Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Shadenuat]

I think he mentioned the naming scheme sucked, Wiz 6-8 had terrible dungeons and specializations (Weapons/Magic) was a terrible addition. I thought everyone considered Wiz 6-8 to be superior to the older ones, so I was interested in why someone else thought otherwise.

With all fairness and my love to Wizardry 8 I would say its dungeons are the weakest part. They are fairly simplistic when you break them down and they also are not very large.

Either 3d engine wasn't capable of (although didn't stop Might and Magic having pretty huge worlds and dungeons) or they did not want to do it, but whatever happened, Wiz 8 doesn't reach the scope of old Wiz dungeons and something simple from tile based engines like moving blocks, falling through whole levels, darkness and invisibile walls, that sort of thing, wasn't a thing in Wiz 8.

It had its own new cool things but I think most people thought best dungeon began and ended with the Monastery. Trynton always felt like a single corridor filled with wasps to me (although it is very cool n pretty), Umpani caves were just shit, Rapax castle was ok, Ascension was just boring. Marten's Bluff was nice I guess.

 

[newtmonkey]

Wiz 1-5* and their derivatives have very reliable systems where everything comes down to resource management and at any given moment you have a very clear idea of how powerful you are and how far you can push your party. Sometimes, you get greedy and take that risk, and it backfires. It's like gambling when you are a pro and you know how the system works. This obviously depends on the game having a multilevel dungeon structure, which is incompatible with an "open world" blobber like Wizardry 7 or even a sprawling dungeon crawler like Wizardry 6.

By the time you get to Wiz 5, the engine is a well-tuned machine and the interface is perfect. Even when something goes wrong and you are using every trick in the book just to get back to town alive, you feel like you know exactly where you stand and what your chances are; it's very clear if you are doomed, have a slight chance if you play smart, or are safe as long as you pay attention.

As much as I like Wiz 6, it feels a lot sloppier. There is no "resource management" because you can save anywhere and rest "anywhere" (obviously, there are restrictions); whether you abuse it is up to you of course. The spell system is also sloppier; because you can pump a varying amount of points when casting in Wiz 6, it's hard to tell just how effective a given spell will be.

What Bradley did for Wizardry was amazing. Had he not drastically changed everything for Wiz 6, I'm not certain we would have even had a Wiz 7 or 8. He is truly a once-in-a-generation super genius, and Sir-tech is unbelievably fortunate to have been graced with his talent after fucking up their relationship with Greenberg/Woodhead. It's okay that Wiz 6 is a little sloppy compared with 7 years of refinement on an engine that was nearly perfect from the start, considering Bradley not only completely changed the system but also made a god damned masterpiece in the process. However, I don't think it's a clear case of Wiz 6-8 being clearly better in every way compared with Wiz 1-5; 1-5 and 6-7 (and 8) offer very different, but enjoyable, experiences.

*Note: This excludes Wiz 4, which is like it's own thing compared with every other game in the series.

 

[MpuMngwana]

I'm also on the 'Wiz 1-5 are better then Bradley Wizardries' team, mostly due to the fact that Wiz 6 and 7 feel like a bloated mess mechanically (a seed of that was sown with the bullshit swimming mechanic in Wiz 5), adding mechanical complexity without adding enough gameplay complexity to justify it.

8 is my favorite though, having streamlined Bradley's autism to something more manageable; by that point, however, the series has changed enough from its roots that compering it to, say, Wiz 1, feels kinda pointless.

 

[Shadenuat]

IDK Wiz 7 still has big dungeons which feel like you're taking risks. I almost got stuck in dane tower lol.

 

[newtmonkey]

AFAIK, a lvl 1 Bishop won't be able to ID many items at all.

So you are forced to either drag a (rather useless) Bishop along or pay for the services. IIRC I regretted having a Bishop when I played it.

I ended up just going back and fighting the two gold statues, which got me enough gold to ID ?LOCKET?, so now I can continue. It only took like 5 minutes, so it's not a big deal, but I'm still annoyed that quest items need to be identified to be used haha

 

[Grauken]

Some of the card sets you can use even in their unidentified form later on, if I remember correctly

 

[newtmonkey]

I dunno what that is, but that's a relief. Come to think of it, I remember being able to use some unidentified stuff before, so I guess it's hit or miss.

