Wizardry 1 and 2 a brief review *on going*

[BigusSchmuck]

So I have started playing Wizardry 1 and 2 for the PC engine, I have to say so far (about 5 hours into 1) its definitely a improvement over the NES and SNES ports. Despite the fact that it was a Japanese release, most of the text here is translated into English other than the story line, events, spell descriptions and some of the battle text. This in no way impacts the gameplay whatsoever as most of you will probably be using a guide anyway. Now I will say this, this game is HARD. Much harder than the PC or NES versions (even with a few known exploits). One of the new "features" is when trying to identify a item your bishop character after a few tries becomes afraid and can't identify anything for a few turns! Why they did this is beyond me. Another useless feature is renaming of items and weapons. There is a way to go change this back to the original naming but it is a nuisance never the less. Graphically speaking the game is ok, nothing to really sneeze at. Music so far, has been great (redbook audio joy!). The battle theme is definitely a bonus and I love the classical music remix in town. Overall, 7 out of 10 and a good rpg to kick off the holidays.

[BigusSchmuck]

Did I mention that this game is hard? Two words: Poison sucks. If one of your characters gets poisoned and you don't have the item or spell to cure it: consider your character dead within 2-3 steps. My 100 hp fighter died almost instantly after being poisoned! What the hell really? To make matters worse my poor level 10 bishop named Gandalf died in one hit from a level one ninja from decapitation.  So I went to get him resurrected at the temple of cant and guess what?  He turned into ashes. No Gandalf the white tonight.  What a way to start the night. I guess the silver lining to tonight's session is the fact you can transfer your Wizardry 1 characters to the second and third games and visa versa. Another thing, if you don't have either a Japanese PCE or a modified U.S system get one as this game takes up the entire system memory and you'll need a tennokoe bank or similar device to save your game should you require to have any other saved games.

[Xak]

How is  it better than the SNES ? I would love to know.

I got all the way down to the final floor on the SNES version. I remain there since I have not had the motivation to finish. My cleric turned into a samurai. Then after a long fight i turned his alignment  good again (dont kill innocent monsters)

[BigusSchmuck]

How is  it better than the SNES ? I would love to know.

I got all the way down to the final floor on the SNES version. I remain there since I have not had the motivation to finish. My cleric turned into a samurai. Then after a long fight i turned his alignment  good again (dont kill innocent monsters)

The music for one thing, is much better since its cd audio and not psg and not just the remix of the NES tunes. The monster potraits are bigger and more detailed than in the snes version, about the only thing I really wish they would have done better is the sound effects they aren't all that impressive. I do like how you can transfer your characters from Wizardry 1-2 and 3 to Wizardry 5 if you so wish via summon character in the utilities option. I haven't seen any cut scenes yet other than the first one when you first go into the dungeons so I can't comment on that just yet. 

[Xak]

^Sounds awesome

But I would like a  screenshot comparison on the monsters. Are the sprites LARGER than the SNES version . Differently drawn maybe?

Also does your cleric/priest have a MAP spell like the SNES version of 1-3? I forget the name of it