Hey CRPG fans, I need some help. Wizardry has always been one

Just keep grinding and reloading until you're atleast level 2

>>2810689
>I really want to start enjoying it
LaughingWerdna.avi
>it's always something else that pushes me away from embracing the experience.
You're fundamentally wrong son, you're literally embracing the experience, Wizardry isn't one of those games where you can blast through enemies like 90% of RPGs, you start weak as shit and you have to learn which enemies you can afford to fight and what you have to run the fuck away from for every floor of the dungeons.

Start from the classic, the PS version called Legacy of Llylgamyn is the best version available in terms of everything, the only bad thing about it is that you can't set macros like in the PC versions but all the rest is the best you can find, don't be scared by the fact that ot's JP only, it has an english language version too, it's so good that you can even freely swap graphics from the classic version to the remake version.
Wizardry IV is a love or hate and it's one of those games that are absloutely not for plebs so feel free to skip it if you get too frustrated, V returns to the classic mechanics, those 2 also got a PS remake like he first trilogy and the quality is as great as the first one, you can even change IV to play more lika a SMT game if you don't like the original mechanics, but why would you even want to do that anyway?
After those you can jump to the last trilogy, given that as you said, you really want to know what Wizardry was about.

There's also the Wizardry Gaiden games, which aren't half bad but are more rooted in the classic trilogy and don't quite follow all the new stuff that was added from Wizardry V and beyond.

Wizardry is shit, 1-5 are nearly unplayable and 6 is a mediocre cRPG
7 is kinda interesting tho

There's a reason actual RPG fans cared about Might & Magic and other better franchises

Maybe start with Wizardry 5. In 6 you get stuck with your starting party for the rest of the game and that makes the start particularly challenging since you have no way to revive fallen characters beyond a handful of potions.
5 is more manageable in the beginning though it does get quite challenging later on.

The recommend approach to 6 is to include a bard in your starting team since they get a lute that can cast sleep for free. Beyond that you need to grind with easy enemies like bats before going into the more dangerous parts of the castle.
Setting the difficulty higher won't necessary make the game more difficult since you also gain more experience that way.

Not OP, but I'm also trying to get into the series because I enjoyed Might & Magic VI... I've been thinking about giving the PS2 game -sorry it's not retro- a try, because it doesn't look as absurdly rigid as the earlier ones. Good idea?

>>2810747
In my eyes 7 is the worst of the bunch. It's just endlessly huge and the non-linearity means you rarely ever have to fight an uphill battle.
Additionally you get extra elements that just suck like wandering NPCs.
4 is only unplayable because nobody has big enough balls to beat it without guides or cheating.
2 and 3 aren't inherently terrible, just stale rehashes of 1

>There's a reason actual RPG fans cared about Might & Magic and other better franchises
True Scotsmen play Scottish RPGs like Bard's Tale.

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>>2810747
>There's a reason actual RPG fans cared about Might & Magic and other better franchises

>>2810689
>If anyone can help me achieve this, it'd be much appreciated.

Ok...
1.draw your own map
2.read the manual
3.you can save you know

>>2810717
I never heard of this PS version for the wizardry games, only the PS2 ones that aren't retro.
Why's IV not for plebs? Does it really change that much from the original series?
Thank you for the help, maybe I've been playing wrong this whole time since my whole party almost always gets decapitated toward the end.
>>2810747
The few Might & Magic games I've played have been pretty fun. The latest one was kinda lame.
>>2810756
Is Wizardry 6 anything like SMT where ailments actually have a likely chance to stick?
>>2810758
Judging by the earlier Anon, it'd seem that the PS version of the first couple games are the best start.
>>2810765
I saw the screenshots on gog of 7 and thought the UI looked really hideous and unplayable. I haven't tried it yet because I wanted to finish 6.

How is Wiz8, dudes?
>>2810772
>not the pic of the tricycle and a Harley

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>>2811575
>Why's IV not for plebs? Does it really change that much from the original series?
You're basically playing in reverse. You're the bad guy from 1 and need to summon monsters to fight strolling bands of gooddoers.
Furthermore it is carefully designed to be extremely challenging. You're under a constant storm of encounters from which you rarely gain anything useful. If that wasn't enough you are chased (in real time) by a ghost that instantly kills you. And you have a limited number of steps you can take in total.
The gist is that people were calling for a challenge after beating the previous game and they more than they bargained for. It's not impossible to beat but takes a lot of patience and insider knowledge.

