If you're interested in Wizardry, take a look at the rest of my channel and consider subscribing. There are playthroughs for 6, 7, and 8 (same imported party throughout), as well as other dungeon crawlers. Wiz6: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6YVf7UD2o4MjUyPdtMssbUZ.html Wiz7: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6Z2_MOBmQTBMzPbIcPMoNwz.html Wiz8: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6bqjMY90jjl9vr-DQjCWop4.html
I played the heck out of the original Wizardry on my Super Nintendo and when I finally reached the room with Dracula in it he killed my entire team. In those days you couldn't revert back to a save point. It was one of the most traumatic moments of my life, lol.
Nice review, which was well laid out. You covered almost all of the game mechanics of how Wizardry 1 works, so kudos for that thorough treatment. I like how you had an experienced party, so you could show off some fighting and only discuss settings options later. However, if you had taken a level 1 party down and gotten slaughtered, that would have been an opportunity to discuss how brutal Wizardry 1 was. As to age, the modernization was to change it to Vim, which was an age equivalent but a little easier to understand. As you stated, age is weird in Wizardry, so if you consistently only rested your casters, strangely they would be aging faster than your melee characters. In talking about Vim replacing Age, the developers stated was it was difficult to envision a 200 year old human, implying that it was easy to say that for each character, regardless of lineage, they had lived a certain percentage of their life. As to Boltac’s inventory, he never gets new stuff unless you sell it to him. However, this remaster has changed Boltac’s to show only gear that a character can use or equip. So Mages will not see any swords, but Fighters will. Essentially a single character/class will not see all of his inventory now, not even a fighter. The 6 attribute stats should decrease to lineage minimums after a class change, and that will be corrected in the future because that was already happening when I played version 0.3.1. I won’t go over the changes in versions 0.2 and 0.3 since you cover these in separate videos. I’m not sure if they will decorate the dungeon more, although one can hope. I’m not sure if I would want to switch to the full screen original wire-frame graphics to not overlay but completely replace the new graphics. However, given that this is one of the few ways to be able to acquire and play the game now, it is probably merits some consideration. The minimap becomes messed up after you run, get teleported, or switch directions on a rotating square. It is not a bug. The designers intended you to become disoriented after these things happened (one was present during another streamer’s demo), which could happen if you were in the game in real life too. It does get fixed if you cast a Dumapic spell, just as if you calmed down and got your bearings again in real life. Without any guidance from the game you have to discover this by trial and error, which inserts unnecessary complications for experienced players and unnecessary barriers to enjoyment for new players. This raises a larger issue. The game could really use the original manual built into the game itself. A few tips during load screens is not enough. Since the original game could not include in game help, players got a thick, written manual in 1981. Without the manual, in 2024 you are actually worse off than players in 1981, and you stumble around without any guidance at all unless you resort to fan sites. I agree that if this remaster were successful enough to generate development of Wizardry 2, it would definitely have to be lower priced because it is really only what we would call an expansion pack today, not a true sequel. I don’t blame Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. They were basically inventing the genre. But today, it should be priced as an expansion pack DLC like $5 or $10 max.
@@johnnydrama3829 Unfortunately that would probably never happen since there were some disputes over rights to the game between David Bradley and Sir-Tech. I don't remember what's the deal exactly but it's a mess so no one can actually make a remaster of those two games. Which is really sad. For the longest time I wished I could play through both 6 and 7 with the same party but I personally find Wiz7 unplayable. Somehow to me this one plays way worse than Wiz6 - I just can't stand its clunky interface. this one really needs a remaster..
I played this long ago using Apple - and mapped the dungeons using pencil and paper.. I was hoping the remake would do that for me. It's important to map because there are areas that teleport you elsewhere in the maze.
I did the same thing - mapped everything on graph paper. I remember doing the same thing with Alternate Reality: The City too. For the remake, I’m keeping a map on an Excel file.
The original game is what prompted me to spend around $2,000 USD for an Apple II + in 1978. That was for the computer with 48K of memory; 16K expansion memory; 2, 5.25" floppy drives; a 9" green monitor and a dot matrix printer. Of course, I used it for work too.
My friend had 2 wizardy games for his Nintendo 1 said you killed the creatures The other said dispatched… 🤔 I think it was wizardry 1&2 but I could be wrong
As someone who played the hell out of the Apple II version as a kid, I am happy to see this be a thing. Saw an ad for this on Facebook and brought up certain exploits from the original version in the comments and the developer confirmed that they are still there.
This was the first game I ever used a sector editor to modify the save file, I had no clue what I was doing, but I ended up giving my first two characters thousands of HP so they were pretty much invincible. Then I tried messing with Ultima and just screwed up the world map icons. Thanks for helping me dredge up some 40 year old memories.
I did the same, with both Wizardry and Ultima... you know what though? As an adult I ended up on the Lord British team at Origin, making Ultima - and I never mentioned my cheating to Richard. I never thought about it until now, thanks! Hahahaha.
I remember when I discovered the glitch with the Bishop character (who could identify magic items and gain XP for successful attempts). There were only 8 inventory slots (or something like that) corresponding to 1-8 on the keyboard, but if you chose to identify item 9, the game gave you millions of XP. You were instantly max level and could lay waste to the dungeon. Good times!
One of the first games I found a way to 'game' the system. Each created character got starting money. I named one guy 'Money Man' made a bunch of characters had them give their money to him. Then deleted them. Made a bunch more, repeat. Then when 'enough' Would create the characters to be played. Another related story. Rented this from local video store to play. Years later they were selling off NES games and bought this and 1 of my characters was still saved.
The bit about the automap being messed up (around 43 minutes) is actually intentional. In Wiz 1, some of the doors are one way, which is what you're seeing. It's nothing to do with running away - though running does move you in a random direction for a few squares. It's just the running moved you through a one way door.
This is incorrect. Pretty sure that is a bug. Running moved the party, but did not update the mini-map location. Probably a simple fix, I would be surprised if it is not patched quickly. After running, he was at [7,0] but the mini-map was still recording him as being at [7,1]
This is such a Gen X game. Played it on my Apple 2+ for months. It is very slow in the beginning as i remember having to go in and out to heal. I've actually waited for this for decades. I would have been happy with just the original...can't wait to download this weekend.
