dagoss's Wizardry Empire review

This feels like a really solid primer on the Wizardry series, something a person might profitably read before exploring games himself. I keep meaning to get into Wizardry, and even have the no-longer-super-recent digital one on PS3, plus some Elminage stuff. But then I get distracted by more recent games that clearly owe a great debt to Wizardry. Thanks for sharing this take. I enjoyed it!

I was turned off by Labrynth of Lost Souls (the PS3 one you mentioned) due to the titlating art. Elminage is a great little series though and feels like an evolution of classic Wizardry.

I'd personally always recommend Etrian Odyssey over Wizardry. To me, map making is the most important part of wizardry and EO makes it very approachable without removing the elements of danger and mystery for new players. Of the classic series, I think Wizardry 5 on SNES is the most approachable. On the PC side, Wizardry 8 has just phenomenal character building, though you no longer need graph paper.

I liked the history bit, as I had no idea that Wizardry's lifespan was so convoluted. I owned the first game on the NES and was obsessed with it for ages (whether it be bad luck or what, I have no idea, but umpteen hours of play and I never got one single item that allowed you to turn a character into a ninja). And I bought the Gold version of VII and was amazed at how much the formula had changed from the old "town/dungeon" way. And not necessarily in a good way because that game just seemed brutally tough the instant you stepped away from a couple early-game zones, it took forever to gain levels and you really didn't get that good of gains from them.

I think I made it up to the land of the Munks and their dungeon before deciding that the game wasn't worth the trouble -- just a lot of frustration and it seemed pulling teeth to have any real progress to go with that frustration. The old-school Wizardry games might have had the frustration, but after the first couple hours of running around the first few rooms of the first level and then back to town until you'd gained a few levels and gotten some spells, you'd be able to start making respectable progress.

Wizardry's history is way more complicated that this too. Sir-Tech was sued by Wizardry's original creators for unpaid royalties and Sir-Tech moved operations to Canada as a result (and put the Wizardry name in a shell corporation). They also tried to set up an Australian operation to make Wizardry 8. If you google Wizardry Stones of Arkham, you can find a lot of insane claims by a guy named Clive Blakemore, an australian programmer that worked with them, about SirTech and how incompetently run it was. These were all dismissed as absurd rumors until artwork from stones of Arkham was found in a storage unit in upstate new york. Blakemore had a bunch more drama around his own game that was kick-started and vaporware for like 20 years.

Wizardry's co-creator Andrew Greenberg is now an IP attorney, which he said was a result of his experience with SirTech, so he could protect devs from publishers doing things that SirTech did. There was more drama too with D W Bradley, the programmer/designer behind wizardry 5, 6, and 7.

I heard that some company that makes mobile games or something recently bought the Wizardry name and released a teaser for a new one. I guess the brand still has some nostalgia value.

I remember you -- that guy from that thing! Good comeback review.

The last Wizard-like I played was Elminage Gothic, which was a real ball buster. They're games I often want to get back into, but remember the massive time sinks they become. Hasn't stopped me from hoarding a large pile of them up on Steam, though.

Elminage Gothic is also developed by Starfish (some elminage games were developed by Opera House and published by Starfish). I played Elminage Gothic first. Playing Wizardry Empire sort of feels like playing a prequel to Elminage (in the same way FF2 is a "prequel" to SaGa). I'm not sure if they lost or chose not to use the Wizardry license, but I really enjoyed the direction Elminage took. Their official website's last update was in 2016, so it looks like they aren't really active anymore.

EmP

I'm like that with those big AD&D styled RPGs. I've tried and abandoned Baldur's Gate II twice (the second was more due to the computer I had it on crashing for good) and so I bought Divinity Original Sin for my computer. And was so hyped for it that around when I started it, I also bought Divinity Original Sin 2 and Pillars of Eternity for the PS4 and also got Icewind Dale for the computer and downloaded Torment: Tides of Whatever via PS Now.

And then I struggled to maintain any momentum playing Divinity 1 and eventually shelved it around the mines of mandatory stealth with the Death Knights. And now have all these other super-in-depth RPGs staring at me, with me not knowing if I'll ever want to play them. Yay...