I just watched a two hour video on why Wizardry 7 is the best game in the series. I would like to get into them, what's the best way to do that, just jump into 7?
I just watched a two hour video on why Wizardry 7 is the best game in the series.
I just watched a two hour video on why Wizardry 7 is the best game in the series. I would like to get into them, what's the best way to do that, just jump into 7?
Hey OP. How much time do you have? If you have an ungodly amount of time, start with the series from the beginning either with the Apple II or IBM PC ports for the first five games. The main difference between the two is that the PC has a different and arguably more refined art style, both you and enemies cannot cast spells during surprise attacks, the RNG might be a little worse in the IBM PC version, and Wizardry IV has the real-time clock removed. They're really hardcore in an absurd way but there is a certain joy in using graph paper and typing out spell names. There are a myriad of NES, SFC, Saturn, and PS1 ports with various features and removed. Music and graphics are more plentiful in these versions but the further you go from the Apple II the more concessions are available to you. You may or may not be interested in the Japanese spinoff exclusives so detour and play those if you are so inclined.
Now, as for 6-7-8, that's easy. You play the IBM PC DOS versions of 6 and 7, then 8 on Windows, importing saves between games as you complete them. Wizardry Gold is a broken Windows port of 7 which is why it is not recommended.
Good luck, OP.
Why not play the PS1 versions, they actually include several games apiece?
>How much time do you have? If you have an ungodly amount of time, start with the series from the beginning either with the Apple II or IBM PC ports for the first five games. The main difference between the two is that the PC has a different and arguably more refined art style, both you and enemies cannot cast spells during surprise attacks, the RNG might be a little worse in the IBM PC version
If you're going the old school route don't go with the IBM PC version - use the recently released, fan made Apple II v3.0 version:
>https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/proving-grounds-v3/
It has most of the improvements you listed and a ton of bugfixes. If you want to play it old school the v3.0 version's the way to go. Plus the RNG when levelling can completely frick you up if you have bad luck in the PC version (pic related)
Extremely neat. Shame he doesn't have the source code for 2 and that he says not to hold your breath for 3. I was just thinking a few days ago that the original Final Fantasy was a buggy mess but man did I not know about some of these bugs. Guess you have to expect as much with 1970's innovations. I wonder how many of these bugs were fixed with later ports.
This anon gets it.
The game was originally balanced around permadeath and thus losing tens or hundreds of hours of progress is part of the fun.
>neurotypical humans
Anon, let's not kid ourselves. There's nothing neurotypical here.
>I was just thinking a few days ago that the original Final Fantasy was a buggy mess
google Final Fantasy Renaissance, thank me later.
>Final Fantasy Renaissance
I found Final Fantasy Restored and play it on a flash cart on a Famicom. It's pretty cozy.
>two hour video on why Wizardry 7
link?
I don't know if you're still around, OP, but I say jump right into Wizardry 7.
Wiz 6-7-8 have a whole story arc where you can transfer characters over between games and find some connections if you do so. However, each game is also designed for you to play them as your first game. You still need to deal with some old-school RPG mentality (you'll be huddling next to the healing fountain for a few levels, dealing with THAC0 AC and encounters which can instakill you) but that's true for the whole series.
The difficulty in starting with Wiz 6 is that it's frankly garish to look at. See pic related. It's something you can get used to after some time, but it can be off-putting to start. You need to explore a tower/dungeon, and are pretty much locked inside, but it's fairly good to slowly creep through and figure out how to get around.
Wiz 7 can be a bit more of a challenge, at least until you figure out where the dungeon is next to town that you're supposed to go to first. It looks a lot better than Wiz 6, and you're basically exploring a whole world rather than stuck in a tower. It's probably my favorite of the three, and if you want to keep going, you can transfer your characters over to Wiz 8.
I haven't really played much of Wiz 8. I didn't much care for the free-roaming aspect, especially with how it applied to battles. It looks like the channel here has a one-hour video on Wiz 8 if you want to check it out.
The earlier games are fine. There's less involved in exploring; it's basically "map out the level and then go to the next one" rather than some interconnected city or wandering up and down the towers like in Wiz 6. Things are a bit simpler, and you can die a bit easier, but there's a starting "town" where you gear up before diving into the dungeon - unlike Wiz 6-7-8, where you're always in the "dungeon". Wiz 4 is the exception, and probably worse that you've heard.