For the curious, the trick to getting people of opposing alignments to join your party was to have them join you in the dungeon rather than in town. The original game only checked for opposing alignments in town and not in the dungeon.
Makes sense, really - if I recall the old game's manunal correctly the explained difference in character alignments wasn't actions but motivation. People who can't manage to meet in a hazardous environment and work as a group against mutual threats shouldn't be in ANY party.
Ah, but does this new version also have the old trick whereby Good characters ( including Lords) can turn Evil, or Evil characters (including Ninja) can turn Good? IMO, there's no reason why it shouldn't.
I would normally just create a Neutral Thief to go along with my Good Lord/Fighter, then find the Thieves' Dagger to turn that Thief into a Ninja. So now I have BOTH a Lord AND a Ninja in my party. EPIC WIN!
What memories! My younger brother with his friends would play this on his Apple II+. It was amazing for the day. Ha. Now in about a week I'll have my Quest 3 delivered. What an amazing world and time I live in.
I played on the Mac 128k (ours was upgraded to a whopping 512kb!) and one of the big things I remembered was that if you equipped a set of armor under the wand of conflagration and then used up all of the charges in the wand it would turn into another equipped set of armor. Double sturdy plate for all!
I have started two parties now. I never played Wizardry 1 much ( I was more into 6-8). I played the first one only on the NES. So far I am enjoying it, but what I have to get used to is having to retrieve dead party members from the dungeon. I also didn't expect to not be able to save the game. At first, I didn't like that, but it adds a scary element to the game that I'm starting to like.
Did not expect to see anything new (remake included) from this series. Can't wait to see people reacting to Wizardry 4 difficulty - "for veterans of Wizardry series" might not say much for most people, but those who knows - they have some clue of how hard it is.
Hours and hours spent playing this game when I was a youngster!!! One of the more creative parts of owning the original game was that art in the handbook. One of the funniest is of a Mage yelling "MATU" and a fighter up front saying "gesundheit." My fingers probably still have the muscle memory of Fight, Fight, Fight, Parry, Parry, Parry for the early level grinding. If I remember my gaming history correctly, Wizardry laid the groundwork for most of the RPG mazecrawls in the 80's. It would have been neat to see this game get a cameo in "Ready Player One."
There were a lot of nice ones (I liked the AC 10 vs AC -10 comparison), and also some of the unillustrated comments like the section titled 'lowering your insurance premiums'.
A trick we used to do in the original was making dozens of characters, adding them to a party, taking their gold and selling their gear until we could get the best equipment available in the store. You could also re-roll characters until you got stats for the elite classes (bishop, samurai, lord). Trebor sucks!
I played to original. There was a bug that if you identified item 0, (that didn't exist) you would get infinite experience. I then used this char to heal and identify items in town. Great Game!
Honestly a remaster of 6,7 and 8 would be insanely good and an english translation of Wizardry alternative Neo (sequel of the amazing Tales of Forsaken Lands) would be great.
One other thing: the devs need to change the search and confirm buttons to something that isn't the same. That way I won't hit the button to search right as the option to attack friendly monsters comes up. This also happens if you want to stand in place to search over and over to get a battle to start. Then by hitting the button quickly, you attack the friendly monsters, which can change your alignment.
This brings back some memories. I remember using graph paper to draw maps. And just how frustrating it was if you lost/misplaced the 'game manual' which listed the spell names/effects. You of course, had to type these in manually, and spelled correctly for them to work. After a while, you would memorize most of the spells, or just made a cheat-sheet. Then, there was the times when you would 'wipe your party', you'd have to make a new party and take them to the exact spot where the old party died, to recover them. Which meant, you had to resurrect them and hope that they could be restored. I remember one of the old tricks that we would do, is after you get your party levelled up a bit, (usually around level 7/8), you would swap out one of your experienced character, and bring in a newly created character. Which the new character would usually level up quite quickly, and by doing this a few times, you could have a 'back up' party, or reform a party that best suited your needs for the boss levels.
Ah, memories! At 12 I was able to memorize the path and button sequence from town to the final boss, blindfolded, using a very high level party that could basically kill anything and I only needed to hear the sound of fighting beginning to spam fight commands before continuing the descent towards the end. I'm impressed with myself on this haha, I don't think I could do it today. I did spend alot of time memorizing a recorded grid map I made for every level so I could memorize direction changes. So much fun at the time. Kids today missed out on this for sure and I don't think there is anything comparable on the market. Good ol' Wizardry.
OMFG!!! This was my first ever RPG back in the mid 80s on my Apple iie with a black and green monitor. I played hundreds of hours of this my sophomore and junior year in high school. This is so freaking awesome!!
I purchased my first computer, an Apple //e, back in 1984 solely to play Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overload. If I remember correctly, it was a 20x20 maze that was 20 levels deep. You mapped it out on graph paper.
The UI redesign is amazing!! In fact the whole visual redesign so very nice, yet love how they kept the original game the same. The fun of it was just re-running over and over for the loot. Can see this has not changed.
I wonder if it has the I-9 exploit...in the original version, you rolled a priest and then identified number 9 slot, after a few tries it would give you like a 100 million xp. Spent hours with this game in the 80's.
@@scottchristofersen2367 Actually not everything is the same. They had to update things like pooling gold. They also changed the interface. In the original versions for Apple II and DOS, you would go to your Bishop's character trait and inventory screen, hit I for Identify, then select the number of the item to identify. In this remaster you select the item first, then select Identify. Since you cannot select item 9, which does not exist, you cannot identify it. So that legendary bug, which the game creators intentionally left in, is gone here.
For those on the fence with this Wizardry game. There's another one that has a scenario editor called The Five Ordeals. I think they're worth the price, although I don't believe that $30 is too much for a dungeon crawl. Considering how endlessly replayable they are. Although for Proving Grounds, I'm so used to that game being bundled up with the first 3 so I can see why you think that's over priced.
This was my favorite game as a kid. Me and my buddy would play on his old apple IIc and we would share the party and take turns playing while the other would map on a pad of graph paper.
I just wish they had done this remaster for the entire first five Wizardry games, not just the first one. I played on MS-DOS a lot... I never had a problem using the Keyboard. Actually it was convenient--just press A to attack or C to Cast spells or the like. It almost made playing the NES version feel slow. Speaking of which, it sounds like the music is based on the NES music. Incidentally, Wizardry is one of those RPGs where spells like Sleep or Paralysis are often more useful than throwing fireballs--Fireballs are weak usually, but if the entire enemy party is asleep that gives you more time to act without fear of damage (plus IIRC this game has a mechanic where attacking a sleeping monster auto-kills them).
