Wizardry Long Live Wizardry! (And The All-New Games By Ex-Wizardry Developers)

[turkishronin]

Return to tradition

 

[turkishronin]

Does anyone know what's the deal with "-1" (de?) enhanced items in Wizardry Empire? They seem weaker than their normal counterparts but somehow they're expensive

 

[Dorarnae]

Does anyone know what's the deal with "-1" (de?) enhanced items in Wizardry Empire? They seem weaker than their normal counterparts but somehow they're expensive

usually items with -1 are cursed.

 

[turkishronin]

This game is weird. We're supposed to be in a medieval fantasy but this guy is thinking about winning the Nobel Prize

 

[turkishronin]

I think the summoning system in Wizardry Empire is more balanced than Elminage. You have to find designated summoning circles and fight specific monsters to obtain them like Pokemon. It's not like in Elminage where you can luck out on an OP enemy and cheese a floor with it.

 

[Ysaye]

Odd Question for the day: Is the Playstation 1 version of Llylgamyn saga the same as the Sega Saturn version? Is there anything that would make anyone choose one over the other?

 

[Lim-Dûl]

Is there anything new that's good, with great combat and/or puzzles?

 

[turkishronin]

Is there anything new that's good, with great combat and/or puzzles?

Five Ordeals

 

[turkishronin]

Just found out about Wizardry Baseball

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Just found out about Wizardry Baseball

 

[somerandomdude]

Any of you play Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for Playstation 2? I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I remember getting my cheeks spread after getting ambushed by 20 spiders which proceeded to run train on my whole group at once with a rush attack. It was fair, ambushes weren't random, you had to let an enemy make contact with your back, or fall on top of you, so you goofed bigly if you let it happen. Some of the strategic elements they added to the combat with team actions were pretty interesting.

 

[Ysaye]

Any of you play Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for Playstation 2? I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I remember getting my cheeks spread after getting ambushed by 20 spiders which proceeded to run train on my whole group at once with a rush attack. It was fair, ambushes weren't random, you had to let an enemy make contact with your back, or fall on top of you, so you goofed bigly if you let it happen. Some of the strategic elements they added to the combat with team actions were pretty interesting.

Lots of good things about that game, but the combat with animation is slow; I also don't really see the point of the randomised dungeons. Apparently Busin0 is a better game with the same engine, but it was never translated.

 

[somerandomdude]

Any of you play Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for Playstation 2? I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I remember getting my cheeks spread after getting ambushed by 20 spiders which proceeded to run train on my whole group at once with a rush attack. It was fair, ambushes weren't random, you had to let an enemy make contact with your back, or fall on top of you, so you goofed bigly if you let it happen. Some of the strategic elements they added to the combat with team actions were pretty interesting.

Lots of good things about that game, but the combat with animation is slow; I also don't really see the point of the randomised dungeons. Apparently Busin0 is a better game with the same engine, but it was never translated.

Only specific floors were randomized. What set it apart for me was the allied actions system that gave it more depth to the combat, and the game actually made you use this stuff. Does Busin0 have the same type of combat mechanics?

It's one of the reasons why I couldn't bring myself to even bother trying a game like Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, because it doesn't have the allied actions system, or anything like it. Just standard rudimentary dungeon crawler with nothing that sets it apart. Even Stranger of Sword City had some unique mechanics to set it apart.

 

[Ysaye]

Any of you play Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for Playstation 2? I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I remember getting my cheeks spread after getting ambushed by 20 spiders which proceeded to run train on my whole group at once with a rush attack. It was fair, ambushes weren't random, you had to let an enemy make contact with your back, or fall on top of you, so you goofed bigly if you let it happen. Some of the strategic elements they added to the combat with team actions were pretty interesting.

Lots of good things about that game, but the combat with animation is slow; I also don't really see the point of the randomised dungeons. Apparently Busin0 is a better game with the same engine, but it was never translated.

Only specific floors were randomized. What set it apart for me was the allied actions system that gave it more depth to the combat, and the game actually made you use this stuff. Does Busin0 have the same type of combat mechanics?

