Wizardry 8

 The final game in the Wizardry series and the last game released by Sir-Tech Canada before they ceased operations in 2003, and having spent nearly a decade in development, it also saw the biggest overhaul the series ever had.  With a 3D engine, full 360-degree movement, an overhauled stat and skill system (running to 100 rather than 3-18 like traditional D&D) and even tweaked combat that took place in the very same 3D world you were exploring rather than a separate combat screen (with environmental obstacles, formations and enemy distance becoming new factors as a result), the Elder Scrolls influence is certainly apparent.  They even took a cue from the Jagged Alliance games and gave your created characters voice lines and lots of incidental dialog for battles and just exploring the world so they felt a bit more "alive" and had more personality than just their class.  Some other nice touches also make the world feel more dynamic, like wandering NPCs and weather effects.  Make no mistake, though, it's still very much Wizardry - turn based battles, punishing difficulty that actively encourages savescumming and lots - and I do mean lots - of experience farming, treasure looting and solving arcane puzzles are required to see the end.  Tying in with the previous two games, there are also five potential starting points depending on how you finished Wizardry 7, three potential endings, and even your choices in 6 factor into how the story plays out here if you keep the same party across the whole trilogy.  There's even a nice callback to the series' origins with a few hidden "retro style" dungeons with primitive wireframe graphics, 90 degree turns and teleporter and spinner traps to confuse the player.  It's a shame it was the last western-developed Wizardry, as it's neat to see how one of the genre's keystones evolved over the years and what potential it would have reached had it continued.  At least its legacy lives on, with new spinoff games and rereleases and a recent HD remake of the first game from Digital Eclipse.

Developer: Sir-Tech Canada

Publisher: Sir-Tech, Nightdive Studios

Released: 2001, 2013

Platforms: PC

Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant

Wizardry VI marked a significant new turn for the series; not least of which because it was actually the first to use a new engine, departing from the one they'd had for five previous games and over seven years.  With it also came a whole new slew of playable races, from Dracons to Felpurrs to Mooks, as well as numerous new classes like Valkyries, Bards, Psionics and Alchemists.  Magic, rather than being simply divided into priest and mage spells, has been similarly overhauled, now comprising the domains of fire, water, air, earth, mental, and holy spells, restricted by class - only Psionics can use all of the Mental spells, for example, while Alchemists get a small handful from every sphere to simulate them brewing various potions and poisons.  There's a limited skill system in place too, with some being tied to a particular class (such as the Bard's music skill) while most others can be used by several classes or even any class; though obviously things like Legerdemain (pickpocketing) and Skullduggery (lockpicking) are best suited to specialized classes like the Thief.  The core gameplay remains quintessentially Wizardry, though - first person dungeon crawling with 90 degree angles, punishingly difficult battles and a whole lot of grinding - but you can at least do proper saves and reloads now rather than having to roll a whole new party each time you die.  There is also no hub town this time - you start off straight in the dungeon itself and make do with whatever you scavenge from treasure chests or battles, or whatever scattered NPCs you can barter with.  Something else relatively unique for the time is that each of the two games also have multiple endings - depending on how you complete the story, importing your party into the next game will start them in a different place in the next one and with slightly different surrounding story events, though the overall story and sequence of events remains largely unchanged.  Still quintessentially old-school, brutally tough, grindy and "primitive" in design even a decade after the series' origins, Wizardry 6 and 7 are for a very niche audience, but those who enjoy their specific school of design swear by them.

 

Developer: Sir-Tech

Publisher: Sir-Tech, ASCII Corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment, Nightdive Studios

Released: 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2013

Platforms: PC, FM Towns, PC-98, PlayStation, Mac OS

I would also strongly recommend you play the DOS version of Wizardry 7 and not the Windows remake "Wizardry Gold"; Gold breaks several important skills and makes the game much more difficult to complete.

Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom

Wizardry IV was the last game in the series helmed by both of the franchise's original creators and for a time, it appeared that it would be the last in the series due to steadily declining sales (4 in particular doing very poorly owing to its sadistic design).   The fifth entry in the series was headed by David W. Bradley and originally pitched as an unrelated title, but reworked to fit into the Wizardry franchise (and held back from release for over two years while work on Wizardry IV was completed).  Fittingly, the game was marketed as "breaking away from the Wizardry of the past" and featured, for the first time in the series, a substantially overhauled visual style and user interface, as well as a much more intricate dungeon that put equal emphasis on puzzles, storytelling and combat.  At its core, though, it remains very much in the vein of its namesake - punishingly difficult dungeon crawling that requires a lot of persistence, luck and skill to win out and complete.  It is at least more than a glorified paint-job, but if you found the original games too frustrating, well, this one won't do a lot to change your mind.