Excluding Zelda, NES Dragon Warrior was my very first RPG ever. Final Fantasy was my 2nd. Proving Grounds was definitely in that era too but I was too young to deal with the difficulty. Gonna have to try this remake.
At 30:00, the 'class change' will drop stats to the 'class' minimum, not the race minimum. If I remember, not all stats are affected. So, if you changed a Fighter to a Thief, your dexterity should be around 12 (if memory serves) but most of your other stats will drop to the class minimum, as if you had made a new character. But when making a Ninja, Samurai, Bishop, Lord, they have much higher minimum stats. So a Fighter being changed to a Lord, will need higher wisdom (14, I think), and a slightly higher Constitution. I'm sure there are better websites to explain all of this.
Actually, I think rojovision had it correct as far as the Apple II and Ultimate Wizardry Archive DOS versions. After changing class the character would drop back down to his/her racial (now lineage) minimums. This is just a bug in version 0.1 of the remaster. It was corrected sometime between version 0.1, which is being played here, and version 0.3.1, which I played.
Love the fact that this is being remade, i'm glad it is just a cosmetic remake, the original was the first "3d perspective" game ever if i am not mistaken. Played it as a child.
I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom on the SNES. The original was kind of lousy, but I would love to see a remake of it sometime. I never played the Mad Overlord one, but I am interested to see the remake and imagine how cool a remake of V would be.
My copy of Wizardry on the Apple IIe had a glitch that I would fight a creature on level 4...can't remember which one it was...and I was awarded enough experience to level each party member to level 99. So while everyone else at the high school computer lab is struggling to level my party was maxed.
As that old man who actually played the originals, my reaction to what you did to the Guy character: 'wait, wut?! He went to maze, got 200 gp only for one character? O_O wait a sec that means they buffed the starting gold that means if done six times you get 1200 gp right from the start, cycle it and voila you are richer than everything in an hour? O_O' Really, you should have also stated if the gp-grinding via party creation and starting gold distribution stayed. Aside from that, thank you! Cool and infromative, looking into trying it out myself. So far, the best Wizardry remaster to me was the SNES version. This one is also looks very cool. And, yes, 'a very simple game, and that's very hard' is the best discription you can say about first Wizardry. Laughed a lot from that. You _did_ nail it, thank you xD
Wow! I forgot all about this game. There were so many great games in that era it was easy to forget :) This concept would totally work with a modern twist. I could see a "Far Cry" type series based on a wizard or something. Would be cool to see.
I had an Apple IIc and played this and several other good games like the Dragonlance games. Good times playing old games. I hope this is out on steam soon. I wish they would do this for bards tale.
I played this on the NES. On my second run I created a character and named him "Bank"; to which all money went into. I would create characters send the money to Bank and delete them. $30 may be a bit steep but I may get it. Thanks for the video.
I've been playing this for a few days now, and I think its totally worth $30. This is everything I've wanted in a remake/remaster of a classic RPG. I hate the direction that Square took with the Final Fantasy 7 remakes, where they are more like reimaginings. This game is a straight up unicorn in the world of remakes. Kept the old school game design, gave it some fancy graphics and music, and gave you some nice modern quality of life features you can optionally enable if you choose. Absolute perfection. And they really listen to their community's suggestions on what QOL options people want, and are pretty quick about bug fixes as well. The game is fully complete, and the EA period is just about getting feedback on new features people might want, and bug hunting. I would absolutely kill for Might & Magic 1-5 to be done exactly like this.
There is an ooooold game that this reminds me of that I've never been able to discover what it was called. If someone could help me find out what it was I would love you forever. You travel dungeon levels in much the same manner except all you see visually is a mini map with your character being an arrow on the map. You only play as a solo player, no party. The thing I loved about the game was that it has a high score thing where it keeps track so if you played with others it would say who's character has the highest strength, accrued the most gold, got to the deepest dungeon level, etc. Pretty much maneuvered using arrow keys. I played it prior to the PS1 era, but have no clue when it may have actually came out.
I'd REALLY love to see a graphical update to M&M 4 and 5 (Clouds & Darkside of Xeen). Music should remain identical, and the gameplay wouldn't need much in the way of adjustments, and even the character portraits are fine. But the world & town graphics could easily be modded into something great! 😁
There is nothing wrong with having niche title for such price. Games worth what they worth. We live in age abundance, instead of going to bottom of price barrel, makes sense to value your work.
That was my biggest complaint about newer games like Legend of Grimrock, is that combat is real-time. I much prefer the turn-based version like this game.
I recently tried Wizardry 8, a series I never got into, only know about it's old school ASCII roots. Really cool :D But somehow I wished they would've made this remaster even with more realistic graphics for super eye candy (I don't mind lowpoly gfx at all), but I have the feel, that AAA graphics would benefit the "wooooow" factor somehow ...
I miss this type of game. It reminds me of playing the original Bard's Tale on my apple IIgs. Good times. If I can play this on my new iphone I'll be pretty stoked.
Create a random party, pool gold on the best character. Kick the other 5, rinse and repeat until you have enough gold to buy what you want in town...best early cheat my buddy and I ever stumbled on.
I played this on my Apple II when it came out. I'm hoping they fixed the end game. I kept getting to the lowest level and having my party wiped. So I ran three parties up to highest level and sent them in one at a time. This took me about a year. First party: Steps off elevator. Takes another step. Takes another step and is surprised by monsters. This means the monsters get a free attack. Since they can use the most powerful attacks the party is reduced to thin film of molecules on the far wall. So I send down the second party to recover the first parties 'bodies' so they can be rezzed. Second party: Steps off elevator. Takes another step and is surprised by monsters. Thin film of molecules on the far wall. So third party goes after the first two. Second party: Steps off elevator and is surprised by monsters. Thin film of molecules on the far wall. To say I was pissed severely understates my emotions. As you can tell I'm still angry about it forty years later.