It's one of the reasons why I couldn't bring myself to even bother trying a game like Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, because it doesn't have the allied actions system, or anything like it. Just standard rudimentary dungeon crawler with nothing that sets it apart. Even Stranger of Sword City had some unique mechanics to set it apart.

Yes it still has allied actions, and also an even more advanced class progression with a third tier of classes that can be promoted to.

 

[d1r]

DID SOMEONE MENTION BUSIN 0 WIZARDRY ALTERNATIVE NEO, THE SEQUEL TO WIZARDRY: TALES OF THE FORSKANE LAND FOR THE PS2?

 

[somerandomdude]

Yes it still has allied actions, and also an even more advanced class progression with a third tier of classes that can be promoted to.

I'll play it if a translation patch ever releases, I'm not holding my breath on it though.

I took a look at the tier 3 classes, and there's no tier 3 mage class? Nothing that can cast level 7 in Wizard and Priest? Bishop could cast all spell levels in Forsaken Land.

 

[Ysaye]

Yes it still has allied actions, and also an even more advanced class progression with a third tier of classes that can be promoted to.

I'll play it if a translation patch ever releases, I'm not holding my breath on it though.

I took a look at the tier 3 classes, and there's no tier 3 mage class? Nothing that can cast level 7 in Wizard and Priest? Bishop could cast all spell levels in Forsaken Land.

They saved level 7 Mage and Priest spells for Mages and Priests respectively, so that there is an incentive to retain characters of those classes. I suppose that is similar to Elminage having damage / healing scaling that is the best with the basic classes.

 

[sorcerian]

Any of you play Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for Playstation 2? I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I remember getting my cheeks spread after getting ambushed by 20 spiders which proceeded to run train on my whole group at once with a rush attack. It was fair, ambushes weren't random, you had to let an enemy make contact with your back, or fall on top of you, so you goofed bigly if you let it happen. Some of the strategic elements they added to the combat with team actions were pretty interesting.

I beat it today.

Last Fight

I played it as a kid, but I forgot just how good it is. It does so many smart things that other dungeon crawlers should learn from; people mentioned the allied actions, which fundamentally change how battle is fought and elevate it above ~90% of all other turn-based systems, but it does a ton of other stuff too. You upgrade spells, which keeps lower level spells relevant throughout the whole game. It has events in the dungeon, and more events occur as you progress through the game, encouraging you to go back and explore places you've already been and breaking up the monotony of going through the dungeon multiple times. Shortcuts open up, there are interesting quests, the level design is excellent and some areas even focus on vertical exploration.

But the best thing it does is the story. It's simple, but it's gripping. The further into it you get, the more interesting it becomes, and I'm not aware of any other games with a similar premise.

Plot summary

The bad guy already won. The town is destroyed, everyone, including you, is dead, and you are in some kind of purgatory. Characters are the haunted memories of tragic souls, and killing the boss lets you finally die.

It's interesting! It's so simple, but really is unique, and each story beat was told well.

The worst thing about the game is its speed; it is extremely slow. Movement, animations, text scrolling. It becomes a goddamn slog, and by the end of the game it actually starts to lag in certain encounters. By floors 8, 9 and 10, I was ready to quit because it was all moving way, way too slowly. Sticking it out is difficult because the speed becomes unbearable, but it's worth it because the climax truly is very compelling.

So I'll say: it's one of the best RPGs on the PS2 and one of the best Wizardry games. I recommend it to anyone who likes dungeon crawlers or RPGs in general. It is excellent.

 

[somerandomdude]

They saved level 7 Mage and Priest spells for Mages and Priests respectively, so that there is an incentive to retain characters of those classes. I suppose that is similar to Elminage having damage / healing scaling that is the best with the basic classes.

In Forsaken Land, Bishop could cast all spell levels, but Wizard and Priest had more spell levels in their type, and more higher level spells at lower levels, so that was the balance.

