Wizardry 8

Wizardry 8 is the end of a trilogy, and coincidentally the last game Sir Tech released as they were going out of business. While you don't need to have played the previous games, they do help give a lot of context; I'd recommend reading plot summaries, though they're not necessary. It's an 8(!)-person party dungeon crawler, but you only design 6; during the course of your travels on Dominus you may pick up 2 recruitable characters ("RPCs") along the way. There's roughly a dozen of them, but several are quest-specific and will only join you temporarily. The interface is decidedly old-school; this came out in 2001 (and its immediate predecessor in 1992). The graphics do the job but they won't sell you on the game. Roaming around is in realtime and not confined to a grid unlike previous titles, though combat is turn based. On a related note, the animations have issues, the vanilla game is S-L-O-W. Search the GOG forums for wiz8fast and a sped-up animations mod, otherwise you'll hate combat - and you do a LOT of it in this game. The story is okay, even if you're new to the series. The main draw imo is the party design - the game has unique classes not seen elsewhere, and the limitations of the classes and races will make you spend hours dreaming up fun party combinations. You pick personalities too, and they're all voice acted and have different things to say in different situations - really helps bring them alive. Skills are usage-based, and while you can allocate some points during level up it's better to simply use them. This does encourage grinding, but it shouldn't be an issue since the game throws tons of enemies at you. There's level scaling - while not inherently bad, here it doesn't hold back: you can and will encounter stronger enemies as often as weaker ones. It takes a while before you outlevel most enemies, which is usually by endgame. It's definitely aged and not for everyone. But if you love challenges in your RPGs, this is right up your alley.

I LOVE this game. You can go your whole life and never play it the same way twice thanks to the wide and varied selection of characters, professions and personalities. And when you finish the game... you ascend as a cosmic lord to rule over space, time and all of esistance. Now THATS how you finish a game!! Yes its a bit old by now but so what. Bugs can be useful. The last time I played it there was a graphics glitch that had a map of black dots form on the floor around bad guys so I always knew when they where lurking round a corner. Never had issues with sound and I dont remember it ever crashing or going slow. Installing it was a challenge in its self thats why once it was on the pc, It never came off. I loved my team. Even though it was just a game, I feel we bonded and I do sometimes think back to that summer when rfs81 knocked out nessie with one punch in the bayjin sea caves and we all piled on that sea dragon with our swords, spells till it was gone...sighs.. That was an awesome summer. I have three studs in my ear. One for each artifact from this game because THATS how much I love it and yes,,, I did vist all three retro dungeons in the game. Have you...?

I've pretty much just bought the game. I heard about it ages ago, when I was still a small cub, but never got to try it out. I was nursed on titles like Baldur's Gate and similar, never really fancied Morrowind in my youth, so Wizardry didn't probably seem so appealing. However, as I aged, so did my taste for RPGs, nowadays I appreciate subtle intricacies that RPGs like Morrowind, Oblivion and others offer... so to cut the long story short, I finally decided to get the famous Wizardry, and.... I love it. I've spent all day just playing with my party, crawling and exploring every tiny corner of Monastery and I'm hooked up. Can't wait to discover more. I like the unorthodox classes, interesting spells and mechanics, it takes some getting used to, but it's certainly worth it. I recommend this title!

Wizardry 8 is the last entry in the great and epic series. And unlike *some other series* Wizardry managed to leave the scene with pride and dignity. This game even on easy can beat you up in the most evil and unexpected way. This game hates you as much as a game can hate someone - and still manages not to step into territory of inadequate difficulti-in-the-name-of-difficulty projects. It IS both hard and complex, and it is hard *because* it is complex. Lots of races, stats and abilities combine form a nearly-infinite amount of possibilities to develop the party. Lots of factions to join or oppose, each having a tooth on another. A unique looking sword-sorcery-and-OMFGisitarocketlauncher?!!! setting with wizards, starships and wizards on starships, deep mythology and engaging gameplay do make this game EPIC.

I personally can't say enough good stuff about this game. I played it years and years ago when younger and a lot of it was interesting, but I got distracted by the tidal wave of the MMO success of EQ back then. I replayed it some years back and couldn't believe I had put it down to start with. An interesting variety of races and classes, lots of magic items, tons of skills and options for advancement and so forth. The character's speech was well done and fit the setting, the story was, although lightly eclectic, altogether good and what should be expected of a Wizardry game. The only downside is that some fights can be very difficult, especially earlier on in the game, but a lot of status ailments, such as paralyze and whatnot, work surprisingly well, even on bosses. The game has a very before-its-time style of approaching combat, with front/side/back relationships for enemies and which party members can hit/be hit (reach weapons, like staves and polearms, can hit from middle and back rows, for example.) It's altogether a very good game that I couldn't recommend enough. It has its flaws here or there, but in my opinion the greatest downside is that there's no Wizardry 9. :(