Well I was praying for Scarlett Johansson to come round to my house with a bottle of champagne, but a Wizardry remake was a close second. OMG it looks great. I like how the original game is in the bottom right. This also has that later Wizardry look and feel, which I always thought was a great format for this kind of rpg. Wishlisting this. I don't usually buy early access, but if this becomes available I might because no-one would claim to be remaking Wizardry with the intent to scam people.
Have you ever played tale of the Forsaken land on the PS2? Currently that is the only Wizardry game I have and I have also completed. A party of six going deep down in Labyrinth there is even a bonus dungeon post-completion that as far as I know is bottomless. A random layout I think each floor and things slowly get tougher as you go down
I forgot how annoying it can be going back and forth just to inspect your characters. I'm all for nostalgia but guess I spoiled by modern day games, but mind you I did play the original game in 80's. I hope they do more quality of life changes and make it easier to navigate between characters (not going to ruin the game just make it less frustrating) . Also they got to make a feature so if you have party wipe you just spawn back in town loosing any gains on the way.
Reminds me a lot of Bards Tale 3. 30$ way to expensive for a reskin on a 40 year old game. Price drop to 10$ i'd try it for a trip down nostalgia lane.
Not sure. I haven't heard of a blue ribbon, but I've heard that the original had a dagger that would turn a thief into a ninja. As far as I know all the classes are still in the game - lord and ninja just don't show up on the character creation screen because you can't roll enough points to make one from the start.
@@rojovision I vaguely recall that random starting points could vary among the different versions of Wizardry. I may be confusing this with the console port of Wizardry V, but I think I rolled a huge number of points once, enough to create a Lord. But yes, other versions including this remaster and, thus, the original Apple II code, probably restricted the points further. Yes, the Blue Ribbon is for the second elevator. It was the Thieves Dagger in the Apple II and Ultimate Wizardry Archives Dos versions (names of items varied depending on the port you played) that changed Thieves into Ninja.
There a limit to age beyond 'dieing of old age'? Also, does it cost gold to start a new character? If not, what's to stop you from creating priests, healing party (not resurrecting or the higher level stuff), then getting rid of priest to save on the aging aspect.
I believe increasing in age makes it less likely to get stat increases, but I'm not 100% certain. Nothing stopping you from making tons of disposable characters, as far as I know.
In the original game, younger characters tended to get stat increases, as they age, the stats decrease. If Vitality dips below 3, the character dies of old age. The other limitation is resurrection. A character's chance to be resurrected is based on their vitality. Older characters have less Vitality....
I hope they can get the game to be Steam Deck Verified!! Also if this game is a success, I hope they do Wizardry VI Bane of the Cosmic Forge next. I think it was redone back in 2013, but that version could use an update!!
Considering this out of curiosity cuz I did play the original game and knight of diamonds on the NES back in the day. But I dunno if I’m mentally prepared for this. 😂
In the original, if you age enough, you die from old age. Also, can you do the bishop ID-9 trick? Make an L1 bishop, equip 8 daggers, Identify 9 repeatedly, until *surprise*
As best I can tell you can't do the bishop trick. The bug may still exist in the game since it's built on top of the original code, but with the updated UI there's no way to ID slot 9.
@@KSechrist There's a representation of it that you can see for fun, but it's not going to be like playing the old DOS / Apple versions as far as the inventory controls go.
yeah 2:17 glad the interface is better than wizardry 6 lol what a world of difference with that clunkiness. Though I know some are purists so having both modes helps everyone.
![Wizardry (1991) Animated Film [Japanese] [ENG SUB]](/img/n.gif)
If you're interested in Wizardry, take a look at the rest of my channel and consider subscribing. There are playthroughs for 6, 7, and 8 (same imported party throughout), as well as other dungeon crawlers.
Wiz6: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6YVf7UD2o4MjUyPdtMssbUZ.html
Wiz7: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6Z2_MOBmQTBMzPbIcPMoNwz.html
Wiz8: ua-cam.com/play/PLTel6u4hmP6bqjMY90jjl9vr-DQjCWop4.html
An interesting channel to check out to is dforte. He designs mods for these games
If thi is apple 2 verion then I9 with bishops
Ill pay any amount of money for a good remaster of wizardry 7. Shut up and take my money.
I played the heck out of the original Wizardry on my Super Nintendo and when I finally reached the room with Dracula in it he killed my entire team. In those days you couldn't revert back to a save point. It was one of the most traumatic moments of my life, lol.
Nice review, which was well laid out. You covered almost all of the game mechanics of how Wizardry 1 works, so kudos for that thorough treatment. I like how you had an experienced party, so you could show off some fighting and only discuss settings options later. However, if you had taken a level 1 party down and gotten slaughtered, that would have been an opportunity to discuss how brutal Wizardry 1 was. As to age, the modernization was to change it to Vim, which was an age equivalent but a little easier to understand. As you stated, age is weird in Wizardry, so if you consistently only rested your casters, strangely they would be aging faster than your melee characters. In talking about Vim replacing Age, the developers stated was it was difficult to envision a 200 year old human, implying that it was easy to say that for each character, regardless of lineage, they had lived a certain percentage of their life. As to Boltac’s inventory, he never gets new stuff unless you sell it to him. However, this remaster has changed Boltac’s to show only gear that a character can use or equip. So Mages will not see any swords, but Fighters will. Essentially a single character/class will not see all of his inventory now, not even a fighter. The 6 attribute stats should decrease to lineage minimums after a class change, and that will be corrected in the future because that was already happening when I played version 0.3.1. I won’t go over the changes in versions 0.2 and 0.3 since you cover these in separate videos. I’m not sure if they will decorate the dungeon more, although one can hope. I’m not sure if I would want to switch to the full screen original wire-frame graphics to not overlay but completely replace the new graphics. However, given that this is one of the few ways to be able to acquire and play the game now, it is probably merits some consideration. The minimap becomes messed up after you run, get teleported, or switch directions on a rotating square. It is not a bug. The designers intended you to become disoriented after these things happened (one was present during another streamer’s demo), which could happen if you were in the game in real life too. It does get fixed if you cast a Dumapic spell, just as if you calmed down and got your bearings again in real life. Without any guidance from the game you have to discover this by trial and error, which inserts unnecessary complications for experienced players and unnecessary barriers to enjoyment for new players. This raises a larger issue. The game could really use the original manual built into the game itself. A few tips during load screens is not enough. Since the original game could not include in game help, players got a thick, written manual in 1981. Without the manual, in 2024 you are actually worse off than players in 1981, and you stumble around without any guidance at all unless you resort to fan sites. I agree that if this remaster were successful enough to generate development of Wizardry 2, it would definitely have to be lower priced because it is really only what we would call an expansion pack today, not a true sequel. I don’t blame Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. They were basically inventing the genre. But today, it should be priced as an expansion pack DLC like $5 or $10 max.
