Hi I haven't posted here in a long time, but I was wondering which Wizardry is your favorite and why?

To start off, I think I'll list mine.

Wizardry VI is mine I think. Even without any kind of mod used, I found the game enjoyable. It was difficult and also
has some plot twists that I don't think most (maybe all) could find without some outside resource informing them. The monsters are pretty much perfectly balanced to all the way through the game, and I never found myself thinking this game was just too hard. I did not get this game until maybe 6 or 7 years ago, but I will say I am glad for this as when I did have questions or got stuck on a difficult puzzle I could look it up online.

As another thing, I really thought it was awesome you could import your party from 6 to 7 and 8 and the choices you made reflected that at the starts of the game at least. There were things I liked about wizardry 7 that I liked a lot but I just felt VI overall was the better game. I liked the mish mash of different lore when you arrive at the River Styx.

I enjoyed Wizardry 5 but I only got to play that on SNES and enjoyed it for years growing up. When we were very young we had wizardry 1 on the NES as well, and beat the snot out of it until we got Wizardry 5 from a friend.

I've played Labyrinth of Lost Souls on the PS3, and while I did enjoy it quite a lot, I was taken aback by it. It's like they didn't like the magic system used in 6-8 and just went with the more simple (and very AD&D style) of spells per level and only so many. They also liked the idea of just returning to a town and sleeping at an inn. I didn't dislike this game, I actually played the heck out of it too, but found myself just enjoying the systems of 6-8 more.

I never got to play the SNES version of VI I found there was an English translation for a rom version of it, but never got it. Has anyone here tried that and was it any good? How as the magic system in that?

Personally I feel like these games capture some kind of portion of your mind and just don't let go and I like hearing other people's experiences with them, and games they found were similar and fun. Sorry if this thread seems to have no point, but I do want to hear what you all think of the series, and maybe other games you played like them that you enjoyed and why. Thanks and Happy New Year!

My favorite might actually be Wizardry 4, mainly because it is just so unconventional, and does things that I have not seen in any game before or since. Granted, the game is rather difficult, and isn't always fair (anyone who's played the game enough to judge will have experienced the unfairness that is enemies casting MAKANITO), but it can be quite enjoyable. It is clearly designed for experts, and it shows (and many of the design decisions work well from this standpoint). Also, while it does have a "dead person walking" state, where you are doomed if you pass a point of no return without an item, the game at least provides a clear warning before the point of no return, and it provides 8(!) save slots.

If you want to play Wizardry 4 (and you've reached the bottom floor of Wizardry 1; there's a reason I suggest doing this first), the best way may be to acquire a Japanese PlayStation game called Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn. Choose Scenario #4 CLASSIC version (not ARRANGE, which changes some things and doesn't have full English), then go into the options and change the first four setting all the way to the right (to put the game into English). Note that, even if you can read Japanese well, I still recommend playing this particular game in English, as there's some wordplay here (and also in Wizardry 5, incidentally) that would not translate into another language. I haven't tried it, but I have seen a bit of it on video. The magic system is the same as the DOS, albeit with the interface adapted for controller usage. (This does mean that, of course, that any (non-bug) issues with the system carry over, like the fact that there's no way to restore large amounts of HP in a reasonable amount of time; Heal Wounds is not strong enough, and there's no upgrade to that spell.)

By the way, if you have Wizardry 6+7 on GOG, check out the soundtrack in the extras; it's actually an arranged version of the music from the Super Famicom version of Wizardry 6. So, while that version of the game never officially made it out of Japan, some music from it did.

That game is coming to PC this month, though unfortunately not on GOG. (I may pick this up from Humble Bundle if they offer a DRM-free build, provided that the game works in WINE.) For a similar game, you could take a look at Elminage Gothic, which really is a Japanese Wizardry spin-off in everything but name.

The Japanese were fans of early Wizardry, but didn't really like the changes Wizardry 6 made to the series, and prefer the older style; hence, Japanese made Wizardry spin-offs use the old system for things, including the magic system (though some games may offer alchemy and/or psionics as extra types of magic; Elminage Gothic has Alchemy (albeit very different from Wizardry 6-8 Alchemy) and Summons (contract a monster and you can now summon it). Some of them offer the new races and classes introduced in Wizardry 6 (Wizardry Gaiden 3 has some of them, Wizardy Gaiden 4 and DIMGUIL have all of them), and some have entirely new options (see Wizardry Empire), but the game's systems, including the magic system, are still more like the original series.

