Party Based RPGs

Wiz 8 is my favorite party-based RPG to use a first-person view. I wish it had sold better, I would love to see more games like it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Wiz 8 is my favorite party-based RPG to use a first-person view. I wish it had sold better, I would love to see more games like it.

Agreed - but when you read about all the crap that went on … it is hardly a surprise that it was a hard-sell even for RPG fans!

Originally Posted by JDR13
Wiz 8 is my favorite party-based RPG to use a first-person view. I wish it had sold better, I would love to see more games like it.

Ditto.

The combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration is just about perfect in that game.

Too bad games these days are more about story and flashy graphics and leave out the gameplay portion.

Originally Posted by Relayer
The combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration is just about perfect in that game.

And it wasn't even finished before release…

Originally Posted by JDR13
And it wasn't even finished before release…

Neither was KOTOR II, what's your p- oh, I see.

Originally Posted by Relayer
Neither was KOTOR II, what's your p- oh, I see.

Sorry, no comparison there….

Originally Posted by JDR13
Wiz 8 is my favorite party-based RPG to use a first-person view. I wish it had sold better, I would love to see more games like it.

Originally Posted by Relayer
The combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration is just about perfect in that game.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Agreed - but when you read about all the crap that went on … it is hardly a surprise that it was a hard-sell even for RPG fans!

Well, it's not my fault, because I actually bought it, though I don't really miss it. I never really made it far out from the initial beach. It's definitely not my favorite combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration.

I guess one of my problems might have been solved with that speed-up mod I never tried. Then I would need another difficulty notch down below what was offered . Combat is not my main attraction in RPGs, and this one had a bit too much of that for my taste.

Wiz 8 was definitely too combat heavy for me, and I found the environments rather bland and restrictive.

Strangely, Wiz 6 - Bane of the Cosmic Forge, was one of my favorite games back in the day.

I lot of people couldn't get past how combat intensive Wiz 8 was, which is actually a real shame. It's a great crpg once you really get into it.

There's a patch out there that speeds up the combat (wizfast?), although I simply put the combat and animation sliders on maximum and found it tolerable.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I lot of people couldn't get past how combat intensive Wiz 8 was, which is actually a real shame. It's a great crpg once you really get into it.

That's okay, tastes differ, and I have long given up on trying to like everything. Wiz8 and I, this combination was not meant to be . At this point, I might just go and try to find a well written walkthrough with screenshots. Perhaps, they have one at the Codex.

To me the favorite was Wiz 7. How there were other parties with your same goals that meant you could get to where you needed to be, but another party beat you to it, that was great.

Wiz 7 was just a bit before my time, it came out the year I got my first PC, but I never played it. I tried to go back and play it when Wiz 8 came out, but it just seemed horribly dated to me by them, even the Gold version.

That's one of the big mistakes Sir-tech made with the Wiz series imo, allowing so much time to pass between games.

I feel old

I remember looking at Wiz 7 screenshots and thinking it was extremely next-gen looking, because I was used to Amiga games with 32 colors. I played Wiz 6 on it, and it was quite dated compared to Wiz 7 which was VGA based and had fancy Soundblaster sound.

Then again, my first computer game was a horce racing game on the ZX-81 with 1Kb of memory. Horses were little letters (A-F) moving across the screen with a color palette of black and white

Amiga Forever!!!

You betcha

Originally Posted by JDR13
I lot of people couldn't get past how combat intensive Wiz 8 was, which is actually a real shame. It's a great crpg once you really get into it.

Personally, I totally agree. Without the tedious combat, Wizardry 8 is (was) a dream.

Wizardry 6,7,8
It doesn't get better!

Originally Posted by Turjan
I never really made it far out from the initial beach. It's definitely not my favorite combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration.

You never made it out of the starting area and you're commenting on story, character development and exploration?

Originally Posted by JDR13
There's a patch out there that speeds up the combat (wizfast?), although I simply put the combat and animation sliders on maximum and found it tolerable.

Actually, even with the sliders maxed it wasn't enough. Wizfast is definitely necessary and makes the combat far less tedious. With all the opponents you can face in one round of combat, speeding the movement speed to near instant really helps.

I think the combat itself is a lot of fun, a hell of a lot more fun because there is actually challenge involved. I also applaud the game's magic system - the damage spells are actually less effective than crowd control or defense spells. I've heard about new players to the game complain about how difficult the game is but if you have 2 characters that focus on defensive and sleep/paralyze/confusion type spells the fights are still challenging but not frustratingly so.

It becomes more a game of strategy than sheer firepower or luck.

Originally Posted by Relayer
You never made it out of the starting area and you're commenting on story, character development and exploration?

No, I was commenting on the "combination of story, character development, combat system and exploration." I found the combat part so absolutely dominating that the rest didn't matter to me, because it must have been buried under that drag. I actually went here and asked whether this would change within the game, but was told that it wouldn't.

As I also said, I haven't tried Wizfast yet, so there might be a possibility that this would change my view. Still, I would like the combat to be a bit less challenging. I see combat as spice in RPGs, not as the main course.