Wish someone would do this with all the gold box D&D games.
I'd pay grandly for the first three made as one game by Larian.
Exactly! Would pay crazy money for a remake of the Dragonlance series.
They did release them for modern PC on Steam. I bought them all but they didn't really work all that great. I ended up returning them.
Goldbox Companion helps a lot for them@@tb7771
Agree. A true remaster with adding in some QoL features (like auto-mapping) would be awesome. I'd buy that.
A remaster of the whole series would be amazing.
a remaster in the style of dark spire
would be insane
i would love to play a remaster of 6 and 7 imo the best 2 of the series
They are planning on it, if the first one does well enough
Especially 4
@@johnnydrama3829 Unfortunately that would probably never happen since there were some disputes over rights to the game between David Bradley and Sir-Tech. I don't remember what's the deal exactly but it's a mess so no one can actually make a remaster of those two games. Which is really sad. For the longest time I wished I could play through both 6 and 7 with the same party but I personally find Wiz7 unplayable. Somehow to me this one plays way worse than Wiz6 - I just can't stand its clunky interface. this one really needs a remaster..
I played this long ago using Apple - and mapped the dungeons using pencil and paper.. I was hoping the remake would do that for me. It's important to map because there are areas that teleport you elsewhere in the maze.
Same here! All on graph paper, too.
I did the same thing - mapped everything on graph paper. I remember doing the same thing with Alternate Reality: The City too.
For the remake, I’m keeping a map on an Excel file.
And doing it for Wizardry III, The Return of Werdna, I think, mapping from your sarcophagus if I’m remembering correctly.
Same
it does have automap if you enable it? see around 13:20
The original game is what prompted me to spend around $2,000 USD for an Apple II + in 1978. That was for the computer with 48K of memory; 16K expansion memory; 2, 5.25" floppy drives; a 9" green monitor and a dot matrix printer. Of course, I used it for work too.
And now our CPU's have more cache than you had in drive apace.
Oh man, bought this on sight. I was obsessed with this game on NES as a kid, was never able to make it very far. I love that they're doing this.
My friend had 2 wizardy games for his Nintendo
1 said you killed the creatures
The other said dispatched…
🤔 I think it was wizardry 1&2 but I could be wrong
As someone who played the hell out of the Apple II version as a kid, I am happy to see this be a thing.
Saw an ad for this on Facebook and brought up certain exploits from the original version in the comments and the developer confirmed that they are still there.
Glorious! I can’t wait
This was the first game I ever used a sector editor to modify the save file, I had no clue what I was doing, but I ended up giving my first two characters thousands of HP so they were pretty much invincible. Then I tried messing with Ultima and just screwed up the world map icons. Thanks for helping me dredge up some 40 year old memories.
I did the same, with both Wizardry and Ultima... you know what though? As an adult I ended up on the Lord British team at Origin, making Ultima - and I never mentioned my cheating to Richard. I never thought about it until now, thanks! Hahahaha.
I remember when I discovered the glitch with the Bishop character (who could identify magic items and gain XP for successful attempts). There were only 8 inventory slots (or something like that) corresponding to 1-8 on the keyboard, but if you chose to identify item 9, the game gave you millions of XP. You were instantly max level and could lay waste to the dungeon. Good times!
same. and yeah ultima and ultima2 were tough to mess with
A most excellent story.
I remember trying to code stuff in basic and slowly figuring out what I was doing.
One of the first games I found a way to 'game' the system. Each created character got starting money. I named one guy 'Money Man' made a bunch of characters had them give their money to him. Then deleted them. Made a bunch more, repeat. Then when 'enough' Would create the characters to be played. Another related story. Rented this from local video store to play. Years later they were selling off NES games and bought this and 1 of my characters was still saved.
The bit about the automap being messed up (around 43 minutes) is actually intentional. In Wiz 1, some of the doors are one way, which is what you're seeing. It's nothing to do with running away - though running does move you in a random direction for a few squares. It's just the running moved you through a one way door.
This is incorrect. Pretty sure that is a bug. Running moved the party, but did not update the mini-map location. Probably a simple fix, I would be surprised if it is not patched quickly.
After running, he was at [7,0] but the mini-map was still recording him as being at [7,1]
We used to have to map on graphpaper because the orignal didn't have a minimap. lol
This is such a Gen X game. Played it on my Apple 2+ for months. It is very slow in the beginning as i remember having to go in and out to heal. I've actually waited for this for decades. I would have been happy with just the original...can't wait to download this weekend.
Hah, I like the way the original UI is on the corner there :)
I remember playing this on the Apple IIe back in the 80's. Loved it...
For the curious, the trick to getting people of opposing alignments to join your party was to have them join you in the dungeon rather than in town. The original game only checked for opposing alignments in town and not in the dungeon.
Makes sense, really - if I recall the old game's manunal correctly the explained difference in character alignments wasn't actions but motivation. People who can't manage to meet in a hazardous environment and work as a group against mutual threats shouldn't be in ANY party.
Ah, but does this new version also have the old trick whereby Good characters ( including Lords) can turn Evil, or Evil characters (including Ninja) can turn Good? IMO, there's no reason why it shouldn't.
Oh so there is a reason for the alignment.
I would normally just create a Neutral Thief to go along with my Good Lord/Fighter, then find the Thieves' Dagger to turn that Thief into a Ninja. So now I have BOTH a Lord AND a Ninja in my party. EPIC WIN!
@@MrJimbo-ew9vkI can't find this Lord class in the game.
I still have my Wizardry maps in a vanilla folder. Those things were worth money back in the day. I am so looking forward to this.
Didn't know this was happening. Definitely on my radar now, thx!
What memories! My younger brother with his friends would play this on his Apple II+. It was amazing for the day. Ha. Now in about a week I'll have my Quest 3 delivered. What an amazing world and time I live in.