 

[gman42]

EXP does help a Bishop's ability to ID stuff, but you really don't have to have one in your party full time. Create one and have him go parry his way through a few battles with an experienced party and gain some quick levels that way, then just swap him in and out to ID stuff. IIRC it only takes a few levels to make IDing much less painful.

 

[Tigranes]

Throwing in a data-point of myself as a Wizardry casual, I found my virgin playthrough of Wiz1 a lot more impressive and memorable than 6-8. There's certainly a sense of scope, a grandious spread of mechanisms, in the Bradley games - but as newtmonkey points out, Wiz1 is beautiful in its relative parsimony. You know where you stand, you know the danger, you know why you die, and conversely, every resource you get feels important and meaningful. I think WizI remains a special experience that the Bradley games aren't really the same as.

 

[smaug]

I loved Wizardry 1, and I haven't play Bradley's games, except a little bit of 6. The thing I most like about Wiz6 already is how much better the CC is, I love all the specializations introduced and the system is far more advanced. From my understanding Wizardry 1-3 were all the same and it wasn't until 5 that they added pole arms and bows.

Wizardry 1, I think is a masterpiece due to all of it's mechanics working nearly perfectly with each other. Just wish my thief had a bow.

 

[gman42]

Wiz1 was a beautifully balanced game, and I was definitely transfixed throughout my first playthrough, just because there was nothing like it before. But in the end, the game had four lousy "find this item and be holding it to get through this particular door later" puzzles, and one quest where you fight a tough battle to get access to an elevator. Puzzles and plot may not need to be front and center in an RPG, but they still kinda have to, you know, exist.

Each game got a little fuller in that regard, I think it was actually a smooth curve upward (4 was insane but as stated above it's kind of its own thing and should be considered more of a spinoff than part of the main sequence) and then took a quantum leap forward with 6, which I felt had personality and atmosphere (even with its static wall textures and one-generation-behind graphics and sound) thanks to the plot and scope and breadth of puzzles, and really savored the experience of first playing. Wiz1 deserves a ton of credit for what it spawned, but you know, so does Pong. They did a lot of things right, but it's conspicuously missing a lot.

 

[octavius]

What Wiz 1 misses is bloat.

 

[Grauken]

I started with the Bradley trilogy, then went back to the earlier games, and while I like them and think they are one of the few really old games that hold up quite well, for me Wizardry will always be the later games + Grimoire

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry 5
Kind of at a weird spot in the game. My avg party level is 12 or so and I basically had explored everything I could, which meant time to hunt for items to unlock doors, etc. Part of this involved diving into every single pool on my map to see if I missed anything; to be honest, after the first few pools I just looked up a list of each pool to get it over with. Even with the rubber duck, the swimming thing is by far the worst thing (really, the only bad thing) in this game so far.

Once I gathered some stuff I missed, I was able to make a bit of progress, and am back to exploring. I bought the tickets for level 5 and have been slowly exploring it, but I feel like my party is way over its head here, as the mazes toward the top and bottom of the map are chock full of encounters with multiple high level casters (all split into several groups of course, so I can't just Montino them), undead that drain/paralyze, etc. I think my only other option now is the encounter with the copper demon and sly nymph, but even when I attempted that encounter with my spellcasters all casting high level spells, I got absolutely destroyed (yes, I am backing up my save file)... so I guess I'd rather deal with the level 5 encounters.

I'm one level away from getting the level 7 mage spells, so that should hopefully give my some much needed firepower (plus Malor to make getting there and back less tedious).

This is a great game, but if there's one thing I would change (other than getting rid of that fucking swimming mechanic), it would to make the game a bit easier to get around. It's easy now to get to level 5 from the elevator, but I had a somewhat long stretch of the game where I had to keep passing through that long ass level 3 back and forth multiple times, slowly making progress, and it honestly put me off the game for a while.

I do like the game, and I think I would be enjoying it even more if Wizardry 2 and 3 never existed. As much as I like the classic Wizardry formula, I'm looking forward to restarting Wizardry 6 sometime this year.