Status effects in 6 and 7 should wear off after some time but you'll often want to heal them anyway.

The UI in 7 is better than in 6 but still a bit lacking.

>>2810747
>There's a reason actual RPG fans cared about Might & Magic and other better franchises

Because you can save scum in those games.

>>2811645
Wizardry IV might be beatable without a guide if you're intimately familiar with Wizardry I-III. Maybe. The fact is that the game was considered nearly unplayable at the time of release and that was when familiarity with Wizardry was at its peak.

Wizardry IV is a game to play largely to prove that you played it. Its audience is hardcore Wizardry fans and its reception among even them was mixed.

is pc wizardry vi the only english version?

>>2812641
PC-98 and FM Towns have an English option but their identical to the IBM so no real point in playing that. Amiga as well.
Your best shot is the SFC port which has a fan patch.

>>2811601
Probably the easiest Wizardry to get into because it does away with quite a bit of dumb shit like having to reroll your characters 6 billion times at the start of the game.

The voices add a lot of "character" to your party as well.

Only weakness is that combat's a bit of a slog as the game goes on because every mob becomes a HP sponge and spawn in like 20-30 batches.

>>2812508
Wasn't there a part of the game with puzzles that require you to have good knowledge of Jewish mythology in order to solve them?

I think that's a pretty damn small sub-set of players at the time.

>>2811727
You can't savescum in M&M2

>>2811727
you can in Wizardry 6 as well.
>unlock door: failed
>load
>unlock door: success

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>>2810758
that's a mediocre hack'n'slash with the brand name on it.

>>2813648
Stop shitposting about games you haven't played. It isn't even a hack & slash. It isn't even realtime.

>>2810717
Is there an english translation for the PSX versions? I can't seem to find it through google. I know it has an option to play in english but it seems like some things are still in moonrunes and that'll irk me forever.

>>2811645
>If that wasn't enough you are chased (in real time)

You forgot to mention that real time also means when you go into the menu to pause the game so you can take a shit or whatever.

No pooping allowed.

>>2812991
>2015 years after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ
>not learning Hebrew in order to decipher demon summoning formulas from the Kabbalah
stay pleb anon

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>>2815053
>I know it has an option to play in english but it seems like some things are still in moonrunes
The only things left in moonrunes are the names of items or monsters in the gallery and the names of premade characters in the tavern, all the rest is in english.
>>2815061
>Go take a shit
>Suddenly feel cold over my shoulders
>Weird, I though I turned the AC on?
>It's Trebor's ghost
Literally not even the dead will know peace from this evil.

>>2815053
>>2815264
While a translation for all the untouched text in the PSX version of 1-3 would be nice (such as spell descriptions), keep in mind that the remaining Japanese text were originally "not there" in the very first version of the game - Spell descriptions and such were delegated to the manual as a form of copy-protection.

So if you can't read Japanese you're actually getting a pretty "accurate" feel of what playing the game is like, just with some quality of life additions like better graphics and auto-map.

>>2815327
>Spell descriptions and such were delegated to the manual as a form of copy-protection.
I find it weird that they gave you a list of spells via your the spellbook. You could just try out what the spells did for most part.
There wasn't really room to place the descriptions anyway.

>>2810689
>SMT
>Modern
Pick ONE
or maybe you are talking about Weaboona 3 or 4?

I am stuck in Wizardry 6

It's not monsters kicking my ass, it's some puzzle or door I forgot to check -- not even sure

I hate it when this happens

>>2811727
What cRPGs can you not save scum in? It's a relatively short list and even half the Wizardry games don't make it.

>>2816304
>it's some puzzle or door I forgot to check -- not even sure
Happens very often. Where are you at?

>>2815854
No I never played the persona games save for two, and thought it was kinda neat.
I mean modern in the sense it was made very recently. SMT really isn't as hard for me as Wizardry.
Nocturne's really the only game that's really kicking my teeth in.

>>2817062
Sorry bro, most of people think Persona 3 and 4 (and yet NONE of them played it, not even talking about finishing it) when I say that I love SMT

>>2816304
Most of Rougelike are save scum proof in some sort of degree.

>>2817546
I can barely think of a single roguelike that's not one of the newer "rougelite" types where you can save scum at all without resorting to actual cheating.

>>2815854
SMT 3, 4 and Strange Journey exist though. Those are modern and not Persona, although they're definitely less hardcore than 1 or 2.

