Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

Despite what the sales material tells you, this is not an OG experience. If you're looking for that, because that's something you had, then this might not scratch that itch. For me it failed because there were two things about the original Apple II Wizardry experience that were core to my childhood that cannot be reproduced in this version. The main one is that the Bishop trick doesn't work. It simply can't be done. The UI blocks the attempt. The second is related: this was the game where my dad taught me how to hexidecimal to modify save files for a less time consuming start. Saves time doing tons of rerolls in hopes of getting really lucky so you can have a level 1 ninja. I don't even know if ninjas made it into this game. If either the save files were open for editing or (ideally) the bishop trick had worked, I would have kept the game. The QOL stuff looks like it would be genuinely helpful. Graphical facelift looks great. While I think the UI for the town is more obtuse than I remember--it was genuinely challenging to remove people from a party to get a single person party to attempt the bishop trick--I could have worked with that. But without both of those, for me, this is pretty much replaceable with other similar dungeon crawlers that won't have the personal baggage of not having that little bit of "secret" lore. It was my first taste of such knowledge, so it was the most important part to still have for the nostalgic romp I was hoping for. This is like re-releasing classic Doom without "idspispopd".

It's the closest game I know of to being able to play OD&D or AD&D in a videogame format.

Old school grind, grind, grind but with modern bugs! Nothing to see here, move along.

Very good remake all things considered. Couple things to note. 1. This is an old school dungeon grind that is very unforgiving. You will die, you will have to reroll, and you likely will have to start all over at least once. Take your time. Occasionally, it will freeze up while casting spells in camp but if you exit and reload it is all saved. A minor inconvenience for this trip down memory lane.

I like everything about this game except for one thing that makes it unplayable for me: in combat, the actions of your party and the enemy flash past on screen so fast I cannot read them. All I see is Monster hit (maybe dead, too fast to read), party member paralyzed (too fast to see who), someone died (maybe a party member, maybe a monster), spell failed (too fast to read which one), etc. The game does have a combat log you can read, but it's like you watched the big game on fast forward and then have to read a press release to understand what happened. Overall, I cannot enjoy the game. I don't know why they don't include a slower combat speed setting. You can make it even faster I think, but not slower.

buggy

[h1]細かい不満はあるが、紛れもなくWizardry PGotMO[/h1] 我が家には亡き父の影響で幼少の頃からAppleIIがあった。初めて見たWizがそれだった。昔のゲームなのでボリュームはそんなにないのだが、レア狩りの楽しさは21世紀になっても変わらない。顔グラはバタ臭い感じだが、自分で用意したカスタムポートレートを使える。これだけでテンションがあがる。難点はキャラ自体にあ男女の区別がないため、男性の声と女性の声がごっちゃになっている。そんな事ならボイスはなくてよかったかも。 細かい不具合は色々あって、今のところゲーム進行が止まるみたいな不具合には遭遇していないが、ダンジョン内で中断するとマポーフィックが勝手にかかっている、たまに顔グラが表示されなくなる（ロードが入れば直る）等、既知のバグが放置されたままになっている。 音楽はとてもよい。FC版のBGMをベースにライセンスの問題で使えなくなったのか、一部オリジナルに挿し変わっている。オリジナル曲も雰囲気はあっていて出来はいいのだが、やっぱ故・羽田健太郎さんの曲でプレイしたかった。 元のゲームは結構シビアなバランスだったが、そこは令和リメイク。当時、厳しいと思っていたところはきちんと現代風になっている。もちろん、当時のバランスがよければ選択できる。セール時は1300円程度なのでぜひ遊んでほしい。自分は全実績クリアで100時間くらい遊んだよ。 [h1]8.5/10[/h1]

それなりにやりこみました。グラフィックや操作性は良好です。原作のエグい要素（トレボーサックス等）をオプションでOFFに出来るので非常に快適でした。一括馬小屋機能があるので回復もスムーズです。 オリジナル準拠でFC版であった防具系の致命的なバグがないので安心して遊べます。トロフィーコンプのモンスター図鑑コンプがえぐいくらい大変でしたがそれ以外は遊びやすいオススメゲームです。2以降が拡張コンテンツで来てくれるのを期待しています。

