Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom

"For gamers with imagination and a lot of spare time."

For those of you who have no previous experience with the Wizardry series, it's basically a dungeon crawler. What this means is that you create your own characters and focus on powering them up and exploring the game's labyrinthine dungeon. There is a plot, but it isn't the focus of the game by any means.

When you start up the game, you'll begin in town with six premade warriors (even if you decide to keep them as your party, you'll want to change their names, as it's just things like ''Fighter1'' and ''Fighter2''). If you make your own characters, the process is simple enough. You choose the Edge of Town option and go to the training grounds. From there you choose the name, race, and alignment of the character you want to create. Alignment is basically a system that tracks whether your character is good, evil, or neutral. Some classes are not available to certain alignments, and Good and Evil characters (generally) can not be in the same party as each other. After setting these first options, you are then presented with your base stats and your stat bonus. You distribute your stat bonus to whatever stats you see fit. Based on your stats, you are then presented with a list of classes you can select for that character. Starting classes are Fighter, Thief, Cleric, and Mage. You can switch to more advanced classes later, as your stats grow to the appropriate levels.

Once you have the warriors you want to use, you can add them to your party at the tavern. From there, the next logical step would be to enter the maze. The maze is initially very confusing and easy to get lost in. Your characters are also easily killed by most things in the first level. Starting out, it is best to stay near the exit and fight weak enemies. When your hp gets low, leave and heal at the inn. Healing at the inn costs 10 gp per hit point, so it will pretty much take all of your money when you just start out. Because of this, you pretty much need to use a cleric. His healing spells will save you a LOT of money early on.

The maze itself can be frustrating. There are often very few clues as to what to do, and you are sometimes presented with riddles you must solve in order to progress. Also, there is no map available to you at all times. However, there is a spell that brings up the map for your viewing. This, obviously, is vital to your success. As you play more and more, though, you'll begin to memorize some of the areas. Again, this game is aimed at people that want to put time into building a powerful party and, as such, diligence is rewarded in a number of ways.

You'll encounter many different enemy types while fighting. They will often appear as blurry ''gook'' at first. After the fight goes on for a round or two (or if you have a torch or magical light source) they will become clear, and you will learn their true name. For instance, you will undoubtedly encounter ''a masked man'' on the first level. After he is revealed, however, he will be referred to as ''bandit.'' Some gamers seem to think this is silly or pointless, but I think it's a nice touch that is actually somewhat realistic. The fights themselves are simple enough. Though the game does not directly tell you this, you will soon realize that your first three characters are front row, and your last three are back row. Enemies often come in large groups (it's not uncommon to encounter two groups of five enemies each in one battle). After a fight, all surviving members will gain exp and some gold. Sometimes the gold (and possibly equipment or items) will be in a chest. You'll need to have a thief or ninja examine the chest for traps and disarm them whenever possible. Setting off a trap can be extremely dangerous to your party. Unlike most games, you can sometimes lose characters permanently in Wizardry V (and, so far as I know, all Wizardry games).

As far spells, your magic based characters will often learn a new spell when they level up (by the way, you level up by resting at the inn once you have enough exp). The one thing that really bothers me about this game is that the game never tells you what any of the spells do. You have to figure it out yourself by trial and error. Or, as a better solution, since you have access to GameFAQs, simply check the FAQ here: it gives a description of what every spell does.

It appears that my review has almost turned into a little ''how to get started'' guide. While I didn't initially intend to do this, I think it's appropriate. Honestly, anyone who's played Wizardry before knows what to expect from this game, while gamers with no previous Wiz experience should know what to expect from the game going in. For most people, this isn't a style of game that you're used to, so it's good to give more information than usual.

When I say that this is a game for people with imagination, that's because it is. I think you'll enjoy this game a lot more if you have a really vivid imagination, to the point that you sometimes imagine interaction between your characters. It sounds silly, but it really enhances the experience for me.

Summary
This isn't a game for everyone. If FFX is your favorite RPG, you probably don't want to touch this one at all. If you're a fan of table top games or of other games in the Wiz series, you should probably like this one. If you're new to the series, you might want to try Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land for PS2 if you can find it. It has a lot of Wiz elements, but also a much bigger focus on story and character development than other Wiz games.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/03