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

[aweigh]

last night i put in 6 hours straight-through playing the fan-translation of the psp version of 7th dragon. i left the game saved right when i arrived at the asian-style kingdom azhan. thanks for that particular reccomendation courtier the game is very enjoyable. it's a perfect mix of jrpg and somewhat-crawly blobbery mechanics. it's really more etrian odyssey than anything else; except i think its skill system is much less grindy and the combat is more dynamic.

i'm kind of disheartened about resuming it for real because i made some really retarded skill point decisions with my fighter and my rogue spreading their weapon styles all over the place.

siveon if you haen't played 7th dragon i also recommend it. it's quite good.

 

[Courtier]

You mean the DS version right? You can buy black pearls to reset your skillpoints when you get the ability to sail to the southwest. But you might as well just get a couple extra levels to offset the wasted skillpoints. No shortage of them, what with the extra points every 5 levels and dragons everywhere. Keep in mind there are a lot of hard to find and solve quests. For example in Aizhen there's a hidden passage to the left of the throne that you're almost guaranteed to miss. If you don't find it, you will miss a certain quest.

CFW PSP's 5 life.

Yee boiii

More on topic, I just ran into the level cap in Operation Abyss, which is 15. Now I looked it up, and it seems the cap is raised to 40 when you make it to the second game (semester). Problem is I'm maybe halfway through the first and hit the cap without even trying. That means there's a number of dungeons left I have to trawl through in their entirety without gaining any exp. If the multiclassing system had been left intact, this would have been a good opportunity to branch out and get some spells. But that plan's knackered then, innit?

 

[Viata]

I have saved this as an amazing reference so that I can prepare my own list as well. This is truly well done and a good reference for me. I was JUST talking with fellow Obsidian programmer, Dan Spitzley, this weekend about good dungeon crawlers and getting them all setup to play.

Mostly are japanese, but since it's dungeon crawler there is no need to understand the plot. However, if you indent to play any of the games on the upper right corner, knowing Japanese will help you a lot. They are heavy in plot/dialogues. At least, Generation Xth 1 is already translated. Some of the japanese Wizardries, if not all(didn't play all of them) of them, has the option to put the game in English, but it just the basic class/spell/race thing to help you.

 

[aweigh]

wiz 1-2-3-4 for the ps1, the "legacy collection" or whatever it's called has all the menus, spells and everything in english except NPC dialog and story/descriptions dialog. it's also the absolute only non-Apple II officially developed and released port/remake of wizardry 4: the return of werdna. that in itself makes it the holy grail IMO.



omg DAT AWESOME SOUNDTRACK

 

[Siveon]

wiz 1-2-3-4

1-2-3-4-5*

Though 1-3 and 4-5 are separated, I think. Also, some of the the descriptions are in English. At least the beginning text intro.

 

[Siveon]

siveon if you haen't played 7th dragon i also recommend it. it's quite good.

Already have a flashcart on the way. Playing on the original hardware is da baest.

Yee boiii

PSP hacking mentioned, swell with portable emulation (w/ buttons) and best PS1 emulation. ...And short battery life with easy-to-mold screens.

More on topic, I just ran into the level cap in Operation Abyss, which is 15. Now I looked it up, and it seems the cap is raised to 40 when you make it to the second game (semester). Problem is I'm maybe halfway through the first and hit the cap without even trying. That means there's a number of dungeons left I have to trawl through in their entirety without gaining any exp. If the multiclassing system had been left intact, this would have been a good opportunity to branch out and get some spells. But that plan's knackered then, innit?

Ouch. I'm definitely not playing this exclusively. For trips on a train or the shitter, yeah, but damn streamlining. Damn it to heck.

 

[aweigh]

well i just tried out new age of llygamin on ePSXe but while wiz5 heart of the maelstrom is p. much fully playable in english for whatever reason wiz 4 return of werdna is half moon runes half english. in fact, it's not at all like what that guy is playing in that video. perhaps he is playing the windows pc version of new age of llylgamyn? the "graphics" also look different such as in the beginning when werdna summons his first demon party they lack character art display; the ps1 version i was just trying out features large renderings of each monster inside that summoning menu.

ah well, whatevs. it's a completely neutered version anyway. i mean it has a freaking automap and they removed almost any chance of dying at the hands of trebor's ghost. also no built-in footstep pedometer of doom...

...still, looks good. not interested in playing wiz5 in ps1 tho: too much loading. snes version and/or dos version is better.

