Actually, Dragon Wars is quite different from the Bard's Tale series. In particular:
* There is a much bigger emphasis on exploring rather than dungeon crawling.
* The game uses a classless skill point system for character growth.
* Your characters don't advance that much during the game. Most of the increase in power comes from equipment and skills.
* There are no random drops. (This is in contrast to Bard's Tale 1-3, where nearly all equipment came from random drops.)
* The game is non-linear;

It's also worth noting that Dragon Wars was programmed by the same person who wrote Bard's Tale 3; therefore I would not call it a copycat even if the games *were* similar.

Thanks a lot for a brief introduction. It seems Dragon Wars really deserves more attention than it got during these years. I always keep wondering how many amazing games gone unnoticed by majority of players (the same situation is in music, you know. It happens very often that absolutely obscure bands are displaying much more talent, skill and energy than "stars" of all sorts).

There are also Yendorian Tales II & III, which play like MM 3-5 (Yendorian Tales 1 is a little bit different). GOG also had Elminage Gothic, which fits some of aforementioned requirements, but it is mostly about dungeon crawling.

Results of some excavations:

Swords and Sorcery - Underworld

The Quest

Yes, I do know about Yendor, thanks. And NO Elminage, please, thanks. Japanese mugs, japanese hugs, japanese bugs... Meh.

Actually, I found Elminage Gothic to be remarkably bug free. The closest thing to a bug that I found is that there's the rare line of text they forgot to translate (not enough to hinder playability, and the plot is all translated), and that's it.

In fact, pretty much every classic WRPG is buggier than Elminage Gothic. Wizardry games have bugs (one famous one in Wizardry 1 that lets you easily get 100 million experience), Might and Magic games have bugs, Bard's Tale 1-3 have bugs (and different versions have *different* bugs), Ultima series has bugs, pretty much every classic WRPG is buggier than Elminage Gothic. (Modern WRPGs are perhaps even buggier, especially with the implementation of extra features that add complexity, and don't (or perhaps do) get me started on how buggy the Elder Scrolls games are.)

Under "bugs" I meant the insects of all kinds, he-he :P. I just can't tolerate this distinctive standard generic anime-ish visual style of faces, monsters and even fonts that you can see in every Japan-made game. The plot and the dialogues are also always recognizable.

It is 1 - 8 characters actually.
I don't mean to be a nitpicker: this simply is rather important to me. It is what made me play this game as often as I did. It preserves the long term fun and allows for somewhat extreme difficulty adjustments. For a game to become a great classic it really needs to deliver the challenges that allow a veteran to still try something new. In W8 you actually need to learn new stuff if you limit your party, even if you know the game really well already. That's neither self-evident nor even common among RPGs and a major plus for Wizardry.

Wiz 6 is 2-6 characters. Wiz 6 cannot be soloed. Even if you make a larger party and edit the savefile down to a single character, the game can't handle it.
Wiz 7 is 1-6 characters.
Only Wiz 8 is 1-8 characters.

I generally prefer smaller parties in games balanced for large parties. For this Wizardry games, that usually means 4 characters... though I did do a Lord-Ranger duo through 6-7-8 and it was EXTREMELY fun, but definitely not for beginners.

That's what I am nitpicking: both allow for parties smaller than 6, so "6-8" is inaccurate. It's not about wrong or right: I only wish to remind of an option that your post excludes, because I like it. Because Wizardry is designed to offer that option, which is something I really like about that game. No offense.

You don't need to play a Jack of all Trades to solo Wizardry 8 btw. Not sure why you hate on solos but I won't try to convert you or anything. Whatever deems you fun.

I did not mean to come off as attacking you for enjoying playing party-based CRPGs with a single character and yes, you are right that Wizardry 8 allows one to play with fewer than 6 starting PCs. My point was mo9re for people people playing the game as intended with an actual party.

And no you don't have to play a 'jack-of-all-trades' character in W8 if doing the 'singleton' thing though most CRPGs do force this upon you but not doing this, even in Wizardry 8 (meaning not class changing at all) will turn the game into 'work' which is why I do not play this way. Not as much if you are choosing a hybrid class to begin with (i.e. Samurai, Ninja, Valkyrie, Gadgeteer etc.) because at least then you have some sort of spell casting ability as well as fighting ability. But playing through a full game as just a Fighter or Mage or Psionic...? Not for me as I get bored with excessive grinding, save-reload (ad nauseum) etc.

I agree.

I agree that Wizardry 8 is a great game; it is, however, not without its flaws. In particular:
* Combat is often rather slow.
* Attack magic, especially single target attack magic, tends to be a bit weak; this is especially apparent later on when everything has significant resistance to all elements.
* Enemy encounters scale with your level. This means that leveling up can sometimes make the game harder. (A better way of handling this would be to have encounters scale with quest progress instead; perhaps the enemies get stronger after each artifact you retrieve.)
* The first trip down Arnika Road is far harder than it should be, and comes before the game really gets fun.
* I really don't like the way Stealth works, making enemies less likely to target the character with the ability, and it can't be turned off. (If you try soloing with Stealth, and you take the time to raise it to high levels, enemies will, to my understanding, often defend, which will drag out battles even longer than necessary.)

With that said, Wizardry 8 *does* have the awesome Gadgeteer class, as well as finally having a Bishop class that is actually useful at mid levels (unlike the rather useless Bishops from earlier in the series).

Combat is slow, especially if there is movement involved.

Personally I think damage magic is balanced, except on Ascension Peak, which can be beaten only with melee. Mage is damage king in midgame.

Scaling is not perfect, and I like your "progress" idea, however in an open world, you could delay progress by collecting the artifacts at the latest possible moment, just before the final trip. Scaling in Wizardry 8 can be countered with delaying levels. Overall I think the game rather becomes too easy than too difficult towards the end, independent of difficulty level and party composition. Just walking up to Gregor is the most difficult battle in the whole game, and it's on the first map.

Arnika Road is a nightmare, but unless the position of monster groups is very bad, your party just can outrun the opposition.

I understand your reservations against Stealth, but the essence of stealth is "not getting attacked and being able to evade melee attacks". So again personally I think the design is brilliant. Whether it is op, would be another discussion.

Why would a stealth solo drag out battles? The length of the battle -if your side wins- is based on the damage the party, in this case the solo, can inflict on its enemies. But maybe I misunderstand what you meant.

I would add to the game flaws: Not enough ranged capabilities, good ammunition is simply too rare. It is not possible to put statuses on the enemies and then hunt them down at ranged distance. Kiting is not possible.

Ironman is broken imv: First you can avoid death by leaving the game at any moment before your party lies on the ground, secondly there is no 100% protection against instakills. So finishing an Ironman game is based not only on skill and good judgement of the player, but also on luck.

Last, communication is a lost skill. It only serves to get available goods cheaper, where money is not an issue in this game overall. It doesn't open new ways or provide additional options. You cannot even convince the Constable to give your party his key.

Having said that. I just love this game. The variety of party composition is sheer endless, races are different, classes are well balanced between casters, hybrids and non-magic users, the magic schools thought out ingeniously, and the omnigun a device I didn't find in any other game. Its replay value is enormous.