I will assert that the PS1 ports are the way to go. Half of Wizardry is navigating the dungeons, and that's much easier on the PS1 version, as there's much smoother movements from square to square. It comes with an auto-map if you're into that. It's also much simpler to recover from your whole party being teleported into the wall on the final floor, as they couldn't implement autosave with the PS1's slow memory card. The main advantage of Wiz on SNES is better looking artwork, and simpler performance requirements. I was still able to emulate PS1 Wiz on my phone though, so it's not that big of a deal.
Here's my old notes:
Read the manual (especially for spell descriptions, which you’ll
need). There’s a mechanics guide online that can help significantly (
http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/walk/w123calc.htm ).
Don't worry about stats too much. Stats only really much difference at the high and low ends. If you really want to get the stats to roll samurais, but don't want to spend forever re-rolling, remember that Cheat Engine works on emulators.
Casting your group-wide spells before the enemy moves (agility) matters a
lot in Wizardry-style games. Make sure you have a thief (opens chests), cleric (heals and fixes status ailments), and mage (gets some nice group spells, particularly the last one); and you'll want some front liners; 3 samurais is probably optimal.
Actually, in the beginning, you might want to have another mage instead of a thief, and change him to a thief later (mind the stat requirements); the loot you get in the first floors all sucks, and by the time you're strong enough to venture deeper, you can bring a thief up to speed relatively quickly.
It's most convenient if most of your party is neutral; good/bad characters swap alignment rather sporadically, and ironically also refuse to party with characters of opposite alignment. Pain in the butt,
especially in the Wizardry 3, where half the floors block parties with characters of the opposite alignment. It takes absolutely forever to fix alignment. It's been a while but I think Wiz 2 retains character levels, but not equipment; and Wiz 3 transfers only class and alignment. Not sure about spell carry-over.
Fighters are flat-out inferior to samurais/lords. Samurais are plausible to roll from the start; doing that, you don't lose your bonus points changing classes to them. Bishops aren’t quite as good as they sound, as they gain levels and spell levels really slowly. Ninjas can’t be neutral, and are a good deal less effective at trap-disarming (I think it’s half the flat bonus thieves get {50% vs 25%}). I’d stick with a thief myself. If you want to bother, you could turn a mage into a thief for a few extra spells. Can't remember how exactly spell levels work when you swap classes, but that's a big deal in Wizardry. I don't think that's really necessary for Wiz 1-3 though.
Sleep only in the stables, using your cleric to heal; it's cheaper and you don't run into aging, which decreases your vitality.
Try not to cheat, as the tension is the whole point. If you're not gonna reload after wipeouts; you're gonna need a rescue party on standby to haul their butts out. Also, running is ludicrously effective (too much, imo). Don't let the undead touch you.
When you gain use of the giant elevator, I'd recommend only using it to get to floors you've already gotten to via stairs - or the whole game just breaks down. After the elevator, there's nothing else of interest on any of the floors besides the final boss (the keys and statues don't do anything).
Expect to constantly drag your ass back to town because one dude got poisoned. Old school wiz be like that.
I used this party:
Sam N
Sam N
Sam N
Thief N
Priest G
Mage N
To turn on English, hit these red options:
1. Message - Jap(1) Jap(2) English
2. Monster name - Jap English
3. Item name - Jap English
4. Spell Name - Jap English
5. Monster Display - Classic Playstation
6. Dungeon - Wireframe Polygon
7. Sound - Stereo Mono
8. BGM - ON OFF
9. Sound Effects - ON OFF
10. Combat Effects - ON OFF
11. Automap - ON OFF
12. Controller Settings
13. Exit
The order may or may not be a little different (?).