Wizardry 1-Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

I played the SNES port, because I'd heard that was the best version; both visually, and mechanically, and also because my introduction to the series was playing Wizardry V on the SNES.

I used an emulator, but played it as I would a physical game. In particular, I didn't use save states. But I did make use of the fact that the SNES can't save mid-battle, and therefore you can just reset the game if things are going to hell during a battle, because that's an option that people playing the physical game would have. And if you want to tell me that that's a cheap thing to do, I'll reply, Look. I had a party which I nurtured all the way from from level one to level thirteen (when wizards and priests get access to all their magic). I patiently mapped the entire game with them, retreating to the surface when necessary. Dozens of hours. And then, on the final level of the maze, my useless asshole thief flubbed a disarm and my entire party was teleported into solid rock and annihilated; there weren't even any bodies to try to resurrect. So I stared another party. The glamor was off now, because I'd realized that there is absolutely no reason to explore and absolutely nothing to do in this game; you grind against Murphy's Ghosts on the first floor, take the elevator down to the fourth floor, get an item, take the elevator down to the second to last floor, then walk about ten steps to get to the final floor of the maze. There are no secrets to find, and nothing to do but grind, which isn't my favorite things. But I didn't give up. I patiently created a new party, ground them up to high levels ... and then my jerkass thief flubbed a disarm again, and my party was teleported into solid rock again.

Even after that, though, it was only after I'd had my first battle with Werdna--when he surprised my party and got to act first, and slaughtered my priest, make, and half of my front line with Tiltowait (with some help from his vampire friends) before I could do anything--and was leveling up another party, when I decided that you can't afford to be too damn honorable when you're dealing with the Wizardries of the world.

This probably makes it sound like I didn't like the game, but that's only in retrospect. When I was actually playing it I enjoyed it a lot. I love mapping and exploration and filling up graph paper tile by tile. The incredible satisfaction when my priest learned to cure poison, and I could proceed down to the second level, when I didn't dare to before. Clawing my way through the fixed fight on the fourth level, with half my party dead at the end, and limping back to town with my prize. The tension knowing that each fight was a serious deal with real potential consequences if something went south. I got trapped in an anti-magic area, with no idea where I was, trying to map my way to safety while I watched my party's HP drop lower and lower, and the satisfaction when I finally won my way to safety was profound.

It's just ... you know ... I now realize that there was absolutely no point to any of that, and there's no reason to visit more than the first, fourth, ninth, and tenth level--and no reason to stay on any of those levels for more than a few minutes, except the tenth. Kind of killed the thrill in retrospect. But as a CRPG fan, I'm glad that I finally played and beat a version of such an important game (I suppose the right-holders are being difficult, but it's absurd that the first five Wizardry games aren't already on GOG), and I have plans to play the second. My understanding is that there's something to do (find a piece of plot-relevant armor?) every level, so it sounds like my main gripe with the first might be fixed.