Developer: Sir-Tech
Publisher: Sir-Tech, Naxat Soft (PC Engine CD), Capcom (SNES)
Released: 1988
Platforms: Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, FM Towns, PC-88, PC-98, PC Booter, SNES, PC Engine CD

Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna

Wizardry IV represented a departure for the series norm in many ways - rather than taking command of a player-generated party, you were now put in the shoes of the first game's villain, Werdna, as he made his way out of the tomb he was imprisoned in and attempted to regain his power.  Befitting this, Werdna starts out extremely weak, but as the player reaches magic circles on each floor, his level increases and he can summon groups of monsters to his aid.  The ludicrous difficulty of the previous games is taken even further here, with the player being required to have an intimate knowledge of the game's mechanics to succeed, only gain levels at preset checkpoints, and decipher a number of obscure, cryptic clues in order to get the best possible endings.  One example of this is the very first puzzle the player encounters - they cannot escape the first room unless they know to summon a monster that can cast the Light spell, wait for them to cast it, and then use that to see a hidden door in order to escape.  (This solution was also famously written down and sealed in an envelope in the game's box, with a note encouraging the player to only open it if absolutely stumped.)  Moreover, the game is on a strict time limit, with the player constantly stalked by Werdna's nemesis Trebor as an immortal specter, and if caught at any point it's an immediate game over and restart.  An RPG that requires precise execution, encyclopedic knowledge and a ton of luck to win through, it's little surprise that it's considered to be the hardest RPG ever made, bar none.  If you're searching for a true challenge that will push your skill and patience to its limits, Wizardry IV was made just for you.

Developer: Sir-Tech
Publisher: Sir-Tech
Released: 1987
Platforms: Apple II, DOS, NEC PC-88, PC-98

Wizardry I, II, III

The Wizardry franchise is one that needs no introduction to any serious RPG fan; one of the first major D&D-inspired franchises on home computer platforms, it was among the earliest to have a party-based format and color graphics and even implemented some relatively unique features like Prestige classes (only accessible once certain stat thresholds are reached).   In fact, it was so influential that it inspired the likes of other legendary titles like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and even continues to get spinoff titles to this day in Japan, very few of which have been localized.  However, the first three games do suffer from a bit of poor planning- the original releases of 2 and 3 can only be played with a party created and imported from the previous game, resulting in each game selling less copies than the previous.  It's also just a punishing game in general - there is a lot of grinding required to make headway through the dungeon, and suffering a party wipe at any time means you have to make a whole new party of adventurers and go down there to retrieve them, resulting in even more grinding.  And if you accidentally teleport into a wall or out of a map boundary, welp, that party's gone for good.  It may be rather primitive by modern standards, unreasonably difficult in many ways and have an unwieldy interface even on its newer ports (for the NES and numerous other platforms), but the original Wizardry trilogy is a piece of history that's at least worth a look for anyone developing interest in the genre.

Developer: Sir-Tech
Publisher: Sir-Tech
Released: 1981, 1982, 1983
Platforms: Apple II, PC Booter, MS-DOS Mac, FM-7, PC-98, PC-88, Sharp X1, Commodore 64, MSX2, NES, Turbografx-CD, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan Color

Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land

One of many original games released under the Wizardry label by a Japanese company but one of the few to get a release in the west, Tale of the Forsaken Land is what one would expect from the name - challenging first-person dungeon crawler action.  But does Racjin manage to still manage to make that format fun in the Playstation 2 era, or is this just a forgettable game made to cash in on a popular name?

Wizardry is a quintessential early computer RPG franchise - one of the very first to emulate Dungeons and Dragons in format and design, as well as the first to feature color graphics and a party-based experience.  While it would soon be outshone by games like Ultima and the Gold Box series (mostly because its engine and graphcis started to look very dated in comparison), the franchise still trucked on for over a decade, getting its final entry in 2001 with Wizardry 8.  Sir-Tech's last surviving branch dissolved not long thereafter, though, and the franchise mostly came to an end in the west.

However, Wizardry found a very different life in Japan, with numerous spinoff games coming into existence under a variety of companies as late as 2017, very few of which were ever localized for the rest of the world.  Tale of the Forsaken Land is one of the few that was, released in 2001 by then-niche RPG publisher Atlus and developed by Racjin, a fairly unknown company that has a few cult classics to their name (probably the best-known being the Snowboard Kids games for the Nintendo 64).

From a quick glance, though, it's plain to see that the feel of the Wizardry franchise was kept alive for Tale of the Forsaken Land.  As in most of the western games, the game is primarily centered on a single dungeon, there is a hub-town that one interacts with via menus, it takes place in a first-person perspective (albeit now with 3d graphics for enemies and the dungeon itself), and even the familiar character creation elements return - the same classes, stat requirements and alignments come back once more.  Basically, if you played any version of the first few Wizardry titles, you'll feel right at home here.

