Wizardry 8

"One of the few series to remain true to its original titles."

The Proving Grounds, the first of the Wizardry titles might be the most influential RPG in the short history of the interactive medium. Today, there are 8 titles in the Wizardry proper. The last installment of the series was 2D, thus this the all important transitional title for the series. While the game completes it very well, it never caught on.

Graphics: These 3D graphics are becoming dated. The game actually finished around 1999, but not released for another two years due to problems within SirTech. The entire game is done with the 1st person, just as other Wizardry titles before it. The only issue I had with the graphics was how items where depicted as 3D floating objects. I felt that we were above that treatment of items, but it is certainly a minute complaint.

Sound/Music: The Boss music is quite catchy, as is the title music. It is largely orchestral. Music that plays during exploration is very ambient though. You get sound very entertaining sound effects from magic, attacks, enemies grunting etc. All your characters also talk and have customizable voices. Sometimes they even talk to each other which is an absolutely fascinating aspect of the presentation. There is absolutely no dialog in this game that isn't spoke, aside from something you might read off a statue or a piece of paper. All characters, however minor, say their lines. That is an impressive feat in the presentation.

Story: The story is a somewhat unique blending of fantasy and science-fiction. There are spaceships, bombs, guns, computers, and even microwaves. Yet you see all this aside fantasy architecture and hard-core fantasy gameplay. While the game doesn't specifically say go here, go there, there is some degree of linearity. But it is linear in the way that Wizardry 1 was linear. You begin the game knowing that your main goal is to defeat the Dark Savant. Imagine that the world of Wizardry 8 is one large dungeon rather than a combination of many locales. This isn't Morrowind. You have one goal that is predetermined, but how you go about it is up to you.

Gameplay: Wizardry 8 stays true to the other titles, while adding that newly added 3rd dimension. You create 6 characters as usual. There is a variety of fairly balanced classes and races to choose from. You can also pick from a limited selection of portraits and voices for your characters.

All exploration is done in the 1st person, as are battles. There is a radar at the bottom of the screen. During battle, the radar changes to show your characters' battle formation in relation to the enemies. You sort of have to imagine where your characters are by looking at it, as no indication will be given in the actual images of what is going on. After some practice you will get the hang of it.

Battles are turn based, but you can also choose from a semi-realtime option that makes turns continuous with you changing your parties commands mid battle. There is a large amount of strategy to this game. There are vast amounts of spells and items. Each spell has can be cast at different power levels, so a spell you get at the beginning of the game is useful up until the final boss. Formations are important, and the vast range of commands add a large amount of possibilities for you to explore. You can protect other characters, move to the back of the combat area, go beserk, cheat death, throw napalm, and much more.

Perhaps the most fun you will have is actually building your party. When a character levels up, you get to allocate points towards attributes, skills, and select new spells – or even change classes. There are so many possibilities in how you form your party, from a band of theives to a guild of wizards to the traditional 3 tanks + 3 magic users. The numbers you see on the stats menu are all important and are all, to some degree, under your control. Each character has an average AC, along with an AC for each part of their body. If you turn verbose combat text on (which I recommend), you will see messages like “Bob leaps at the rat and hits it in the head for 6 damage”, similar to the old Wizardry games. There are mulitple screens for each character's status, all somewhat complicated and intriguing to the fan of this type of RPG.

Difficulty: There are 3 settings, easy, normal, and hard. Playing this game on hard can feel down right impossible. Enemies often outnumber you by a vast amount, and are often at a higher level than you are at (the game uses a parallel leveling system, but you can't abuse it like Final Fantasy 8 because enemies will get harder as you travel to new areas).

Replayability: There is a lot to this game, and a lot of optional areas to explore. One play through can take 50+ hours.

Overall: If you enjoy old RPGs, you will love Wizardry 8's ability to blend the best of the old and the new rather flawlessly. Some people may be turned off by the difficulty, need to develop strategy, and older play style. Don't let the 3D graphics fool you – this is still Wizardry, along with everything that title implies. Sometimes the game will feel alittle repetitive, but generally I only get that feeling after I wasted most of my day playing this game. This will most likely be the last Wizardry title, and though it didn't receive much attention, it is certainly one of the most brilliant RPGs ever made.

Score: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/05