>>2817546
>>2817558
By definition they kinda have to be. For regular cRPGs, there's the early Wizardries, Dark Heart of Uukrul, ??? Probably more but I am ignorant. To some degree it's a tech limitation, PC games in particular were quick to get on board with the idea that players are entitled to save and load whenever you want and it's all your fault if you save enough to make the game too easy.

>>2817542
SMT is pretty good and I've never even played Persona and I don't know anything about it. I just like my grid crawlers.

>>2816315
Still in the first dungeon, just ran into the not-Africans. Have rope, but apparently I have to combine it with something to cross the chasm. Killed the pirate leader, but can't open the door to get to the dead pirate with the hook hand. Can't get to the guy who locked himself in a room.

It's always something that seems stupidly obvious in retrospective...

>>2817652
Not him, but I found both Strange Journey and SMTIV dull to the point of being almost unplayable. The conversations all felt really straight forward so recruiting was never a problem and it felt like the demons either at the end of one area or the start of the next were perfectly suited for dealing with what came next. It felt like without even trying I was steamrolling everything.

>>2817678
In roguelikes it's a feature of the genre. Savescumming would basically break them since they're based around decisions being permanent and death lurking around every corner.

Are there any retro cRPGs in the vein of Etrian Odyssey, though? By that I mean games with a fleshed out and complex character progression system and several classes, grid-based dungeon crawling, turn-based combat, and maybe a system that either auto-maps or allows you to draw your own map inside the software? Wizardry comes close but I wasn't a huge fan of the character progression system, although I only played one of the SNES ones.

>>2817678
You get the password if you discover where the treasure is located. The answer is in a book. You need a hook to merge with the rope.

>just ran into the not-Africans
Wut? Shouldn't those be one location ahead, in the pyramid? (remember that every area looks the same in the PC/Amiga version)

>>2817750
Have you tried Mordor/Demise? The combat is turn based but the turns run automatically.

>>2817750
Wiz 6-7 and then Wiz 8 made system changes to the character development so you might like them even if you don't like the SNES games (which didn't really focus on character development that much)

In fact Wiz 8 tends to be considered one of the best games for character building.

>>2817964
Mordor seems interesting! The remake seems even more interesting but I guess it's probably dead. Will definitely give it a try.

By Demise I suppose you mean Rise of the Ku'Tan, right? Looks kind of ugly, but I might check it out.

>>2818656
Wizardry 8 looks good. Isn't it a direct sequel to 7, though? Will I be missing a lot if I play it first?

>>2817689
I dunno about the conversations, since in IV (which I played much more recently than SJ) demons reply to them in randomized ways so you can't always predict how a demon will react when you say something. You also can't use the same tactic for multiple demons of the same species. Were SMTI and II so much more complex and interesting when it comes to demon recruitment?

The most important issue I had with IV was that it was pretty easy once you get past the initial portion of the game, but I think that's a bit of a trend in Atlus games. Starts off hard as nails because you have so little HP and get OHKO'd so easily (but it's not a huge problem since you can save at any time), but gets (much) easier once you build up the right skills.

But anyways my point was that there -are- modern SMT games that aren't Persona, contrary to what >>2815854 said.

>>2819103
Wiz 8 is indeed a direct sequel but to be honest - you don't play Wizardry for the plot anyway

>>2819342
It's not the plot, it's being able to carry your characters and some of their equipment over.

>>2810689
>modern RPGs like SMT

>>2819403
It's nice to do a 6-7-8 playthrough for novelty but Wiz 8 made a bunch of system changes that a bunch of builds that worked in 7 aren't really that effective in 8 anyway.

>>2819403
How does that work, though? Do you start at higher levels in the later games, or do your characters revert back to level 1?

>>2820907
They all revert back to level 5, IIRC

>>2819403
In 7 and 8 they get cut down to a certain limit with some random factors involved.
You'll end weaker than before but a lot stronger than a fresh party.
Items follow tier lists so you have to plan carefully who carries what in order to keep the most useful stuff.

>>2817964
Demise is bullshit hard, and I'm saying that as a Wizardry fan. Getting a decent amount of cash seems to be almost impossible.

>>2821225
Get a Seeker to identify your stuff. Some fixed enemies will also yield large amounts of loot.

>>2821229
Will do. Any way to make the interface a bit more palatable? Casting spells in particular feels like pain.

>>2821247
I normally set the important spells to shortcuts, something like Shift+1.

>>2821257
How do you do that? don't remember seeing that in the instructions.

>>2821332
Maybe I mixed it up with Mordor. It's been years since I played it.