Other iconic elements of the franchise quickly show themselves too.  Leveling up only occurs "between adventures", IE in town, so you'll probably want to make frequent trips back to rest and power up before getting too far in.  Spells are broken up into distinct levels, which each get their own number of castings between rests, so you'll want to save them for when you're in particularly tough battles.  Enemies often appear in large groups, and like your own, have a front and back row, with the latter largely being out of reach unless you have ranged weapons or spells to attack them (or clear the front row first).  Enemies will often kill a character in only a few hits, making upgrading armor and shields frequently to get more defense and evasion a key part of strategy.  One can also freely change classes between ones they have the stats and alignment requirements for, with a few more powerful ones (Ninja, Samurai and Knight) having particularly high requirements, but a strong combination of abilities.  And of course, a big part of the game is finding unidentified items that may be magical or otherwise rare/expensive, taking them back to the shop for appraisal, and then selling or equipping them accordingly.  They seem to spawn randomly on any given floor, too, so retreading dungeon floors in search of more loot is often a worthwhile endeavor.

Tale of the Forsaken Land does quickly take steps to make itself distinct, though.  Technology for those old floppy disk based games didn't allow for a huge amount of storytelling within the game itself, but being a PS2 game, that's obviously not a problem anymore.  To that end, there is a running storyline throughout Tale of the Forsaken Land, with a lot of characters to meet and recruit and side-quests to undertake along the way (often going hand-in-hand with one another).  In addition to joining you for quests, characters do have distinct personality traits, and staying on their good side is often necessary to keep them in the party; some will get angry with you if you battle friendly enemies, for example, while others hate particular enemy types and will like you more if you kill a lot of them.  This also quickly ties into a major mechanic called "Allied Actions", which are parties your group can collectively take once their trust in each other is high enough.  These include things like Double Slash (two allies attack a single enemy in tandem, getting a bonus to accuracy and damage), Hold Attack (one character immobilizes an enemy while the other hits them - great for enemies with high evasion) or Warp Attack (removes the entire front row from the fight for a turn, causing any attacks targeted at them to miss).  A lot of these aren't particularly great, but some prove to be extremely powerful and are well worth getting.

Something else new is the spell crafting system, which is a bit of an odd beast but adds quite a lot of depth to the game.  One can find stones within the dungeon that teach spells or, if they already have that spell, upgrade it to make it more effective.  Enemies frequently drop items that can be used in their own right to recover HP, cure status effects or deal damage, but oftentimes these can be taken back to the shop in town to craft new spell stones or Vellums.  Vellums are essentially rarer and more powerful spells, often requiring you to find a recipe and then craft them from three (often rare) components.  They tend to be quite useful, though, so it's often worth the effort it takes to track them down.  If you're finding a lot of a particular stone, you can also disassemble it back into its base components to craft something else if you wish, so this does end up being a pretty big component of the game's strategy in the long run.

Some elements of the game's design are also relatively strange for first person dungeon crawlers of this type.  One thing that surprised me is that encounters are actually visible in the dungeon - enemies appear as a hazy outline that you can evade or outmaneuver if you don't wish to fight at that time.  I was somewhat surprised to find that opening chests isn't solely for the thief class, either, instead being governed by a minigame where you have a few seconds to push a sequence of buttons; in fact, I started the game as a Cleric and got a personality trait related to successfully unlocking chests, which felt a little bizarre for a D&D-like. Thieves do still play an important role in disarming traps, though, so you'll still want to have one (or a Ninja) around for that purpose.

For an early PS2 game running off a CD, TotFL has quite a distinct aesthetic too.  While the dungeons and enemies are in 3D, the game does make use of detailed 2D sprites for story characters and cutscenes, and they all work well with the game's dark setting and overall bleak mood.  Music fits in with this too, keeping the atmosphere dark and foreboding, yet urging you to move on to uncover the story's mysteries.  The translation in the game is somewhat clunky, but it works well enough to keep the game moving and never becomes distracting, so I didn't mind it too much.

So, does Tale of the Forsaken Land live up to the legacy of the Wizardry series?  I certainly think so.  It maintains the challenge and dungeon-oriented elements of the franchise while working in some components of Japanese RPGs as well, emphasizing characters and storytelling as a key part of the experience.  Both components are balanced quite well, presenting a game with a lot of depth and challenge and a good narrative to keep the player motivated even when it can be frustrating to make progress at times.  It may not be the Playstation 2's most highly-regarded RPG, but I certainly think it's one worth a look for any serious fan of old-school dungeon crawls.

Developer: Racjin

Publisher: Atlus
Released: 2001
Platform: Playstation 2
Recommended Version: N/A