I have yet to experience any of these bugs thank God and i'm really enjoying this revisit of a game from my youth, i love seeing the original screen in the bottom right, kinda like how they used the original for the mini map in the secret of mana remake, i only wish you could switch to the original completely back and forth and i had the dos version i miss the simple nastalgic cga df my youth in the early 80s, on second thought, i quit, screw this game, im not a masochist, level 8 so i go to floor 3 to grind tougher enemies and i lost my hard fought characters to floor traps

i want to keep this review neutral or negative but im leaving it as positive bc it's classic early 80s wizardry and i love those games. you either have to be old or autistic to enjoy them though. i like these games because im a bit of both (although i was not yet born when wizardry 1 or its PS1 port was a thing). pretend this review is negative unless you have a huge tolerance for 80s CRPG game design. if you've never played a DRPG or blobber before please dont start with this game or it might scare you away from the genre entirely. this game is for oldheads and blobber addicts. the easiest way i can describe wizardry 1: it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, unforgiving and grindy. player skill still matters in this game but no amount of skill can prevent you from getting RNG screwed into an ambush that party wipes you in a game with semi-permadeath* nothing but RNG can stop you from rolling a bad dice on resurring a fallen ally and theyre just gone for good. the only way to actually minimise this is is to grind grind grind and overprepare. this game is actually easy outside of the few "i hate you die mf" mechanics and enemies. you can easily cruise through the game at a lower level if RNG loves you but with average luck, i wouldnt even bother trying to beat the game until level 13 minimum. i think everyone should still experience classic wizardry at least once but unfortunately, this is the only way to play wizardry 1 on steam. my favorite version is the PS1 version so if youre interested in wizardry 1 you should play that instead. if you just want to experience wizardry 1 for the history lesson go play the apple II version. this remake version is SLOWWWW like really slow. you dont know how bad it is until youre grinding away and youre at a snails pace compared to the apple ii or NES version. it's such a shame that this might actually be the worst way to play wizardry 1. oh and the music here is generic orchestral fantasy stuff which suits this game better than the NES/GBC chiptune music but it's lame in comparison. the UX/UI is also kinda crappy. i dont understand why it isnt more like the older versions. mouse support feels unecessary and likely only there to placate modern gamers who arent used to menuing and exploring fully on a keyboard. HOWEVER, some menus are just so bad in this remake it's faster to use mouse. the mouse also GETS IN THE DAMN WAY like the amount of times ive had to re-do my inputs bc of my mouse cursor. trying to select spells in this game on keyboard is a whole ordeal and pressing 2 to target group 2 for some odd reason has its own mini animation??? why is this remake obsessed with making EVERYTHING slow??? the way i play exclusively on kb but use mouse for spell selection alone because these developers have probably never actually played wizardry 1 in their life. who decided to wake up 1 morning and think "what if we remake wizardry 1 but mage it giga slow :DDD" not too much hate on the devs though. this remake still sucks. i can praise this version for having the best visuals and the new QOL stuff makes the game less unforgiving for newer players. if the difficulty of the game scares you then play this version. the QOL stuff feels odd because i dont know which young person would actually pick up wizardry 1 to begin with outside of some autistic kid with a special interest in retro games before their time (me). anyway, i actually never experienced bugs until i reached floor 7 to grind the fire dragon. then it was kinda bug city. only on that floor though lol and maybe once i had a UI bug?? kind of annoying though bc it forced a restart. ive had to restart the game due to bugs a few times (maybe 3 total) but the aggressive autosave helped with that. if a few issues like that dissuade you from the game then it's probably for the better. wizardry 1's core gameplay is mean enough already. you can also completely script the game grinding murphys ghost all day which is what a lot of players will do. its kind of unavaoidable. you either smack the ghost until level ≤ 11 like a normal person or actually grind that ghost to 13 then reclass like a madman to do it over. grinding one spot all day is a popular strategy and nobody really sees it as cheese because everyone who plays this game has likely done it at least once. once you get mages with good spells the game is pretty easy. before that its really brutal lol. classic wizardry arent really high skill games that involve a huge amount of mechanics. classic wizardry just hates you and wants to see you suffer. you develop have an abusive relationship with this game where you must learn to abuse evefry broken strategy it or it will abuse you instead. this game is not really "difficult" outside of knowledge checks honestly, this game just hates you. anyway wizardry 1 still rules imho but it represents dated 80s computer nerd videogame design in a nutshell. grindy, DND dice roll RNG hell where you miss a lot of your attacks or you land a hit and it chips for 1 damage lol. the dungeon design is also extremely unintuitive and not beginner friendly at all. if you cant handle that then you should avoid classic wizardry because 2 and 3 are almost the same game. HOWEVER wizardry 4 is... kind of a masterpiece and kind of the worst wizardry ever made at the same time. wizardry 4 is narratively and mechanically the most anti-wizardry game ive played. wizardry 6/7 are actually good games even for modern standards. the average person is better off playing them. i love wizardry 1 though and i still enjoyed this even if it's the worst version of wizardry 1 out there