>especially with how it applied to battles.
that was one of the best parts to me. can you name a single other turn-based blobber where you can actually bottleneck enemies?
I'll defend Wizardry 6 here. While the stone tilesets aren't great, they are a massive step up from wireframe, and the game overall isn't that claustrophobic. Plus, there's a good variety of enemy designs which keeps things interesting.
I would give 6 a shot. I really enjoyed it. It's much, much less daunting than 7. You don't have to worry about class changing, or falling behind on skill points, or really anything. It's probably 40-50 hours, plays really smoothly keyboard only, and you only need maps for a few areas.
7 is great but an absolute behemoth of a game, and very challenging for a fresh player. 8 is excellent as well, if you really truly can't stomach the graphics then maybe start there and go back to 7. But really, 6 is a lot of fun and will make you a lot more familiar with the Wizardry systems.
There's currently a remake of the first Wizardry, and from what I can tell it's going to have modern graphics but the exact same butt raping gameplay as the original. Looks neat
I see the Proving Grounds one, but it's still in early access.
1-5 on PS1
6-7 on DOS
8 on Windows
i think 6 is the best entry point. it's a pretty linear dungeon crawl, class change autism isn't necessary, and it plays really comfy and fast keyboard only. outside of a few areas you really dont need to draw maps, even then there are map mods for wiz 6 and 7 that are excellent. maybe 50 hours or so, and you'll have a nice party to import to the absolute behemoth of a game that is wiz 7.
wizardry 7 really is impressive though. it's a serious time investment though, but totally worth it. in some ways i dont think it has ever been matched in terms of scope and ambition.
i personally dont care for non dw bradley wiz games except for 8.
>Inspect a chest
>>it's a Poison Needle
>nothing serious then
>attempts to disarm it
>turns out the Thief had inspected it wrong
>despite having maxed out Agility and Luck
>>Oops! Teleporter!
>get teleported into a rock
>text speed went so fast I didn't even have time to reset before it's too late
>despite having set the text speed to "you gotta press a button to move on"
>entire party is dead
>they lost all their equipment and money, including some great rare stuff
>the revive cost is astronomical
>reviving them potentially costs them stats or they may not even revive at all
I didn't do anything wrong and there is nothing I could have done. The game just decided to frick with me.
Are you sure you want this OP?
Yeah that's Wizardry
>Play snes Wizardry V
>Party meets ninjas
>Mage gets decapitated
>Try to revive him on the spot with Di
>It fails, mage turns to ashes
>With all the key items he was carrying
>"Maybe I can buy the items back or something!"
>I can't, they don't seem to be available for sale
>Put game back in its box, maybe forever
Why would you take that kind of risk?
The first three are easy.
>Are you sure you want this OP?
genuinely, I do not know.
wouldn't have it any other way
Wizardry games are the most un-fun rpgs I have ever played. Everything seems designed to be a chore.
I don't get the appeal.
Try the PS2 one that got translated, its definetly less of a chore than the older Wizardry games.
I beat the translated one a couple of years ago. Honestly I didn't like it, it felt way too stiff and... formalistic? Classes + alignment + grid-based movement, it was enough to make me drop the game. But I continued, and never had a shred of fun.
Anon...
Forsaken Land (Busin) still has a lot of the bullshit mechanics like ninja enemies one shotting you and not just with their swords but shurikens from the back row too. I assume Busin 0 the prequel that was made after it is much the same.
Imagine being a lonely nerd in the 1980s with no friends to play D&D with. That's the appeal.
I don't have to imagine 🙁
Get an old D&D rule book from the 70s or early 80s. Compare it to Wizardry and you'll see that the game is D&D but everything has been stripped out but the stats, math and dungeon mapping. What's left has also been watered down making it even more boring.
This is the point where everything went wrong for video game RPGs. Unlike tabletop games most of them never evolved beyond dungeon crawls with D&D rules, especially not in japan where they just added more and more anime to cover up the dog shit base gameplay.