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, you have to grind from here on to survive the rest of the game

 

[octavius]

It's not really needed to grind, but you have to cautious, so you'll get plenty of XP naturally from going back and forth. I remember there was a difficulty spike; probably where you are now. A large L shaped level IIRC.
Also, remember to check walls for hidden doors and shortcuts. The light spell won't reveal them like in the earlier games.

 

[newtmonkey]

At this point I'll probably play cautious and fight only a couple of battles a time while I explore, then head back. It's quick to get to level 5 and back again with the elevator and some encounters are giving me 3-4k experience. I have a few characters that are only 12k or so away from the next level (crucially, my mages... hope to get Malor soon).

[Edit] I was wrong, my mages are 30k+ away from the next level. Kinda sucks, but getting back and forth to level 5 is quick enough that this isn't a big problem

 

[Grauken]

Ha, I found the Soulstealer, I'll keep that for the final fight

 

[aweigh]

That's why I love Elminage games so much, they are the natural end point of Wizardry mechanics, polished to nigh mechanical perfection. Wizardry series begins with Wiz 1 and ends with Elminage: Gothic.

 

[newtmonkey]

I haven't put much time into Gothic, but I love Elminage: Original. I decided I'd rather play it on 3DS rather than PSP (dunno why exactly, the PSP looks and runs better), so have slowly been working on catching up to my PSP party.

I think anyone that enjoyed Wiz 1-5 (or even just Wiz 1 and 5) would enjoy the Elminage series.

 

[aweigh]

I think they took the Wizardry foundation laid out by the brothers and added the best changes that Bradley introduced (like new races, new spell schools, dual-wielding, archetypical class abilities, etc), then they added their fair share of new mechanics (item crafting, weapon and armor enchanting, monster summoning and monster adventurers, unique character skill and ability system, etc), made some really goddamn amazing levels and turned in two of the best Wizardry games ever made. They kept the best of the brothers' and of Bradley's legacies. They really are the very definition of "labors of love".

(Though I much prefer E: Gothic over Original, because Gothic is an unabashedly more "hard-core" experience that does away with the niceties and intentionally focuses on delivering unadulterated dungeon crawling goodness. Also, E: Gothic is much better balanced and has much better itemization; in fact I'd say E: Gothic is the very best example of how to do proper power curve balancing and itemization in a mechanically-heavy RPG that focuses on party-building and character-advancement.)

Spoiler

EDIT: Also in the case of E: Original the definitive version is the PC one. The 2d artwork looks gorgeous in high-resolution. For E: Gothic I also recommend the PC version as I think the additional items they added in the 3DS version break the power curve and fuck with the game balance. They also dumbed down the maze layouts of the first half of the main campaign's dungeons in the 3DS version; it's just easier in general and has less bite than the PC version. (Though I fully understand the allure of playing it in a portable system, and it's not like they ruined the game. Keep in mind this is nitpicking from someone who's played the damn game like a million times who is over-sensitive to the most minute changes done to the experience).

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Can I romance my party in Wizardry Emprire II? pls respond it's important.

 

[aweigh]

Can I romance my party in Wizardry Emprire II? pls respond it's important.

I recommend playing the PC version of Wiz Empire 2, in English. It's a remake and features a lot of new content, and it is the definitive version. As for your question the "Love" % is the Party Affinity system. Each race, gender and alignment has a different affinity for others in the same party and it adds a new dimension to the party building.

If you want to optimize your party strength then you have to weigh those factors, since a party with races and alignments that oppose each other will not be as good as one where there's a more favorable affinity. Remember as well that all of the NPCs in the game can be Charmed, Bartered with or fought with, and a lot of optional secret content (as well as the game's true ending) can only be unlocked by doing one or a combination of these things. Some NPCs can only be fought with if you present specific unique items to them.

 

[newtmonkey]

Two more bullshit things in Wizardry 5:

- Enemies and traps (magnetics) that permanently steal items INCLUDING QUEST ITEMS *rage*
- The fact that Montino barely works later into the game and you face multiple groups of enemies with BADI (which always seems to work on your party but never on monsters)

 

[Grauken]

Just saying, Tiltowait is the magic word

Anyway, quest items you can always get back (found that out when I killed a quest item giver, had no free item slots and had to do it all over again)