Is the dual cast allied action still in busin0, where 2 mages power up 1 spell cast? Because I rarely ever used top level spells like megadeath, because dual cast jateal often did the job. If it's the same in Busin0, then not having top level spells on your bishop probably isn't that big of a deal, anyway. I had shurikens on my mages, so they'd participate in defensive allied actions that needed projectiles, and anything too strong for a dual cast jateal to rip was likely also too strong for a dual cast megadeath to rip, or your ninjas/samurai could have taken them out without you using a spell, so mages were put in a defensive AA. If something was small enough to show up in groups of 6 or 8, dual cast jateal had them covered, big baddies that showed up in groups of 1 or 2 likely had enough HP to even survive megadeath, or something else like ninja attack AA would have worked better, the rare situation where megadeath was justified was far fewer than I had top level spell amounts.

 

[d1r]

They saved level 7 Mage and Priest spells for Mages and Priests respectively, so that there is an incentive to retain characters of those classes. I suppose that is similar to Elminage having damage / healing scaling that is the best with the basic classes.

In Forsaken Land, Bishop could cast all spell levels, but Wizard and Priest had more spell levels in their type, and more higher level spells at lower levels, so that was the balance.

Is the dual cast allied action still in busin0, where 2 mages power up 1 spell cast? Because I rarely ever used top level spells like megadeath, because dual cast jateal often did the job. If it's the same in Busin0, then not having top level spells on your bishop probably isn't that big of a deal, anyway. I had shurikens on my mages, so they'd participate in defensive allied actions that needed projectiles, and anything too strong for a dual cast jateal to rip was likely also too strong for a dual cast megadeath to rip, or your ninjas/samurai could have taken them out without you using a spell, so mages were put in a defensive AA. If something was small enough to show up in groups of 6 or 8, dual cast jateal had them covered, big baddies that showed up in groups of 1 or 2 likely had enough HP to even survive megadeath, or something else like ninja attack AA would have worked better, the rare situation where megadeath was justified was far fewer than I had top level spell amounts.

Yeah, there is. And Megadeath is overrated anyway.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Is there anything new that's good, with great combat and/or puzzles?

My game: https://magicscreen-games.itch.io/masters-of-the-unknown-worlds-demo

 

[somerandomdude]

I decided to give Forsaken Land a replay, it's been many years since I've played it, and I managed to make it all the way to level 3 before getting COMPLETELY EVISCERATED. Maybe I'm not remembering the mechanics correctly, but I thought you could only get ambushed, I.E. the enemy strikes first if they run into your back, or fall on you, but I directly ran into this mob facing forward, and still got ambushed. It was 2 ninjas, a minor daimyo and a monk, and each ninja got critical kills, and the minor daimyo nuked a squishy with creta. 3 men down in one fight and there was fuck all I could do about it .

I do remember at some point you could sell monster parts needed to make the magic stones to this guy on level 1, and then you could buy back infinite of them to level up your spell levels, but I forget if it's level 4 or level 5 that I gotta beat to unlock it.

And there's also a class orb merchant on level 5, which I mostly used to equip characters with gear their classes couldn't use, like putting shurikens on my sorcerers/bishops so they get ninja's killing blow % on ranged AAs, and giving them spare knight armor I find, so if I do get back attacked, it's not absolutely guaranteed they die.

I do remember at some point you get soo much money from vendoring equipment drops that maxing out spells, and buying class orbs is no longer a problem.

I haven't bothered with a guide, because I played through once without one, and the quests aren't too complicated, I might have to look up how to complete some of the more obscure ones, but floor maps, what kinda cuck uses someone else's floor map in a cRPG game that maps it out for you?

Early on, the game makes you sorta roll the dice in certain situations. Such as with a group like 2 front row ninjas + monk & minor daimyo on the back row. Minor daimyo could nuke your sorc or priest, but they might target the front row, which would survive, and just need to be healed after the fight, so the choice becomes whether you want your front row to get RNG'd by ninjas so you can spell cancel AA the back row, or do you restrict shot to protect 2 front row members from getting RNG'd? The best option is to restrict shot to protect 2/3rds of the front row, but it doesn't guarantee you come out of the fight without a rip. The ninjas might decide to RNG the the guy you don't have restrict shot covering, or the daimyo nukes your priest, or potentially both. If you get in enough battles, and it's going to go badly for you at some point. You avoid that situation entirely later on by simply using dual cast jateal to nuke the whole squad, but they can still first strike you.