...btw i couldn't figure out how to get out of werdna's jail room. i blame it on being half in jap...

edit: both new age of llllylyly and the saga of llyylng can be played in uber hi-res wire-frame mode! and it looks GOOD. they didn't half ass it. remedies the loading pauses as well.

edit x2: yep, he's 100% playing the japanese iso for windows PC, not the ps1 version.

 

[aweigh]

steamrolled 2f like a mofo.

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[Zetor]

More on topic, I just ran into the level cap in Operation Abyss, which is 15. Now I looked it up, and it seems the cap is raised to 40 when you make it to the second game (semester). Problem is I'm maybe halfway through the first and hit the cap without even trying. That means there's a number of dungeons left I have to trawl through in their entirety without gaining any exp. If the multiclassing system had been left intact, this would have been a good opportunity to branch out and get some spells. But that plan's knackered then, innit?

Yea, you hit the cap way too early in the remake. In the original game I only hit level 15 when I was already deep into the postgame (and some of Code Hazard's postgame's been removed for OA).

Maybe you can get a monk from 1 to 15 as you're progressing, though I'm not sure if they're worth it (seem to be a bit better vs bosses than samurai at least).

 

[aweigh]

i was perusing the jap wiki on GXTH ad guess what men "critical hits" are dictated by the character's luck stat primarily. i suppose now it makes perfect sense that the unlucky build (race natch) grants you extra -AC seeing as how it lowers your luck for the entire game to worthless levels.

put two katans in ur sammy's hands make sure they have the highest number of attacks you can get, and a -THACO modifier not a positive one (!) build him as a "luck" build from char-gen and slap every possible luck-shit on him; those Iajutsu berserker barrages already insta-kill (critical hit) like at least once per use; pumping luck might squeeze the most juice outta the sammy. that skill multiplies his # of attacks as well, and samurai katanas are already the highest-numbered weapons in # of ATK's column.

agility is what determines extra atks per swing, so... best samurai build would be max luck secondary stat agility dual wielding for increased #'s of ATKs during iajutsu for more criticals. if the enemy is "weak" to your weapon's properties that also raises the critical hit rate as well.

"

• On that you can get a dual weapon made possible 2 Katana-ryu the fastest Lv4, "narrowing the sword Ichi" that can be obtained in Lv8 because that can be triggered without a reservoir, very convenient to small fish scatter.
  • It is also possible to use open Pandora if through magic mechanic.
• The growth rate is also a so-so, it will have even put the first one since the sword and armor of the kind also rich.
• Enemy one after another like going down in the critical hit is a masterpiece of a word. "
  
  amazing. pure poetry.

 

[aweigh]

holy shit i'm fucking retarded. the ps1 version of new of llylgamin is 100% in english, both wiz 4 return of werdna and wiz 5 heart of the maelstrom. in the title screen you have to scroll left and select the "Classic" version of the games, and not the one that's presented as default.

so yeah, for anyone who's interested yep wiz 1-2-3 are available in english as remakes for the ps1, along with wiz4 and wiz5. the hallmarks of these remakes are actually the incredible orchestral soundtracks. i was playing for about 40 minutes the beginning of Werdna and wow the brass and the strings it's just incredible. the soundwork is top-notch. also that beginning is rough as fuck jesus christ.

gotta say though the polygonal dungeons aren't doing it for me; much prefer sprites or the like. dem ps1 gfx have not aged well. oh yeah, the "Classic" versions of wiz4 and wiz5 are unchanged; i.e. Trebor's ghost was whispering my name and following me right from the beginning and the monsters in your party are CPU controlled.

 

[aweigh]

dat music

 

[aweigh]

oh man out of curiosity i booted up my 1000% super-duper legal copy of wizardry: tale of the forsaken land released in 2002 for the PCSX2 build 1.1.9 and maaaan this fucking game HOOKED ME INNN immediately. the music is INCREDIBLY atmospheric (think tristam/diablo same evocative feel but less gothic more acoustic melancholy) and every NPC who approaches you has very brief and cryptic dialog to impart and each npc has an accompanying and suitably bleak "soundscape". man i was fucking INN DISSS made my party wasted 40 minutes re-rolling the bonus points etc finally enter the Duhan dungeon and...

the first fight. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHAAAT WHAT IS THIS SHIT WHY.