I played on the Mac 128k (ours was upgraded to a whopping 512kb!) and one of the big things I remembered was that if you equipped a set of armor under the wand of conflagration and then used up all of the charges in the wand it would turn into another equipped set of armor. Double sturdy plate for all!
it is an inverted pyramid with each level getting smaller. I played in the 80's on apple. :)
I have started two parties now. I never played Wizardry 1 much ( I was more into 6-8). I played the first one only on the NES. So far I am enjoying it, but what I have to get used to is having to retrieve dead party members from the dungeon. I also didn't expect to not be able to save the game. At first, I didn't like that, but it adds a scary element to the game that I'm starting to like.
Did not expect to see anything new (remake included) from this series.
Can't wait to see people reacting to Wizardry 4 difficulty - "for veterans of Wizardry series" might not say much for most people, but those who knows - they have some clue of how hard it is.
Pretty cool, labor of love. i liked the bards tale remaster as well and bought it just to support the devs.
Hours and hours spent playing this game when I was a youngster!!! One of the more creative parts of owning the original game was that art in the handbook. One of the funniest is of a Mage yelling "MATU" and a fighter up front saying "gesundheit."
My fingers probably still have the muscle memory of Fight, Fight, Fight, Parry, Parry, Parry for the early level grinding.
If I remember my gaming history correctly, Wizardry laid the groundwork for most of the RPG mazecrawls in the 80's. It would have been neat to see this game get a cameo in "Ready Player One."
There were a lot of nice ones (I liked the AC 10 vs AC -10 comparison), and also some of the unillustrated comments like the section titled 'lowering your insurance premiums'.
I agree. The illustrations in the manual were wonderful.
A trick we used to do in the original was making dozens of characters, adding them to a party, taking their gold and selling their gear until we could get the best equipment available in the store. You could also re-roll characters until you got stats for the elite classes (bishop, samurai, lord). Trebor sucks!
I played to original. There was a bug that if you identified item 0, (that didn't exist) you would get infinite experience. I then used this char to heal and identify items in town. Great Game!
You identify Item #9 with a Bishop to gain 100,000,000 XP.
I did that too. Then Bard’s Tale I let you import characters from Wizardry, so I brought my god-like bishop into that game. Great times!
Honestly a remaster of 6,7 and 8 would be insanely good and an english translation of Wizardry alternative Neo (sequel of the amazing Tales of Forsaken Lands) would be great.
One other thing: the devs need to change the search and confirm buttons to something that isn't the same. That way I won't hit the button to search right as the option to attack friendly monsters comes up. This also happens if you want to stand in place to search over and over to get a battle to start. Then by hitting the button quickly, you attack the friendly monsters, which can change your alignment.
LOL is that the Apple 2 screen over on the right?
This brings back some memories. I remember using graph paper to draw maps. And just how frustrating it was if you lost/misplaced the 'game manual' which listed the spell names/effects. You of course, had to type these in manually, and spelled correctly for them to work. After a while, you would memorize most of the spells, or just made a cheat-sheet.
Then, there was the times when you would 'wipe your party', you'd have to make a new party and take them to the exact spot where the old party died, to recover them. Which meant, you had to resurrect them and hope that they could be restored.
I remember one of the old tricks that we would do, is after you get your party levelled up a bit, (usually around level 7/8), you would swap out one of your experienced character, and bring in a newly created character. Which the new character would usually level up quite quickly, and by doing this a few times, you could have a 'back up' party, or reform a party that best suited your needs for the boss levels.
Ah, memories! At 12 I was able to memorize the path and button sequence from town to the final boss, blindfolded, using a very high level party that could basically kill anything and I only needed to hear the sound of fighting beginning to spam fight commands before continuing the descent towards the end. I'm impressed with myself on this haha, I don't think I could do it today. I did spend alot of time memorizing a recorded grid map I made for every level so I could memorize direction changes. So much fun at the time. Kids today missed out on this for sure and I don't think there is anything comparable on the market. Good ol' Wizardry.
Nice to see a channel looking at something that actually matters in gaming!! I had no idea this was happening!! Instasubbed.
OMFG!!! This was my first ever RPG back in the mid 80s on my Apple iie with a black and green monitor. I played hundreds of hours of this my sophomore and junior year in high school. This is so freaking awesome!!
I purchased my first computer, an Apple //e, back in 1984 solely to play Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overload. If I remember correctly, it was a 20x20 maze that was 20 levels deep. You mapped it out on graph paper.
The UI redesign is amazing!! In fact the whole visual redesign so very nice, yet love how they kept the original game the same. The fun of it was just re-running over and over for the loot. Can see this has not changed.
I wonder if it has the I-9 exploit...in the original version, you rolled a priest and then identified number 9 slot, after a few tries it would give you like a 100 million xp. Spent hours with this game in the 80's.
It’s essentially the same code as a base. I’m pretty sure you can.
@@scottchristofersen2367 Actually not everything is the same. They had to update things like pooling gold. They also changed the interface. In the original versions for Apple II and DOS, you would go to your Bishop's character trait and inventory screen, hit I for Identify, then select the number of the item to identify. In this remaster you select the item first, then select Identify. Since you cannot select item 9, which does not exist, you cannot identify it. So that legendary bug, which the game creators intentionally left in, is gone here.
For those on the fence with this Wizardry game. There's another one that has a scenario editor called The Five Ordeals. I think they're worth the price, although I don't believe that $30 is too much for a dungeon crawl. Considering how endlessly replayable they are. Although for Proving Grounds, I'm so used to that game being bundled up with the first 3 so I can see why you think that's over priced.
It would be wonderful to get a Wizardry 8-like game. It is still my favourite RPG, I value it above BG3 or Divinity:OS2.
Solid review, and I enjoy that so many great old games are being remastered, it means a new lease on life and people can enjoy true quality
This is so cool. I can’t to get this one. The coolest part is the overlay showing you the original.
Graphically it's a lot closer to Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken (PS2). I like it.
Then I need to get it.Loved it. Played the NES version.
Gave all my money to one person who I'd leave behind, so if I died, wouldn't lose all my money
This was my favorite game as a kid. Me and my buddy would play on his old apple IIc and we would share the party and take turns playing while the other would map on a pad of graph paper.
I just wish they had done this remaster for the entire first five Wizardry games, not just the first one.
