goes on. some good editing work there.

the rest of the normal ambient tracks that accompany each floor are servicable, and yes they ARE quite good (much better than a lot of other stuff that's for sure) but they don't hold a candle to Paper Sorcerer's soundtrack. TDS wins the battle music but PS is hands-down the dungoen crawler with the best music overall and ESPECIALLY in terms of serving up a thematic ambience for the floor your're in.



that's the very first track that plays as soon as you escape your jail cell and begin to explore the 1f.

 

[Viata]

...configure every game(that is a rom using a emulator) to run as soon as I click them(couldn't do with PS1, but it opens the games folder so that's good)...

For the completionist in you, retroarch works with direct commandline rom loading, so just paired it with mednafen psx core.
Just have to mess with cue sheets to point to the image file.
Not sure whether it's my eyes acting up, your wallpaper looks to be vertically squashed.

I'll look into this retroarch and mednafen, thanks. And yeah, it's because that is for my second monitor, which is 1366x768, while the image is 1280x896.

 

[Courtier]

 

[Siveon]

"Welcome to where you'll spend 40% of the game"

 

[aweigh]

that shit made me laugh out loud hah.

and sheeet both fucking comments are motherfucking true. Siveon/courtier: i've actually put down GXTH1 for a lil' bit cos i spend more fucking time endlessly identifying crap loot and then going to the academy and endlessly putting all the loot inside my databank and then proceed to the Ritual Of Unequipment one by one so the fucking game will let me develop my gear and not yell at me SHITS EQUIPPED NIGGA SLOW DAT ROLL aaaaaaand theennnn beginning the ritual of going through the develop > databank's 200 categories and checking visually to see what weapons/armor i have stashed away that i can equip now that my party's 1 level higher, etc, etc.

oh, and visually checking the 2 million Junk Weapons / Junk Armors inside the databank to see what will be usable in 1 or 2 levels so i can develop right then and there and put it in the corresponding character's inventory so i don't fucking just plain forget abut that piece of gear when i DO reach the required level.

tl;dr level-gated gear is a crime against humanity and literally the ONLY legitimate knock on the Generation XTH 1 game. Also another knock on class of heroes 2 (haven't played 1) but the alchemy interface (while even more bloated in comparison) at least lets you do shit much faster than in GXTH1 so it ends up being more streamlined.

seriously level-gated gear is fucking atrocious uuuggghh.

 

[aweigh]

My team's finally reaching machine-like efficiency! Here's my super-duper detailed map of 1f of the Maze in Wizardry 3, which i'm enjoying MUUUCH more than Wiz1 or Wiz2. (Wiz3 really ramped up the difficulty!). Also a video of the wrecking crew killing a chicken.

 

[Courtier]

We're guest-starring in the real deal :D

About Operation Abyss: I'm now 15 hours in (actually got the LE on release) and have a couple of gripes with it. Changing classes was altered from Xth and made useless. When you classchange, unity is reset and you lose all spells and HP from other classes (i.e. you can't cycle classes to get more spells). They couldn't license the Jap voices (understandable I suppose), so you get a couple of rejected bargain bin American VAs from the local McDonalds instead. I turned all voices off.

I like the Demon Gaze-style art, but it's not faithful to the original in many respects. Everybody is moe now. All the adults look like 17-year old bishie supermodels (except the teacher who covers for you is now a crazy-eyed fat Bill Cosby). Nono, the spider-legged gimp abomination composed of breasts which shot disembodied tits at you, was changed into a wide-hipped waifu. The lost curry-loving soldier was changed into a little girl. Changes in dialogue and the story give it a different feel to the original. It's still fun, but a little PG-13.

Exploration is very fast and smooth, and there are minor improvements for a lot of things. Seeing aweigh's complaints above, I have to say crafting is made easier here because you can freely move gear, boost and strip it while it's still equipped, and identify from a couple different menus. Everything is just quicker in general. There's a new mechanic in the form of a Danger Level which shows up in the upper left of your screen. The longer you stay in the dungeon without fleeing from combat, the higher it gets. This increases the encounter rate, monster levels, and appearance of boss monsters. I really like it because it makes even the early dungeons scary, and as soon as you get free rein to go explore Babel you can end up lost in dark+no-map zones with max DL fighting monsters twice your level. Erection achieved.