Wizardry - Japanese Website

A tipster writes in to point out an official site for the Japanese Wizardry titles we were discussing recently. It certainly doesn't look like Wizardry to me, but then again, I can't read it.
More information.

The music is cool, though.

It's even worst than I tought.

I can't get past that front page. There's a link for a World of Wizardry but that one is dead.

Checking a few things on Wikipedia come to find out there is an Anime based on the series but I can't find the title yet.

I also found something called the Star Sage trilogy I hadn't heard of which got pretty good reviews back in the day (1988, 89).

Of course they Japanamized it but based on the one game that came to the Playstation 2 (Tales of the Forsaken Land?) the gameplay was very similar and resonant of the early Wizardry titles, its just that the story was not. Story was disjointed and consisted primarily of a bunch of dark little vignettes typically involving lost souls, ghosts, and the damned.

It was a bit much with the excessive lugubriousness but actually had a certain appeal. The combat was also very resonant of earlier wizardy titles, but with some interesting tactical attack/combo/formation features. The class/job system was also very old school, felt alot like playing Proving Grounds to me, except for the vastly different atmosphere and the anime characters. Finally it presented a decent challenge with real penalties for death.

If this game was indicative of the genre, This to me is one type of JRPG that would be at least somewhat appealing to old school gamers. It would also turn off mainstream US gamers by the droves, likely why we haven't seen more of these here.

I have seen the anime and it was alright but could have been better.

Heh, the classic Wizardry OVA was what let me in on the very existence of Wizardry and such…talk about opening new doors! I actually have a distant, meandering plan to somewhat bring it to life as a general retelling in the form of a Wizardry 8 mod so as to preserve it a bit more for posterity.

someone mentioned one that was supposed to be translated to English and I think it was a DS Wizardry. I know that got cancelled when I researched it but it might have got reviewed.

Sir-Tech sold the rights to Wizardry to IPM a few years ago. Lord knows why ($ undoubtedly).

IPM licensed the Wizardry name to Aquire (of Tenchu fame) to make a Playstation 3 Wizardry game. The web page linked here is subtitled in Japanese:

Torawareshitama no meikyu Captive soul of the labyrinth or as the English title will most likely be:

Wizardry: Soul of the Labryinth

2011 will be the 30th anniversary of the release of Wizardry I and they are celebrating it by trying to revitalize Wizardry in Japan at least.

Hopefully the 30th aniversary will be enough drive to bring that game out in english.