Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom

"A deep, involving journey... yet difficult!"

Wizardry V is somewhat of an older SNES game by Capcom. The game is mostly an Action-RPG, with many elements similar to that of Dungeons & Dragons. Wizardry promotes much customization of characters, deep and intriguing gameplay, and a long and difficult quest.

Gameplay – 8/10
The literal gameplay is difficult to get accustomed to. You never actually see your characters, but rather navigate through a menu. When you enter the Maelstrom – a vast and dangerous maze – you switch to a first-person view, with your character’s names and statistics at the bottom. The controls are simple, but getting lost remains common even to seasoned players. Up moves you forward, left turns left, back turns you completely around, etc. Despite the difficulty, once you understand it better, the game no longer seems so hard. As for combat, an enemy or two appear, you select what you want to do (Fight, Parry, Use Item, Spell, et al.) and everything that occurs appears in text within a box near the top of the screen. Yes, there is no action whatsoever. The game is just reading and imagining.
On the less physical side, the game is extremely difficult. There are sparse hints here and there as to what you might want to attempt, but as I said, they remain sparse. You begin not really knowing what to do. But the difficulty is just another reason to keep on playing; quitting because of difficulty is just a cheap cop-out, at least in this case. Once everything starts to come together, the game starts to become rather fun and enjoyable, as are most RPGs (with an exception of Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars – Ha ha ha…). I have given the gameplay a higher score because that is what the game deserves. This is not some ''cream puff'' finish-in-two-hours game, but rather an expansive and interesting journey.

Storyline – 7/10
Hmm… what was the story again? Actually, you begin without even knowing what is happening. You are just… there. Apparently you are a group of adventurers who must enter the Maelstrom and do… something. From what excerpts I recall, the Maelstrom was created by a powerful wizard for some reason. There are some weak references to the actual storyline during the game, but it just does not seem to be enough. Though it is hard to actually locate the point of the story throughout the game, it still sounds interesting enough to me; at least the storyline is different from most standard RPG plots.

Graphics – 10/10
For a dated SNES game, anybody can tell that the developers put effort into the graphics, especially on enemies and NPCs. Even during a time when games such as Grand Theft Auto 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2 are roaming about, I still believe that this game contains excellent graphics. The graphics of the maze are nothing special; usually just rock walls that all look the same. The wall graphics change when you reach different levels of the maze, however. Where the graphics stand out is in combat. I could almost say that no two enemies look the same; but some enemies’ pictures were just colored differently and renamed. There is a very large assortment of enemies; there are about two or three reused pictures, but that is it. That says much more than most RPGs can, especially when every new enemy you meet in them is just a differently colored version of the last. In Wizardry, there is a plentiful and possibly even superfluous cast of enemies and NPCs to deal with.

Audio – 8/10
The music of the game is rather fitting. There is town music, music for different levels of the maze, battle music, boss music, that sort of thing. Most of it probably will not stick in your head for too long. This has the sort of music that just fades into the background while you hack and slash your way through the Maelstrom. The music is good, but nothing too special.

Replay Value – 6/10
As stated previously, the game is long, tedious, monotonous, and possibly even boring. After finishing this baby, you most likely will not want to start up another group. However, should one really want to go at it again, there are most likely several little secrets, hidden items, doors, and other things that the player would have bypassed. I still have not even finished the game myself, and I probably will not play it again whenever I finish it.

Buy or Rent? – Rent
Wizardry V will probably not appeal to many with its challenge and difficult interface. My recommendation is renting it first, or possibly even downloading the ROM (save states are a gargantuan help in such a game).

Final Score – 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/02, Updated 08/04/02