- battles are not in real blobber format. think more dragon quest 8/9. and yes, i HATE that they switched to graphical representations in DQ too. HATE IT.
- every single thing that happens be it an attack a block a fucking circle-jerk unity alliance art has an interminable 3-5 second animation. they REEEAALLY wanted to promote this Wizardry spin-off as one of the "cool kids" with lots of dynamic FF7-style camera zooming during battles which i would forgive (not really) if they were COOL but they're JUST A FUCKING VIRTUAL CAMERA PANNING LEFT/RIGHT AND WASTING MY FUCKING TIME.
- even THE MOTHERFUCKING WALKING SPEED IS SLOW. and fast walk speed isn't even unique to just Wizardry; it's a byproduct of grid-based movement. even if modern crawlers don't necessarily use true grid-based movement we all know that it goes without saying that the FUCKING WALK SPEED WILL BE SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT. no, we know 100% that we don't even have to think about the walking speed in a crawler because whaaaa???
- seriously it's really fucking slow. even turning/rotating left/right is equally slow.
- then you get a fight after 3 or 4 sloooooow gravity-boots steps wait for the noticeable loading of the super awesome polygons you're about to have unleashed all over ur fucking face you fucking faggot get readddddy limittt breakkkk oh nvmd it's still loading.

i asked for a refund.

 

[TigerKnee]

...btw i couldn't figure out how to get out of werdna's jail room. i blame it on being half in jap...

Lots of people couldn't figure that one out even in full english

 

[Courtier]

It's still a really good game with a haunting story, you might want to save it for a slow spell. You can run too, so you can run into your next loading screen twice as fast.

Later titles like Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls and Prisoners of the Lost City for the PS3 go back to fast combat with sprites. There's not much on the net about the latter, even though it got translated...all I could find was a thread with Jaesun asking whether anybody had played it

 

[aweigh]

i fully believe you about its haunting impression; it certainly left me thinking about the game. the artwork is excellent and the music! but i just couldn't take the sloooooooooooooooooooooooow rate of walking and the interminably slow battles due to the stupid animations.

how da fuck am i supposed to get mah grand on if every battle takes literally 1-2 minutes. as for labyrinth of lost souls i am dying to play it. from what i read it was made by a different section of that studio or whatever and it's a normal dungeon crawler no spinning camera angles, etc. i watched footage/LP on youtube of the game and it looks EXCELLENT. this is the very first time in two years i've ever regretted selling my ps3.

edit: i even scoured the deep web for a "demo-version" of the labyrinth of lost souls PSN package file to see if it would run in the PS3 emulator that's been making a lot of progress. unfortunately the ps3 emu is 64-bit only and i'm on 32.

 

[aweigh]

courtier now that you've conquered ibag's tower i think you should try and see if you can conquer wiz4 return of werdna. i'm cautiously starting a playthrough right now using the ps1 version, in classic mode, of course not only so that it's in english but so that it's limited to just a graphical overhaul.

the fucking game has an invisible limited number of tiles werdna can explore before a hard-coded game over (no one knows the exact number) AND right from the ery start of the game you are immediately begun being hunted by trebor's ghost who will and can randomly pop up next to you (imagine elminage red-color floor masters moving around) at any moment in any place and if he touches you it's instant death.

those elements are 100% present in the ps1 version but i don't know how faithfully to be honest. if anything i think i'll just play it to enjoy the unbelievably good brass orchestra and string sections they composed as a score for wiz4 return of werdna jap remake. i'm not even fucking kidding. it's that good. i haven't even been able to clear the first floor yet; it's insanely oppressive feeling. trebor's always chanting "w.e.r.d.n.a.." every few minutes and you have no direct control over your demon squad. plus you're a de-powered mage. i literally got stressed out last night playing it and decided to play wiz3 on snes instead and relax. heh.

 

[Reinhardt]

None of these are blobbers

Unchained Blades EXXIV.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

wiz 1-2-3-4

1-2-3-4-5*

Though 1-3 and 4-5 are separated, I think. Also, some of the the descriptions are in English. At least the beginning text intro.

IIRC all text is available in English except the 'alternate' modes in Wiz4 (and 5?).
Of course, some people might dislike them for featuring an automap, but it can be ignored.

 

[Dorateen]

just trying to imagine drawing by hand elminage gothic's tsun-cave's b1

Spoiler

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

You should try Dragon Wars Aweigh, it's my favorite blobber ever, it takes place in a world heavily influenced by Mesopotamia. But I'm not sure that you'll like it for it's very story and skill heavy and much less of a "pure" dungeon crawler where enemies rape you if you don't think strategically.

 

[Courtier]

Unchained Blades EXXIV.

Noice, I missed that one. PSP version and sequel to the original, right? It seems like it'll take a while before a full translation. We'll have to try the first game before that.

 

[Suicidal]

Are you still planning to continue Etrian Odyssey 3, aweigh? I read your description of your adventures in it and it's funny how I got a completely different experience, despite starting in similar circumstances. Like you, I got into the game blind without reading any class descriptions n shit, but since I've been playing MMOs for so damn much (more than I should have) and my personal preference towards durability and attrition tactics I wanted to make a really tanky party with very low damage. I also decided to experiment and made only 3 characters at the start instead of 5. My party was the defender class (forgot the name) in the front and an archer and monk healer in the back.