Why would you compare a ttrpg to a retro video game? That’s like Gankergays criticizing game narratives for not being at the standard of novels
OP here, the image I used is actually Wizardry TTRPG, so it might be relevant.
Start from the start and original systems if you want to actually experience it. No later or console ports as it dilutes it in various ways (graphics and music notwithstanding), that's something for if you ever decide to replay it and is always how ancient games series should be played first as otherwise your frame of reference will be wrong. You can use official and unofficial tools to import your party throughout the entire series that way too, not that it really matters past a certain point.
If you don't actually care about going through the entire series "properly" (as that's subjective and you are likely to use savestates on emus anyway), just play 6-8 to for 7's trilogy. It's standalone enough.
Keep in mind that mapping is half the fun and accomplishment, there are various decent webtools out there that can help you if you don't want to actually get graph paper and pencils.
Don't play the original version of Wiz1 unless you're turbo autistic. The PS1 version is infinitely more playable while remaining savagely unfair.
That's a stretch, it's not that much more playable. Even then the best version for the 1st trilogy is the 1999 NP SNES port as thiefs aren't useless shits and you can't go wrong with many of the JP only ports anyway. Going for the originals is nice for context, going for ports is if you wan't a nice romp. The PS1's dungeon graphics are fricking ugly though.
I downloaded the NES version because it seemed the most accessible and to be honest I lost interest very early in.
Then it's likely just not the type of game for you, the version of game isn't going to change that as any ports are at best just QoL and graphics improvement with some rebalancing.
Accessible mostly in the sense that I like the presentation of that particular version and that the NES is easy to emulate, and RPGs don't really require control pads, but yeah I lost interest over the required amount of input. I like very time-consuming games by Artdink like Carnage Heart but Wizardry isn't one I'm in a rush to play.
Wizardry 1 isn't too bad, as long as you hit reset when something truly bad happens and before the game autosaves.
I'm in the middle of 2 myself (NES) and shit just got real at the end of floor B5/start of floor B6. I just spent almost a day grinding trying to improve my team but the gain I got was minimal outside of some equipment drops with magical protection.
SNES version switches 2 and 3, breaking balance completely. PSX version is the original games, plus a free automap, making it the only playable version for neurotypical humans.
No one here is neurotypical. What you meant to say is "for posers". Someone who is normal wouldn't get so defensive on this.
NTA but I don’t have autism, at least not diagnosed might have it mildly but I’ve never been unemployed have a wife etc. I think there’s plenty of people on here like me who just mask their power level in public but find the more popular gaming discussion websites (which is basically just what, subreddits and discord these days) to be boring as frick and overmoderated.
I was pointing out that the SNES version is literally fricked if you want to play the games in order. If you just want to play Wiz 1, then SNES would be fine, but then you still have to make maps like an autist.
Yeah, Ganker has the lowest concentration of troony and woke shenanigans, so it’s the only place to have any real discussion about anything.
I bet /vr/ has the highest concentration of transsexuals outside of /lgbt/.
>I bet /vr/ has the highest concentration of transsexuals outside of /lgbt/.
Ninety percent of those trannies are limited to speedrunners, though.
That will be the porn boards (specifically the hentai ones).
so I managed to get an Armor of Lords.
Not that I'll EVER have enough money to use it. I "only" have 90k right now and it took me forever to get there...
Not that I have a Lord anyway. Funny story: before this I used the stone to change class on a lvl1 character I made just to if I could get a Ninja. I got a Lord, an Evil Lord, an impossible class in other ways, and a Lord I could have used in my party. Little did I know I'd get this armor.... and I don't know shit about Lords so I thought for all I know they're as bad in magic as Wizards so I used the stone again, got a fricking Wizard, and the stone break.
Fricking Wizardry.
[CONT]
holy KEK SPOILERS I just spent an entire day grinding for nothing because I assumed there would be 8 or 9 floors like in Wizardry 1, turns out I was literally ONE step away from the ending the WHOLE time.
Well at least this wasn't as hard as I thought and I got to see more of the game. Fricking Wizardry man.
>worrying about money when it comes to identifying stuff
Wouldn't a bishop's native identification skills do the trick?
You'd need a 500k exp Wizard for that, I don't have one!
Why not back up your saves before doing something if just rolling with it is so shitty?
