Well I have been having a great time the last two weeks playing
Wizardry. What started as a way to waste a few minutes here and there while on
vacation turned into a full quest after I got hooked in its claws again. As I
discussed in the last post, the game is just really easy for me to get into
right now because the turn based nature of the game fits well into my tiny
windows of free time. I can play during lunch at work, fight a few battles
while my wife is cooking dinner, or just map a few squares when I have a moment
during the day. Hopefully things will settle down in the next week so that I
can play some bastion, but it won’t be until I finish Wizardry 6: Bane of the
Cosmic Forge.
Wizardry 6
The Wizardry series is about as “old school CRPG” as you can
get. It is a contemporary of the original Ultima as well as other well known
titles and has a huge legacy that has taken some strange turns. Originally
designed as a series of campaigns using the same first person wire frame
dungeon for 5 games, Wizardry finally decided to keep up with the graphics arms
race and retool its engine in 1990. Unfortunately, it still looks pretty poor
compared to other titles coming out at the same time. All of the tiles are
represented by the same ugly grey stone hallway texture. (Even areas described
as forests, swamps, or pyramids.) Fortunately, the descriptions are very good
at spurring the imagination to fill in the gaps and give the player some sense
of place.
In addition to the simplicity of the graphics, the inherent
“old school-ness” of the game is staggering. The game world consists of an
ancient castle that not only has swamps and mountains around it, but was also apparently built over the River Styx. The mountain area has a dwarven mine, a
pyramid with a pharaoh in the basement and an amazon queen at the top, and,
evidently, a volcano right beside the pyramid with its own god that the amazons
worship. A mishmash to say the least. What is endearing about the setting is
that it represents a time when games were designed by small teams with nothing
to limit them but their imaginations and coding skills. Even though I enjoy a
good, solid story every once in a while, the mechanics are what really run the
show. Building characters is a delight with the option to change classes as
long as stats allow building different skills in all the characters. Right now
I have a fighter turned samurai who can cast spells, a bard with excellent
scouting and alchemy skills, and a mage who has dabbled in ninjitsu enough to
blend with the shadows at will. It’s really incredible and offers a HUGE
variety of game play styles making almost any strategy viable.
I am currently about 85% through the game and will be done
soon. I am looking forward to playing Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant
in the future, but the fact that I thought I could mainline the whole series
when I was depressed is insane. It is just way too much to take in and too much
time to invest. No wonder I was so frustrated. I’ll give it a few months before
I try the next one, but I am looking forward to importing my current party and
continuing their journey. It’s also pretty cool because I remember PURCHASING
Wizardry 7 (on two 3.5” floppies) in fifth grade and getting completely lost.
It will be nice to finally finish it.
Wizardry’s Current Legacy
One of the most interesting things about the Wizardry series
is how it has developed globally. Originally an American series, the games have
become an RPG staple in Japan. I’m not sure if it’s the “spreadsheet” nature of
the mechanics or whether they just like the games, but the Wizardry series has
seen more iteration and games in Japan than in the country of its origin! Many
of these went unreleased in the US including a SNES port of Wizardry 6 that
looks quite good.
I, myself, purchased the PS3 Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost
Souls and sunk about ten hours into it. I originally got frustrated with its
difficulty curve, but now that I understand class switching and character
building I may fare better. It also has a very ‘anime’ design with skimpy
clothing and cutesy sounds I don’t particularly like, but the mechanics are
identical to Wizardry 1 so you know it’s got to be good. I’ll have to wait on
that for a little while, too.
Bastion
Bastion is still on my plate and I enjoyed what I have
played of it. I look forward to digging into it a little more once I have time.
Thanks for sticking with me.