I played on MS-DOS a lot... I never had a problem using the Keyboard. Actually it was convenient--just press A to attack or C to Cast spells or the like. It almost made playing the NES version feel slow.
Speaking of which, it sounds like the music is based on the NES music.
Incidentally, Wizardry is one of those RPGs where spells like Sleep or Paralysis are often more useful than throwing fireballs--Fireballs are weak usually, but if the entire enemy party is asleep that gives you more time to act without fear of damage (plus IIRC this game has a mechanic where attacking a sleeping monster auto-kills them).
Excluding Zelda, NES Dragon Warrior was my very first RPG ever. Final Fantasy was my 2nd. Proving Grounds was definitely in that era too but I was too young to deal with the difficulty. Gonna have to try this remake.
I have vague memories of playing this game back in the day. I remember each map was a 16x16 square .
I love the Wizardry games! I am excited for this! Thank you for doing a video on it.
At 30:00, the 'class change' will drop stats to the 'class' minimum, not the race minimum. If I remember, not all stats are affected. So, if you changed a Fighter to a Thief, your dexterity should be around 12 (if memory serves) but most of your other stats will drop to the class minimum, as if you had made a new character. But when making a Ninja, Samurai, Bishop, Lord, they have much higher minimum stats. So a Fighter being changed to a Lord, will need higher wisdom (14, I think), and a slightly higher Constitution. I'm sure there are better websites to explain all of this.
Ah, that makes sense.
Actually, I think rojovision had it correct as far as the Apple II and Ultimate Wizardry Archive DOS versions. After changing class the character would drop back down to his/her racial (now lineage) minimums. This is just a bug in version 0.1 of the remaster. It was corrected sometime between version 0.1, which is being played here, and version 0.3.1, which I played.
Awesome! Played from the start with Bards Tale on my Apple 2II.
Love the fact that this is being remade, i'm glad it is just a cosmetic remake, the original was the first "3d perspective" game ever if i am not mistaken. Played it as a child.
Erm, 1st person perspectve, duh
I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom on the SNES. The original was kind of lousy, but I would love to see a remake of it sometime. I never played the Mad Overlord one, but I am interested to see the remake and imagine how cool a remake of V would be.
My copy of Wizardry on the Apple IIe had a glitch that I would fight a creature on level 4...can't remember which one it was...and I was awarded enough experience to level each party member to level 99. So while everyone else at the high school computer lab is struggling to level my party was maxed.
As that old man who actually played the originals, my reaction to what you did to the Guy character:
'wait, wut?! He went to maze, got 200 gp only for one character? O_O
wait a sec that means they buffed the starting gold that means if done six times you get 1200 gp right from the start, cycle it and voila you are richer than everything in an hour? O_O'
Really, you should have also stated if the gp-grinding via party creation and starting gold distribution stayed.
Aside from that, thank you! Cool and infromative, looking into trying it out myself.
So far, the best Wizardry remaster to me was the SNES version.
This one is also looks very cool.
And, yes, 'a very simple game, and that's very hard' is the best discription you can say about first Wizardry. Laughed a lot from that. You _did_ nail it, thank you xD
Wow! I forgot all about this game. There were so many great games in that era it was easy to forget :) This concept would totally work with a modern twist. I could see a "Far Cry" type series based on a wizard or something. Would be cool to see.
I had an Apple IIc and played this and several other good games like the Dragonlance games. Good times playing old games. I hope this is out on steam soon. I wish they would do this for bards tale.
Don't remember playing this with a controller on my Apple II. Keyboard please.
This is pretty nice I still have my NES cartridge of this game!!
My first video game over 40 years ago. Spent many hours, probably never finished.
I played this on the NES. On my second run I created a character and named him "Bank"; to which all money went into. I would create characters send the money to Bank and delete them.
$30 may be a bit steep but I may get it. Thanks for the video.
Seems very similar to Operencia The Stolen Sun which itself was an homage to the original dungeon crawler games like Wizadry.
Blast from the past - amazing so this with a proper colour GUI!
whoa, this looks awesome!!!!
Loved Wizardry 8. Miss the side panels.
I've been playing this for a few days now, and I think its totally worth $30. This is everything I've wanted in a remake/remaster of a classic RPG. I hate the direction that Square took with the Final Fantasy 7 remakes, where they are more like reimaginings. This game is a straight up unicorn in the world of remakes. Kept the old school game design, gave it some fancy graphics and music, and gave you some nice modern quality of life features you can optionally enable if you choose. Absolute perfection. And they really listen to their community's suggestions on what QOL options people want, and are pretty quick about bug fixes as well. The game is fully complete, and the EA period is just about getting feedback on new features people might want, and bug hunting. I would absolutely kill for Might & Magic 1-5 to be done exactly like this.
I am ancient, so played the original so much! This is fantastic news for me!
There is an ooooold game that this reminds me of that I've never been able to discover what it was called. If someone could help me find out what it was I would love you forever. You travel dungeon levels in much the same manner except all you see visually is a mini map with your character being an arrow on the map. You only play as a solo player, no party. The thing I loved about the game was that it has a high score thing where it keeps track so if you played with others it would say who's character has the highest strength, accrued the most gold, got to the deepest dungeon level, etc. Pretty much maneuvered using arrow keys. I played it prior to the PS1 era, but have no clue when it may have actually came out.
I'd REALLY love to see a graphical update to M&M 4 and 5 (Clouds & Darkside of Xeen). Music should remain identical, and the gameplay wouldn't need much in the way of adjustments, and even the character portraits are fine. But the world & town graphics could easily be modded into something great! 😁
To this day I still can not believe this was mad in my little upstate NY town.
There is nothing wrong with having niche title for such price. Games worth what they worth. We live in age abundance, instead of going to bottom of price barrel, makes sense to value your work.
That was my biggest complaint about newer games like Legend of Grimrock, is that combat is real-time. I much prefer the turn-based version like this game.
Wow I remember playing this when it first released 40 years ago lol.
I recently tried Wizardry 8, a series I never got into, only know about it's old school ASCII roots. Really cool :D But somehow I wished they would've made this remaster even with more realistic graphics for super eye candy (I don't mind lowpoly gfx at all), but I have the feel, that AAA graphics would benefit the "wooooow" factor somehow ...