At the very beginning I had great difficulty going through the dungeon and had to run back to town after every 2 battles, but towards the end of the first floor it started becoming much easier and by the end of the second I was moping the floor with all opposition except the minibosses. I think as a result of me making 3 characters my party became really overleveled and simple enemies couldn't kill my defender anymore. I think I quit somewhere in the 3rd dungeon because I didn't have time to play, so I definitely need to revisit that game cause I still have my saves. It really is a damn good game and it was one of the first games that made me stop hating JRPGs (I became a huge JRPG hater after playing Final Fantasy 7, which, I thought, was terrible and didn't touch any games in that genre for many years).

Also I know you mentioned that you have it on your to-do list already, but I'd like to give a big ass recommendation to Labyrinth of Touhou* and urge you to play it. It's really similar to Etrian Odyssey games (even rips off some ideas straight from it, like the wandering minibosses represented with large orange balls on the map and very similar dungeon design in which you go from forest to underwater to lava land etc.). The dungeon exploration is definitely not as good (EO has more interesting and varied dungeon floors and cool 3D mazes) but the combat and party customization are much better. The game just had soooo much different shit you could buy/level/customize/manage I was honestly shocked and the combat encounters are difficult enough to require being good at the game and knowing which tools to use when. I know it all depends on how your brain works, but I think that Elminage is a harder game than LoT, so if you beat that you shouldn't have any problems. I tried playing it not long ago but lost patience, but your gushing over it another thread kind of inspired me to give it another try.

*I only played LoT 2 but from what I've heard 1 and 2 are very similar except 2 is slightly easier and has some more features.

 

[Hirato]

oh man out of curiosity i booted up my 1000% super-duper legal copy of wizardry: tale of the forsaken land released in 2002 for the PCSX2 build 1.1.9 and maaaan this fucking game HOOKED ME INNN immediately. the music is INCREDIBLY atmospheric (think tristam/diablo same evocative feel but less gothic more acoustic melancholy) and every NPC who approaches you has very brief and cryptic dialog to impart and each npc has an accompanying and suitably bleak "soundscape". man i was fucking INN DISSS made my party wasted 40 minutes re-rolling the bonus points etc finally enter the Duhan dungeon and...

the first fight. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHAAAT WHAT IS THIS SHIT WHY.

- battles are not in real blobber format. think more dragon quest 8/9. and yes, i HATE that they switched to graphical representations in DQ too. HATE IT.
- every single thing that happens be it an attack a block a fucking circle-jerk unity alliance art has an interminable 3-5 second animation. they REEEAALLY wanted to promote this Wizardry spin-off as one of the "cool kids" with lots of dynamic FF7-style camera zooming during battles which i would forgive (not really) if they were COOL but they're JUST A FUCKING VIRTUAL CAMERA PANNING LEFT/RIGHT AND WASTING MY FUCKING TIME.
- even THE MOTHERFUCKING WALKING SPEED IS SLOW. and fast walk speed isn't even unique to just Wizardry; it's a byproduct of grid-based movement. even if modern crawlers don't necessarily use true grid-based movement we all know that it goes without saying that the FUCKING WALK SPEED WILL BE SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT. no, we know 100% that we don't even have to think about the walking speed in a crawler because whaaaa???
- seriously it's really fucking slow. even turning/rotating left/right is equally slow.
- then you get a fight after 3 or 4 sloooooow gravity-boots steps wait for the noticeable loading of the super awesome polygons you're about to have unleashed all over ur fucking face you fucking faggot get readddddy limittt breakkkk oh nvmd it's still loading.

i asked for a refund.

The movement speed never bothered me, that aspect is fine as is.
But all the animations they have during combat, as well as before and after (when you're looting chests) are annoyingly slow.
You'll pretty much want to keep PCSX2 in turbo mode for the duration of any of those, the shortcut to toggle it is TAB.
On top of that, it's going to get really annoying a few levels down, as you'll regularly encounter enemies like ninjas that for some reason absolutely kill the framerate.

Also the combat theme you put up with for the first few levels is one of the absolute worst I've ever heard.

 

[aweigh]

dorateen that was a work of art unlimited brofists for you man. now you i'm feeling like i found the perfect excuse to legit go back to ibag tower and actually finish it: challenge myself to map by hand all 20 floors. (and not use the auto-map). it's the certain little something something i was lacking to motivate me to go back there...