In my case, there are a few things I don't like about Wizardry 6 and 7:
* The fact that you can't change your party after the start. One of the best things about classic Wizardry (and Bard's Tale) is that you could create new characters mid-game and switch your characters out in town; but Wizardry 6 threw that out the window.
* The base miss chance mechanic. Basically, a character who levels up first as a fighter will always be a better fighter than one who levels up as a caster first, even if they reach the same fighter level, and the value that's used is invisible, improves by random amounts at level up, and stops improving at level 20. This issue with the leveling system (which Wizardry 1-5 didn't have) is made worse by the previous point about not being able to change your party.
* Healing at higher levels is painful. Unless you happen to be near a fountain, you can't restore large amounts of HP in a reasonable amount of time. As I mentioned before, Heal Wounds (even at PL6-7) heals basically nothing at high levels, there's no upgraded healing spell (Wizardry 7's Healthfull heals even less per character), and resting takes way too much real time. Wizardry 1-5 only had this issue at lower levels thanks to MADI (fully heals one character), and in Wizardry 4 having groups of priests healing you works well enough (plus pentagrans fully heal you there). Wizardry 8 made healing magic stronger and included Restoration as an upgraded single target healing spell for high level usage. (Pool of Radiance has similar issues with healing, as the only healing spell is absurdly weak, to the point where the fastest way (in real time) to heal is to just rest for weeks at a time.
* Wizardry 7's time aspect, where being too slow can result in NPCs beating you to the maps, of which, to my understanding, one of them is necessary to beat the game.

Oh I totally agree about the party members being locked in and you can't go and make new ones once you get started. I have been playing a game that is very similar to Wizardry VII and it is the same way. I loved that about Wizardry 1 and 5, you could go make your team of 6, and if you wanted to try something new, go make a few more guys at the training grounds and insert them into your team and go power level them up and try all the stuff out you wanted. I wish more games had this kind of feature.

I have played Eliminage Original, it starts pretty hard, but once you get about level 7 the game becomes a breeze I think. I have had my eye on Elminage Gothic tho, maybe once I finish up another play through of VII and beat 8 all the way I'll try it.

Elminage Gothic never becomes a breeze. In fact, the final bonus dungeon has enemies that could easily wipe out a level ~400 party, and the game actually expects you to reach such high levels. (The length of the dungeon combined with the high XP yields from enemies makes it feasible to get that high, even though no other part of the game will take you to triple digit levels naturally.)

In any case, if you want a game that is challenging throughout, I would definitely recommend Elminage Gothic.

By the way, I think my ideal Wizardry game would:
* Have the classes from later games. (Not sure about races, however.)
* Allow changing your party mid-game, leaving characters behind and adding new ones.
* Have a skill system resembling Wizardry 8's.
* Allow class changing, and even encourage it, but maybe limit how much you can keep from old classes. Also, after changing to another class, it should be possible to return to where you were in your old class. (Final Fantasy 5 has a good system for this, but having it work with Wizardry 8's skill system is a nontrivial problem.)
* Not have RNG level ups, and not have a character's first class dictate anything long-term.
* Healing would be strong enough to be useful, and would not be packed entirely into one realm. (Personally, I wish Wizardry 8 had made Restore Health learnable to give your healer a non-Divine Magic option for healing; the spell is Earth Realm, and I believe it would be level 2 costing 5 SP/level, or if not, those values would make the most sense.)
* Not have one-time only events, and not be too heavy on puzzles or required progression items.
* Also, not have one-time only random loot. (That's one issue that Wizardry 8 has.)
* No level scaling, but there'd be a point where level ups only give minimal benefit, in order to prevent the player from completely out-leveling the game's hardest challenges.
* No early difficulty spike; that is, no Arnika Road. It's OK for the endgame to be hard, however.

As for other games with created characterswhere you can change your party mid-game:
* Bard's Tale 1 and 2.
* Bard's Tale 3 (but there are one-time XP rewards)
* Might and Magic 1 & 2 (2 even requires it if you want to have a balanced party for end game)
* Might and Magic 3-5 (but most XP sources are one-time only, as enemies typically don't respawn and there's lots of quest XP)
* Dragon Quest 3 and 9 (but you can't ever remove the main character from the party)
* Etrian Odyssey series
* The Dark Spire

w8 is the best game from a 'works' point of view but 7 is the one i enjoyed the most

It's a toss between 1, 4 and 6.
6 was the first one I played, and has a very good starting are to explore.
1 is a very tight design, and a game that can be played Ironman even when playing "blind".
4 is unique among CRPGs.

2 is the weakest one IMO, while 7 is the most tiresome when much too high encounter frequency against the same set of HP sponged enemies with no random loot to show for it (the Might&Magic games were far superior in that regard). But it has the mother of all Wizardry battles aginst the Beast of a 1000 Eyes.

One thing I like about 2, however, is that you do get easy access to some powerful pieces of equipment without having to rely on the RNG. Also, the boss fights to obtain them are quite interesting. (Did you know that the Armor, which isn't that hard to defeat with the right strategy, is level 300? And Fuzzballs are level 100, in case you're wondering.) There's also some special drops which allow things like neutral lords and even an exploit that allows you to increase a character's XP exponentially, making it feasible to reach 4 digit levels with enough patience.

The one problem with this scenario is that you can't really do much if you haven't leveled up a mage to level 13, as you absolutely must have the spell in order to progress past the first floor.

