Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

Atari did a really good job keeping it true the the original game feel!

I'm new to Wizardry, and I'm really liking the game so far. I like the slower pace with the greater difficulty compared to other dungeon crawlers I've played before, and I especially like the little window in the bottom corner showing you a view of the original wireframe graphics. However, I have [b]ONE big QOL issue[/b] that lots of other players share: you cannot natively change the combat speed. You'd think with all the other modern additions for a more accessible experience this would be a no-brainer, or at least an animation speed increaser that scales after a certain number of attackers, but no. Several times, I've been attacked by bands of 18 or more creeping coin enemies and it took at LEAST a whole minute watching every. single. coin. attack my last living fighter. And most of them missed! I can handle quite a bit of tedium, but in no way is this acceptable even for a hardcore crowd. I want to grind and not be punished by being put in a minutes long queue at times. Granted, this is only an occasional problem, but when it happens you really feel it. Thankfully force quitting can reset you before the battle or skip through the battle depending on when you do it, but I shouldn't have to do that. This might not seem like criticism that allows me to recommend the game anyway, but aside from that one big issue it's a good time and challenge if you're up for it. Just keep it in mind before you buy, and I recommend you buy it on sale like I did.

i want to keep this review neutral or negative but im leaving it as positive bc it's classic early 80s wizardry and i love those games. you either have to be old or autistic to enjoy them though. i like these games because im a bit of both (although i was not yet born when wizardry 1 or its PS1 port was a thing). pretend this review is negative unless you have a huge tolerance for 80s CRPG game design. if you've never played a DRPG or blobber before please dont start with this game or it might scare you away from the genre entirely. this game is for oldheads and blobber addicts. the easiest way i can describe wizardry 1: it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, unforgiving and grindy. player skill still matters in this game but no amount of skill can prevent you from getting RNG screwed into an ambush that party wipes you in a game with semi-permadeath* nothing but RNG can stop you from rolling a bad dice on resurring a fallen ally and theyre just gone for good. the only way to actually minimise this is is to grind grind grind and overprepare. this game is actually easy outside of the few "i hate you die mf" mechanics and enemies. you can easily cruise through the game at a lower level if RNG loves you but with average luck, i wouldnt even bother trying to beat the game until level 13 minimum. i think everyone should still experience classic wizardry at least once but unfortunately, this is the only way to play wizardry 1 on steam. my favorite version is the PS1 version so if youre interested in wizardry 1 you should play that instead. if you just want to experience wizardry 1 for the history lesson go play the apple II version. this remake version is SLOWWWW like really slow. you dont know how bad it is until youre grinding away and youre at a snails pace compared to the apple ii or NES version. it's such a shame that this might actually be the worst way to play wizardry 1. oh and the music here is generic orchestral fantasy stuff which suits this game better than the NES/GBC chiptune music but it's lame in comparison. the UX/UI is also kinda crappy. i dont understand why it isnt more like the older versions. mouse support feels unecessary and likely only there to placate modern gamers who arent used to menuing and exploring fully on a keyboard. HOWEVER, some menus are just so bad in this remake it's faster to use mouse. the mouse also GETS IN THE DAMN WAY like the amount of times ive had to re-do my inputs bc of my mouse cursor. trying to select spells in this game on keyboard is a whole ordeal and pressing 2 to target group 2 for some odd reason has its own mini animation??? why is this remake obsessed with making EVERYTHING slow??? the way i play exclusively on kb but use mouse for spell selection alone because these developers have probably never actually played wizardry 1 in their life. who decided to wake up 1 morning and think "what if we remake wizardry 1 but mage it giga slow :DDD" not too much hate on the devs though. this remake still sucks. i can praise this version for having the best visuals and the new QOL stuff makes the game less unforgiving for newer players. if the difficulty of the game scares you then play this version. the QOL stuff feels odd because i dont know which young person would actually pick up wizardry 1 to begin with outside of some autistic kid with a special interest in retro games before their time (me). anyway, i actually never experienced bugs until i reached floor 7 to grind the fire dragon. then it was kinda bug city. only on that floor though lol and maybe once i had a UI bug?? kind of annoying though bc it forced a restart. ive had to restart the game due to bugs a few times (maybe 3 total) but the aggressive autosave helped with that. if a few issues like that dissuade you from the game then it's probably for the better. wizardry 1's core gameplay is mean enough already. you can also completely script the game grinding murphys ghost all day which is what a lot of players will do. its kind of unavaoidable. you either smack the ghost until level ≤ 11 like a normal person or actually grind that ghost to 13 then reclass like a madman to do it over. grinding one spot all day is a popular strategy and nobody really sees it as cheese because everyone who plays this game has likely done it at least once. once you get mages with good spells the game is pretty easy. before that its really brutal lol. classic wizardry arent really high skill games that involve a huge amount of mechanics. classic wizardry just hates you and wants to see you suffer. you develop have an abusive relationship with this game where you must learn to abuse evefry broken strategy it or it will abuse you instead. this game is not really "difficult" outside of knowledge checks honestly, this game just hates you. anyway wizardry 1 still rules imho but it represents dated 80s computer nerd videogame design in a nutshell. grindy, DND dice roll RNG hell where you miss a lot of your attacks or you land a hit and it chips for 1 damage lol. the dungeon design is also extremely unintuitive and not beginner friendly at all. if you cant handle that then you should avoid classic wizardry because 2 and 3 are almost the same game. HOWEVER wizardry 4 is... kind of a masterpiece and kind of the worst wizardry ever made at the same time. wizardry 4 is narratively and mechanically the most anti-wizardry game ive played. wizardry 6/7 are actually good games even for modern standards. the average person is better off playing them. i love wizardry 1 though and i still enjoyed this even if it's the worst version of wizardry 1 out there

Love this game.Nicely done

懐かしいとてもたのしくて難易度もちょうどいいと思います。

Game is hardlocked to 60 fps. Have fun running it on a high refresh rate screen. Surprisingly controls are awful. Even worse than playing the original. "Z" and "Y" are switched on german keyboards and you cant rebind them. Volume mixing is way off, music is too loud, sound effects too low by default. Graphics are blurry and there are almost no graphics options. Keyboard controls make you push left "shift", "Z" and "Enter" a lot. Sometimes clicking on things does something, sometimes you have to press "Shift" to select something. Inspecting your characters while in the town screen is impossible for some reason. Interface looks confusing and convoluted at times. To be honest, i think the original apple2 version controls better, faster and has a clearer interface. Thats saying something... My first impressions are honestly... bad... Right now im tempted to go back to way cheaper looking games like "Wizardry: The five Ordeals". Atleast that game plays well, while this one feels like im fighting the titular dragon to control it while chugging at a fixed 60fps. Ugh.