Dark Wizard

"This is my all-time favorite game"

This is your favorite game ever?
Yes, it is. The summer of '94 I had just been dumped by my Japanese girlfriend, failed a Japanese final exam, and been turned down for an internship at LucasFilm. I was ready to die. This game saved my life. Because the instructions that came with the game were so bad and because the game is so deep and so elaborate: I spent a month indoors playing this game and forgeting how bad my life had turned. I still have 78 pages of notes that I took while I played.
What's the scenario?
The King is killed by a rising Dark Wizard who plans to ressurect a Dark God. One of four (you choose which) hero or anti-heroes must re-conquer the continent and stop the Dark Wizard to win the game. Each of the four players have wildly different stories and thus you must play the game four times to get the whole story.
The gameplay system?
Each main character has 2 secondary characters: a fighter and a magic-user respectively. The main and both secondaries are the only players that make it to Class 5. (Ninjas can become Class 5 but it takes forever). The main charcters must hire people and then pay them according to their Level (0-99) and Class (1-5) from what you earn in taxes. The more land you take back, the more taxes you earn.
In battle, you move equipped humanoid (human, elf, dwarf, hobbit) of varying alignments (good, neutral, and chaotic) with monsters (varying for each of the 4 mains) across hex map terrain. This is a hardcore strategy game that smokes anything that KOEI or SQUARE will ever do!
Amon - the vampire
If you choose to try your first game with the vampire anti-hero charcter...you are going to have a hard time. Amon is the ruler of Chesire's undead, and he intends to show Velonese (the Dark Wizard) that only one person rules the night -Amon, the king of Vampires. Amon is pretending to be the dead king (shapeshifter); thus his secondaries are a local mage, Susan; and then his fighter is Andrew, a vampire hunter! Andrew is really cool, he doesn't know Amon is a vampire and he carries a little teddy bear from a slain girl tied to his sword hilt. Amon inspire no loyalty and thus cannot earn much in taxes. You will have hardly any human charcters and will be strapped when it comes time to buy all the ninja gear (if you can even afford a Class 4 human.) Amon's advantage? You don't need to keep him on your fort...give the ruler staff to somebody else and then make them stand guard. Deploy Amon on the field as your strongest character to get started. Amon can summon the best/most monsters. His class 1 liches become class 4 Great Liches and they freeze (but cannot kill) anything. You will have a lot of fun once you put a Rider on the Death Dragons.
Krystal
Krystal was tricked by Velonese into believing that the King killed her sister. She storms the palace and kills the king which sets Velonese free. Now, she seeks revenge on her sister's true murderer. Krystal's game is also very hard. She inspires very poor loyalty, earns no taxes and her secondaries and weak. She has two variables on her ending depending on whether or not she forgives her sister's murder (allowing the sister to go to heaven) or if she chooses to relentlessly pursue vengeance (her sister goes to hell). Krystal's best advantage is that she can use the Chaotic Dragons - Wyverns. Wyverns (class 4) can move across any terrain (flying) and move about 8 hex (as good as a ninja). Wyverns are also weak to no other monster. Once you have 2 wyverns, you can't lose.
Robin
Robin is known throughout the land as the finest warrior in Chesire. She has pledged her life to defend it. Now her pledge is going to bring her face-to-face with : the Dark Wizard Robin is the best all-around character. She is neutral alignment. She can summon pegasi without using the soap at the bath. She inspires great loyalty and can afford lots of paid human charcters. Her monsters are otherwise poor, so make you use taxes to buy equipment. She is the easiest character to wake the Dark God with and then collect all the secret weapons from the teleporters as you fight Ahriman. Robin's secondary characters are somewhat poor, she uses the old court mage and a young recruit guy for her fighter.
Armer
Is the King's son. He has 2 girls for his secondaries that are quite lackluster. His music is brassy and irritating. He earns the most money in taxes and can hire lots of people. However, his lawful alignment means he gets really weak monsters. He can summon griffins though; so you won't have to catch one to make a griffin rider.
How's the Music?
I would listen to the cool violin Transylvanian theme for Amon every day if I could rip it from the game CD. Crystal has a spooky wild west theme that's cool. Robin and Armer lack really cool theme music; but you can turn it off. So in short, the game music is a 10. I like this theme better than the Final Fantasy music. really.
Is replay really that fun?
More than any other game you will ever play. This game kept me awake 48 hours, sleep 6, play 48, sleep 6, ad nauseum for a solid month! No game ever has pulled me in so hard.
Why are you writing this review in year 2000?
To date, there is no working Sega CD emulator that I know of. I keep waiting for it, because even though I did pawn and then lose my Sega CD - I bought 2 copies of Dark Wizard and I still have one that has never been opened that I plan to play again someday.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/11/00, Updated 04/11/00