Walking in a Wizardry Wonderland

[Tanukitsune]

I have Wizardry 6-8, but couldn't get into it, but apparently Japan loves Wizardry games so much that they still make them and they've slowly been getting me into this style of games.

 

Demon Gaze was a good starting point for me since it let me play as advanced classes and basically try out skills that seem to be in most of Wizardry styled games? 

 

After playing with Class of Heroes and Elminage I feel more ready to play the "real deal" and I'm mostly curious.

 

Do later and more modern Wizardry style have a good variety of spells, species, skills and classes? I really liked the variety of spells these games seem to have although it seems normal to just use magic users for buffs and healing near the end.

 

I supposed I'll need graph paper and be prepared to step on lots of traps soon.

 

But, just how many Wizardry styled games are there? Traps, spells, class changing and praying the next battle won't be your last?

 

I know of Etrian Oddyssey, but that's about it.

[Vulpes Absurda]

How many? Well seven Etrian Oddyssey games counting Persona Q. Three Class Of Heroes games. There's a 7th Dragon game coming out here soon-ish. At least ten Wizardry games. Two Elminage games that are more or less the same. Then there's the Might And Magic games of which there's another ten. Paper Sorcerer is a cool game you can get for like 2 bucks so that's worth a look. And the last series I can think of is Dungeon Master of which I'd say there's about four 
(Some of the ports of that game were reworks so I'm not sure how to count that). So all told I'm guessing there's around forty to fifty of note. And that's not counting the Grimrock games which are fantastic but have as much in common with portal as they do Wizardry.

 

Of those I'd say less then ten are worth giving a look. Maybe more if you are interested in the respective series. But I certainly wouldn't tell any one to play the first Wizardry.

 

And what you should play next depends on how far off the deep end you want to go. If you want to go all the way then I hear Wizardry 6 is the best in the series for the more classic style. 8 is also thought to be great but they were trying something pretty new with that one so in some ways so it lacks the refinement of 6. I hear 7 is also good but only if you import your party from 6 anyways.

 

If you want something less on the deep end then Grimrock might be a good choice. I said it doesn't fully count and I meant it, but it scratches the same itch so it's worth a look.

 

For something in the middle I would recommend that you pick up Etrian Oddyssey Untold 2: The Knight Of Fafnir. Incredibly stupid subtitle aside it's the only game in the series I've ever gotten really into. And I would say it's maybe the best over all starting point for that type of game. The only thing it's lacking is the species component but the classes are all incredibly well thought out and play off of each other in great ways. By the midpoint of that game it feels less like an RPG and more like you've built a beautiful clockwork machine of death. It's great.

[Tanukitsune]

Does the "Magic Wall" skill exists in other Wizardry styled games? The game is almost set to easy mode once you get it.

 

Also, do they all that that annoying darkness tile that for some reason light spells don't affect? They are pretty annoying when they add other trap tiles to them.

 

Maybe having too much variety in classes and species isn't that good, because it's hard to find their special equipment. For example in Class of Heroes 2 there is an "Idol" class that uses microphones (it's Japanese, OK?) and I could find a decent one for the whole game.

 

I'm still excited to play the real deal, even though I'm still in the middle of Elminage.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I can't really speak to the specifics of many games, I've mostly played the Etrian games and those cut out a lot of what I'm told didn't work in the older games in the genre. And focuses in on the party building and dungeoneering that worked, as opposed to the overwhelming systems of Wizardry and it's ilk that, while it has it's own appeal, tends to make the games hard to get into.

The newer ones tend to be balanced enough that things like Magic Wall can't break it quite so much. And to the best of my knowledge the dark room with traps you can't see concept has died off for the most part.

[dibs]

You should try Wiz 8 again. One of my fave games of all time!

 

They are quite different (as Vulpes has covered a whole lot of stuff!), but have you looking into roguelikes? Something like Dungeon Crawl? The systems in many of those games interlock in magical ways.

[Tanukitsune]

I've played a few roguelikes and I like some of them, I'm just currently looking into games with systems similar to the "Wizardry styled" ones.

 

I played Wizardry 6 for a bit and I didn't like the pacing or the level design, I walked for ages before the first enemy encounter and the battle was very underwhelming. It was closer to playing Legend of Grimrock, only not as good?

[Vulpes Absurda]

Wiz 8 is actually a really playable game by today's standards. I played a bit of it a few years ago and was surprised at how well the UI held up. It's clunky for sure, but it's way more playable then it has any right to be.

 

But! The steam version is supposedly broken though, so GOG is your only option. And as they sponsor Totalbiscuit I can't wholeheartedly endorse buying from them. You can of course make your own decisions on that.