You have to learn again the strongest weapon in players inventory: save/load :)
I remember this game in the late 80's. It didn't look like this lol. Going to have to buy it. Thanks.
This is great! I would love to see Wizardry 8 and most definitely Wizards and Warriors remake or reskin..
I miss this type of game. It reminds me of playing the original Bard's Tale on my apple IIgs. Good times. If I can play this on my new iphone I'll be pretty stoked.
there's a bard's tale on mobile
Create a random party, pool gold on the best character. Kick the other 5, rinse and repeat until you have enough gold to buy what you want in town...best early cheat my buddy and I ever stumbled on.
This and Ultima III, good old days.
I had all these games for my Apple II but can't remember which is which. Is this the game where you have to gather all the peices of armor?
I remember this on the NES (I think) and using graph paper to draw out the levels....loooong time ago...
The original game took hours of my life. Well worth the time. Glad they revisited it.
I played this on my Apple II when it came out. I'm hoping they fixed the end game.
I kept getting to the lowest level and having my party wiped. So I ran three parties up to highest level and sent them in one at a time. This took me about a year.
First party: Steps off elevator. Takes another step. Takes another step and is surprised by monsters. This means the monsters get a free attack. Since they can use the most powerful attacks the party is reduced to thin film of molecules on the far wall.
So I send down the second party to recover the first parties 'bodies' so they can be rezzed.
Second party: Steps off elevator. Takes another step and is surprised by monsters. Thin film of molecules on the far wall.
So third party goes after the first two.
Second party: Steps off elevator and is surprised by monsters. Thin film of molecules on the far wall.
To say I was pissed severely understates my emotions. As you can tell I'm still angry about it forty years later.
Well I was praying for Scarlett Johansson to come round to my house with a bottle of champagne, but a Wizardry remake was a close second. OMG it looks great. I like how the original game is in the bottom right. This also has that later Wizardry look and feel, which I always thought was a great format for this kind of rpg. Wishlisting this. I don't usually buy early access, but if this becomes available I might because no-one would claim to be remaking Wizardry with the intent to scam people.
I've played wizardry 7. The memories :).
Loved this game back in the day.
Oh man. Still not tried Wizardry but this looks amazing
nostalgy is a powerful weapon ,born in 1975 i will buy that game for sure soo much memory from that game .(take my money)
Wizardry 7 Crusaders of the Dark Savant is one of the greatest games I have ever played.
Have you ever played tale of the Forsaken land on the PS2? Currently that is the only Wizardry game I have and I have also completed. A party of six going deep down in Labyrinth there is even a bonus dungeon post-completion that as far as I know is bottomless. A random layout I think each floor and things slowly get tougher as you go down
I'm aware of the game, but sadly I haven't played it yet.
@@rojovision it's hard to find I think but I thoroughly enjoy it. I still have it on a functioning PS2
What I did not like in Grimdark was the Real Time combat.
Thanks for the recommendation.
I forgot how annoying it can be going back and forth just to inspect your characters. I'm all for nostalgia but guess I spoiled by modern day games, but mind you I did play the original game in 80's. I hope they do more quality of life changes and make it easier to navigate between characters (not going to ruin the game just make it less frustrating) . Also they got to make a feature so if you have party wipe you just spawn back in town loosing any gains on the way.
I played this on the Nintendo in '89 or '90. It was great.
Reminds me a lot of Bards Tale 3. 30$ way to expensive for a reskin on a 40 year old game. Price drop to 10$ i'd try it for a trip down nostalgia lane.
Do you know if there’s the blue ribbon in this game? In Wizard I, if you invoke; it changes them to Ninja Class.
Not sure. I haven't heard of a blue ribbon, but I've heard that the original had a dagger that would turn a thief into a ninja. As far as I know all the classes are still in the game - lord and ninja just don't show up on the character creation screen because you can't roll enough points to make one from the start.
I remember the blue ribbon allowing you access to the elevator. Not sure about changing classes with one
@@rojovision I vaguely recall that random starting points could vary among the different versions of Wizardry. I may be confusing this with the console port of Wizardry V, but I think I rolled a huge number of points once, enough to create a Lord. But yes, other versions including this remaster and, thus, the original Apple II code, probably restricted the points further. Yes, the Blue Ribbon is for the second elevator. It was the Thieves Dagger in the Apple II and Ultimate Wizardry Archives Dos versions (names of items varied depending on the port you played) that changed Thieves into Ninja.
As a fan of this style of game, I will give it a shot
There a limit to age beyond 'dieing of old age'? Also, does it cost gold to start a new character? If not, what's to stop you from creating priests, healing party (not resurrecting or the higher level stuff), then getting rid of priest to save on the aging aspect.
I believe increasing in age makes it less likely to get stat increases, but I'm not 100% certain. Nothing stopping you from making tons of disposable characters, as far as I know.
In the original game, younger characters tended to get stat increases, as they age, the stats decrease. If Vitality dips below 3, the character dies of old age. The other limitation is resurrection. A character's chance to be resurrected is based on their vitality. Older characters have less Vitality....
I hope they can get the game to be Steam Deck Verified!! Also if this game is a success, I hope they do Wizardry VI Bane of the Cosmic Forge next. I think it was redone back in 2013, but that version could use an update!!
Considering this out of curiosity cuz I did play the original game and knight of diamonds on the NES back in the day. But I dunno if I’m mentally prepared for this. 😂
It's not Wizardry unless it still has "the bug" if you know what I'm sayin'.
In the original, if you age enough, you die from old age. Also, can you do the bishop ID-9 trick? Make an L1 bishop, equip 8 daggers, Identify 9 repeatedly, until *surprise*
As best I can tell you can't do the bishop trick. The bug may still exist in the game since it's built on top of the original code, but with the updated UI there's no way to ID slot 9.
@@rojovision So they're no way to switch to the old interface like D2R offers to swap you to see D2x?
@@KSechrist There's a representation of it that you can see for fun, but it's not going to be like playing the old DOS / Apple versions as far as the inventory controls go.
@@rojovision Alas.
4 samurai, 1 priest, 1 mage...cake walk!
yeah 2:17 glad the interface is better than wizardry 6 lol what a world of difference with that clunkiness. Though I know some are purists so having both modes helps everyone.
Does it still have the backdoor code to get 100M XP at level 1 without fighting anything?