Out of curiosity, have you played the NES version of this scenario? (Or the SFC or GBC versions that are based on it.) It gets rid of that requirement (you still need that spell, but not until the end of the game), and it also adds many other enemies from Wizardry 1-4 to the mix. On the downside, there's now a fetch quest. It's also worth noting that the SFC version has an initiative overflow (underflow?) bug that causes characters with more than 15 AGI to sometimes act last. (There's a similar bug in the GBC version, but I believe you need more than 20 AGI, so it only affects Hobbits there.))

The one classic Wzardry game that I am not interested in is Wizardry 3, mainly because of the requirement to have two parties of different alignments to complete the game, and because you never reach higher levels in that game.) Well, there's the Diamond Drake (+ 3 Diamond Knights) fight in Wizardry: DIMGUIL, which is an extremely long fight against a group of bosses that can instant kill you (no KADORTO during battle, and DI doesn't exist here), and probably beats that beast, provided that you don't just teleport them way with MAHAMAN.

Some of the other Japanese Wizardry games also have such monstrous fights. Elminage Gothic, which really is Japanese Wizardry in all but name, has a nasty status inflicting superboss, if you can even get that far (the dungeon could reasonably take you to around level 400, and there are enemies that could easily wipe out a party even at that level).

From what I can tell, it looks like the Beast of a 1000 Eyes is a safe fight if your level is high enough; the Diamond Drake fight is not safe at *any* level. I wish there were more games like Wizardry 4 (though maybe not as hard).

Sometimes, Wizardry 4 really feels like an adventure game disguised as a CRPG, particularly when you look at the puzzles and the "dead person walking" situation that can occur.

Fond memories of 1...probably played it on an Apple IIe. That should explain everything. :)


Later versions...probably 6. Yeah, it's almost totally linear, and I agree with the point about healing...you're running back to the healing and mana fountains there on the river, rather a LOT.

8 feels like it has a calibration error, with the stats and specialty skills, but overall I like it a lot, especially with some of the improvements possible like the combat accelerator...in the normal game, any critters that tend to break off and flee (diremare et al, some T'rang, some Higardi) are HORRIBLY tedious because their offscreen action takes forever, and it's every round. The break-combat logic makes it worse. I think it's 1.26? that supports the accelerator, and it's a huge improvement.

7 is irritating. World crossing a TON, but outdoor travel there is much more tedious than in 8. A couple of the dungeons are hair-pullers...and I don't have that much left... :)

There's a reason I don't use fear and blind effects unless it's early (but post-Monastery) and I am clearly outmatched and need a reprieve (usually Arnika Road); I also don't like the fact that the Omnigun has a significant blind chance. (Maybe I should look into modding the game to change it into something else, like Insanity (same level spell), and while I'm at it, see about making Restore Health learnable.) Did you know about the identify glitch in that version? (Try to identify item 9 (even though you can only carry 8 items), then when you succeed, check your Bishop's XP.)

Thats tough, I liked 5 and 6 a lot. I think if I ever get farther into 8 it will be my favorite though.

1.. 2.. 3.. those were the first I played many years ago and got me started on the entire genre. I filled out many pages of graph paper making maps. logged a notebook full of notes. burned through a few 5 1/4" floppies playing the game so much and even had to order a new set from sir-tech as replacement. didn't help that the originals needed to be flipped, something you weren't supposed to do with them as it would dislodge the dirt trapped in the liners.

yes, the newer games have huge worlds, better graphics, awesome sound, but i didn't need any of that almost 40 years ago and i still loved those games.

If you like the early games in the series, you might consider looking into some of the Japanese spon-offs. Very few of them actually see official English release, but one of them (Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Sould) is going to be released on GOG, and there's Elminage Gothic, which is Japanese Wizardry in everything but name, is already available here.

I have yet to play through any of them to completion, but I do love this series. I really do love Wizardry 6, but I'm actually trying to complete Wizardry 1 at the moment (for real this time) and I am noticing how elegantly the game is designed. It seems so well balanced; everything is in it's place for a reason. And the levels are surprisingly well designed. It amazes me how much they got right on one of the first RPGs ever made for PC. The first level alone is a great example of how nicely the levels are designed. It is split into 4 distinct areas so that even if you don't map it, it is fairly easy to navigate.
(see attached image)

I really enjoyed Wizardry 1 on the NES, I'm sure we all know about the AC bug in it now, but despite that I loved it
and have fond memories. Same for Wizardry 5 on the SNES. At the time we played these games the internet was not accessible for us, so stumbling around each new floor was a lengthy process, trying to find out which items to use where.
Despite almost always have a priest in the party we never really used Calfo or whatever spell it was that let you identify the trap on a chest, so we rolled with a thief or ninja constantly.

I am fixing to import my current wizardry VI party into wizardry VII now, tackle that all over again. I really hope I can stick it out and go all the way through 8. I always just kind of get to a point in 8 and just stop.. and like 6-8 months later, start up Wizardry VI again. I don't think 8 is a bad game at all, just something always stops me every time.