 

[somerandomdude]

Ok, so in Forsaken Land I got a Bishop who hasn't gotten any additional spell levels after leveling from 16-18. Not even close to max spell counts.

None of my Samurais have gotten a spell level going form 15-18.

My Sorcerer just hit 20 and didn't get any additional spell levels.

What gives? Are additional spell level gains not tied to level? I remember getting all 9s on a bishop at some point in the level 35+ range when I played this before.

Also, my Sorcerer has more Priest spell levels than my Bishop does, which makes no sense at all, because the Sorc has never been a Priest.

I've been looking for info about this, and have came up with nothing. I legit think my game is bugged or something.

 

[somerandomdude]

Ok, in Forsaken Land, there appears to be some hidden stat that keeps track of if or how many spells you cast, and this has something to do with whether you get spell levels on level up, or possibly how many you get. I ended up taking my main character who was a samurai out to solo for a bit, and used a lot of spells, he had enough agility to act first in the areas I was fighting, so jateal/jakreta/jakuld usually did the job on large packs of trash, anything that could barrier casts like gaze hounds/chimeras, etc got hit with the weeb sword. He's got Hina's gear + the anti-evil cloak (element resists), so he's hard to kill, and anything that could RNG me like ninjas/samurai got nuked before they could act (unless I got ambushed). Level ups started rolling in, and spell levels went up very fast. Next thing I knew I was level 37 after a few dips in, after about level 25, I had enough HP to go into floors 8 through 10, and my samurai has 9s across the board in sorc and priest spells, regardless of which class I switch to, even warrior. Lots of mobs barrier single cast spells to the point where it's almost entirely pointless to use them without spell assist AA. Greater demons, had to run from those, even though they couldn't kill me, I couldn't kill them either with a solo character, you need AAs like Ninja attack to reliably drop those. 1 character levels very, very, quickly in this game, even 3 or 4 battles got me a level up from 35-36, etc.

 

[somerandomdude]

So I got this equipment on a back row Bishop:

Shinobi Shuriken
Prime Armor
Knight Shield
Valiant Helmet
Strength Gauntlets
Anti-Evil Cloak

Back row is tankier than the front row, except for total HP, and that's how you mitigate the threat of getting ambushed and your back row shredded, is to use the class orbs/class change items to fit them with some beefier armor before switching them back to bishop/priest/sorc. And why not give your bishop the ability to OHKO with a shuriken like a ninja during a restrict/assist shot AA?

By the time I got to dimension world, I had like 1.3 million gold, which is more than you really need for class orbing characters to learn spells, or equip better gear. So, put some of your best protective equipment on the characters with lower HP (especially those good shields you find) after your front row gets enough HP padding to comfortably takes some hits.

Shinobi Shuriken = Dropped from High Master (Ninja)
Prime Armor = Dropped from Swordsmen, and Maelificant
Knight Shield = Dropped from High Priestess
Valiant Helmet = Dropped from Maelificant
Strength Gauntlets = Dropped from Maelificant
Anti-Evil Cloak = Dropped from Vampire Lord
Muramasa (has 100 attack and x2 hits, best weapon in the game)= Dropped from Maelificant

Also, the attack buff Sorc spells appear to stack when multiple people use it (Daiba/Yaiba, etc), and that's how you drop those Maelificants is have the 3 back row stack attack buffs, so the front row can destroy those. Do the same for bosses. Bu'Shin was left with hemorrhaging rectal fissures courtesy of Mr. Muramasa with stacked attack buffs.

It's tough to say what a recommended level for beating this game might be, but when I got to Dimension World, I had some characters level 18-20, and that felt a bit under leveled. One mishap, or getting slightly unlucky and those characters get deleted, easily. I think level 25 would be my recommendation. You got a bit more HP padding at 25, and you likely farmed up some better equipment for your characters as well. 18-20 might work if you tread carefully. I had the luxury of one of my characters being a level 37 Samurai with a Muramasa, a full level 18-20 party would have been really dicey, but maybe not impossible, I'm sure the game has been beaten at that level or possibly lower.