That's cheating though, but I guess you could do that on the Famicom versions using the Turbofile?
also I guess you could do it on the computer versions too by copying the files?
Yeah, it's cheating, but who cares. if you feel the game is that unfair it may make it more enjoyable. For the computer versions, you could probably just copy the entire game folder since it's so small.
Before I start on III Legacy of Llylgamyn, any pointers regarding alignment? I see that some floors can only be accessed with a Good party and other floors only with an Evil party. Does this mean that you have to change alignment through the game? What if you have a neutral party?
You're supposed to make two separate parties. One for the good floors and one for the bad floors.
The easiest way to beat it however is to use one party with 5 neutral characters and one good/evil one.
If you encounter a group of friendly monsters and attack them there is a random low chance that one of your good characters turns evil. If you leave them alone it's the opposite. It can take several hours to get lucky enough to alignment switch one character that's why you take 5 neutrals or even better you just create seven characters and switch the last one out so don't have to change any alignments.
Thanks I'll do that
>If you encounter a group of friendly monsters and attack them there is a random low chance that one of your good characters turns evil.
aaaaand it happened to my Priest with 18 bonus points. On the first floor. Frick me.
Well better sooner than later I guess plus I'll need that priest later on
So I’m interested in the original SNES version as it would be the easiest to emulate, and I dig the look of the original graphics. However, I’d vastly prefer to play on a mobile console, and emulating the PS1 trilogy port would be very difficult on that console, but I hear you can opt for the original graphics there. Mapping myself isn’t a deal breaker, but due to my preference for playing it with mobility in mind, I’d prefer an automap.
What advice do you guys have? Is there an automap mod for the SNES version?
PSX is the only version with an automap that you can pull up at any time. In SNES you have to cast dumapic and it’ll show you what you have explored once per cast.
why not 8, the greatest party-based dungeon crawler ever made?
idk honestly? lol. graphics look great!
yeah I'm here
it sounds like I should start with 8, and work backwards maybe
not just the graphics, the characters too. Sirtech went out of their way to give your party a palpable personality. want a posh lizardgirl barbarian? you can have that. want a wisecracking Italian Chewbacca? you can have that.
8>6>7
Wizar 8 was pretty much the peak of the genre. I probably spent literal years playing that fricking game back in the day.
7 is good...i guess. But it's very confusing, really difficult, and very annoying.
seven would be the best if 8 didnt exist
7 is good, but i don't know, it's just kind of a pain in the ass type of game. It's actually pretty complicated, but there's not much explanation to it. I must have spent hundreds of hours trying to figure it out when i was a kid, until stuff like gamefaqs came along and just laid it all out for you, then i realized how stupidly easy it actually is to beat once you figure out the cheese meta of it all.
The whole challenge to the game is trying to figure this shit out on your own.
>the challenge of the game is the process of discovery
no shit. the state of this board lmfao.
The level scaling ruins Wiz8 for me.
When playing 1 and 2 i noticed something: my Gnomes always kicked ass.
So in my playthrough of 3 I went with only Gnomes, and the results are wonderful. Can we all agree that they're the best race? They are good at everything.
This is my party atm, in the middle of floor5. If I'm correct (not sure) the only trade off is that all their stats max out at 18 whereas other classes max out at 20 or 22 in certain stats? At least I got stats like that at the end in 2. But honestly that 2-3 extra IQ points a Mage Elf will get you in the end compared to a Gnome Elf isn't worth it because on the final floor they'll die from a single spell even at lvl 15-16, whereas my lvl 11 Mage Gnome already has more HP than my lvl16 Mage Elf in 2.
Also this time I gave more luck to my Thief when starting out and it's really paying off, I'm getting item drops from chests all the fricking time and I often get 2 or even 3 items per chest. it's amazing.
aaand I just got a Butterfly Knife. This playthrough is golden
Just a reminder that you can also transfer your Wizardry 7 save file to 8, which is weird.
Play NES Wizardry 1 - 3 with no guide (and AC fix patch for 1). After an year come back to us
>he made maps while playing Wizardry 1 instead of just memorizing everything
you didn't beat the game
at first i hated wizardry 8 but then i realized you could just autobattle without actually having to play the game