Wizardry 8 - A Samurai, a Valkyrie, and a Bishop walk into a bar…

Rampant Coyote on Wizardry 8:

A samurai, a valkyrie, and a bishop walk into a bar…

That’s either the start of a really lame joke, or a regular play session of one of the definitely non-lame Wizardry games. Although the Valkyries didn’t appear until Wizardry 6. No matter…

Ye Olde Day (and Night) Job gave me Sunday off, so I managed to pour a few hours into playing my new acquisition, Wizardry 8. Yes, all this talk of new RPGs hitting the store shelves, and I’m thrilled about getting my hands on a seven-year-old game (Editorial note: Now it’s been almost as long since this was originally posted. Time flies!).

I am just a few hours into it, but I’m mighty pleased. Why?

#1 – The world and storyline are intriguing. I was never a huge fan of the mega-epic plot-line of the power to create and destroy the entire universe and all that from the previous two games, but I’m not minding it so much here. The game starts you out with a trite imperative (you are the sole survivors of a crashed space ship, and have to survive and save the universe), but the monastery section was focused and felt a little like unfolding a mystery, full of hints and clues to a bigger picture. I love that.

#2 – TACTICS! Holy cow, this game reminds me of how fun turn-based, party-based RPGs can be. Granted, Wizardry 8 probably takes it a little overboard, with party movement and positioning, party formations, and everything. But still, I’m having a great time with it. I got clobbered in a combat on the road to Arnika last night, and found myself considering all the things I could have done differently to have won. Too often, in RPGs these days, it really comes down to having been too unlucky, too slow on the healing-potion button, or not having saved during the middle of the battle often enough. Here, it was a case of me encountering a new monster type and underestimating their capabilities.

#3 – The monastery – the first “dungeon” – was not a run-of-the-mill miniature bunny-slope dungeon. I spent three hours of playtime in there, and dealt with multiple “boss monsters” and lots of exploration. Maybe I’ll get sick of similar dungeons with the same graphics set in the future, and I did play through some of this in the demo, but for now, I enjoyed it. I’m really a dungeon-crawler at heart, I guess.

#4 – I’m also a sucker for first-person perspective RPGs. Chalk it over to being more “immersive” or whatever – I’ve always preferred it. Not that I don’t love other perspectives, too (Ultima VII remains, to this day, my favorite RPG), but I love seeing the world through the eyes of my character(s).

#5 – STATS! Lots of juicy, geeky numbers. This might be a detriment for many players, but I really like the customization opportunities and being able to numerically compare my characters and my improvements as I level. Seriously, I get bugged by RPGs that seem to say, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about these big, scary statistics… just look at the eye-candy and you can see your character get cooler special effects!” Give me crunchy numbers, please. As much as I get into story and roleplaying and all that jazz, I’ve got repressed power-gamer tendencies that need to be exercised. (…)

More information.

One of my games with the most re-plays.

Wizardry 8 and M&M 6-8. Good times

I have finished it only once.
Whenever i get an urge to replay it,i remind myself the number of enemies in Rapax Castle and the constant enemy rrespawning even in friendly areas and the urge is gone.
It's a real diamond in the rough for me,it probably has the best class system-balance i've seen in a crpg.

One of my favorite all time games. It neatly blends the what made Wizardry 6 fun as a dungeon crawler with the wide open world and factions of Wizardry 7 and adds to it a lot in terms of story, interesting Npcs and interactive factions. Too bad it was the last real Wizardry.

Love this game and it doesn't have killer bears - but it does have respawns and killer rats

Just played it for the nth time a couple of weeks ago while waiting for them to fix witcher 3 which is broken on my machine.

Great game, but I can't imagine replaying it multiple times. It's just too long even with the mod that speeds up the combat.

It's the only Wizardry game I've played through to the end.

Rapax Castle is my own personal nightmare.

I loved the game, don't get me wrong. But when I finally started timing the combats to just see how long they were really lasting and that it wasn't my imagination, I found that I was actually grossly underestimating their length. I was assuming they were lasting 20 minutes, when they were closer to an hour. For a single, random-patrol fight. Yeah, once in a while a grueling slug-fest is okay, but constantly?

Too bad such an otherwise excellent game is marred by that. I still highly recommend the game to play through once, but even with the speed hack it's tough to go through that multiple times. But at least once through, I'd say - grab the speed hack, and try it. It's worth it.

This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's an absolute classic. Enjoy.

I was late to the party, but so glad to discover it … and also glad for GoG doing the Mac port so I can have it everywhere

Wait, didn't Wizardry 8 use blob combat? About the only movement you could do was change position in the rank. Not exactly sophisticated.

Wrongo, bub. You could move the party as a group. There is no individual character movement, though.

Originally Posted by gozioso
Wrongo, bub. You could move the party as a group. There is no individual character movement, though.

Yep - and in your party - you have an inner and an outer circle - to defend the weaker characters -> link

The article is spot on - it's hard to find a game nowadays that will have tactical depth and that Turn Based Combat can be fun, challenging and rewarding. I used to rethink my combat encounters all the time, even closer to the end you were still encountering challenging monsters and the game had three endings and even the graphics 10 years ago were still good - I was very impressed when I was fighting some rogues and their faces wee getting more and more bloody the more damage my party dealt. It's a real shame that SirTech is gone….

I think it might be time for me to finally play this game. Is this best Wizardry game?

I bought the boxed edition back at the time! I played it nearly to half… and then the infinite respawns just become boring. I searched for reducing-respawn mods but I found nothing useful!

Apart from the respawn thing, the game is great, even exceptional! And the chit-chat among the characters… I made a lizardman warrior for my party, every time we encounter an enemy he says "We got a customer!"

A good game indeed, from which I have fond memories. I even have my save game in some folder right here but without a mod that effectively reduces respawn, I think I won't try it again in near future

#6 Totally hawt breast physics! http://youtu.be/z5NjmBgnLhE

Wiz8 was one of my favorite games at the time. I replayed it about 8 years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit. I still enjoy Wiz7 better, although for a first time experience nowadays Wiz8 is probably better for a first time player since it is more modern.

For a stat-loving rpg geek, you don't get much better than Wizardry 8. I'd rank it among the top 5 rpgs of all time, along with Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Planescape Torment, and Fallout. During the next great rpg drought, and after I've caught up on my backlog, I hope to replay Wiz8 and some other old favorites.

It's sad that we'll never see another Wizardry, but at least the series went out on a high note; If Wizardry 9 was made today, your system requirements would be reduced by 20 IQ points.

Yeah I liked this gametoo…I just never ever beat the damn thing. I have played so many rpg's and that has always been an issue….