Posted September 17, 2023
First off, let me say I'm absolutely pumped that this got announced. I had always hoped to see some form of release of Wizardry 1-5 on GOG, but figured if it hadn't happened by now, it wasn't going to simply because they were in legal limbo. Whatever wheeling and dealing had to take place to make this happen, I hope it bodes well for releases of 2-5 as well.
That being said:
If you feel like wasting 3.5 hours of your life, my Twitch VOD of the initial experience is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1927305918
If not, and I don't blame you, some of the highlights/lowlights/bugs/etc:
-Like others, I initially had problems with getting my new party and/or other changes to save. I'll go back through the VOD and see if I can be more specific later, but I created a party, went back to the main menu, and the game basically decided "No you didn't." and acted as if that never happened. Then I tried changing the names of the default party, went into the maze with them, and noticed the name changes had also been reverted (You can actually see the changes revert at right about 48 minutes in the above video). It wasn't until I did some adventuring with the default party and then exited the maze that any subsequent changes I made in terms of character creation/name changes/etc. seemed to actually "stick". If it helps, I think that's when I stopped seeing the "You start with a premade party..." prompt every time I loaded the game as well.
-EDIT TO ADD: The bug with things not sticking until you did some adventuring with the default party carried over to Options changes as well. At about 42 minutes into the video, you can see me change the "Random Points on creation" to "On", and go to the Training Grounds...where the option turns itself off mid-creation (I go back into the menu just before 44 minutes).
-Others have reported this, but the help text implies that when you create a character, they start with a basic set of equipment. They don't. They start with some Gold...but that gold doesn't actually go into their pockets until they enter and exit the Maze (I note that in general, entering and exiting the Maze seems to be the most reliable way of saving progress, even if you shouldn't ordinarily need to, IE when gaining a level at the Inn). Fixing that so you see the gold as soon as a newly created character joins your party (Or just giving them the implied basic equipment) would be great.
-Speaking of equipment, love the Quality of Life descriptions of weapons/armor/etc. No more looking up an online list of weapon/etc. attributes for me! No more guessing how good an item is based on the price either! Wahoo!
-On that note, I appreciate showing some of the resistances that were apparently in the original game (And had to do with your Lineage, I guess), but were never actually shown.
-Also love the QoL mapping features, particularly the "quickly see last Dumapic cast" feature in conjunction with it showing a map of what you've explored so far.
-One of the QoL features I'm less a fan of is the "Predetermined attribute points at Character Creation" one. I get it, but I also think the "quickly reroll bonus" option if you go old school is enough of an improvement there.
-Two smaller bugs: 1. Sometimes back row characters get reported as having an AC 2 lower than it actually is. It looks like it's doing some real-time tracking of AC a la Elminage, and setting it to 2 lower when those characters Parry...but it doesn't always properly set it back such as when a battle is over. 2. This may actually be intentional, but when running from a battle, the minimap gets a little wonky.
-I'm just going to vent here: You should really be able to automatically succeed in running from a battle where you surprise the monsters. I know, the original Apple II version behaved this way (I think), but c'mon.
-Speaking of the Apple II version, that version (And other ports) had a few features this one seems to be missing and it would be great if they could be included somehow. Someone in another topic mentioned doing a lot of character maintenance in Gilgamesh's Tavern, but the two big ones for me are both in Camp in the Maze: The "quickly equip everyone" feature where you just say "Equip" and it goes character-by-character and asks "What weapon do you want to equip? What armor do you want to equip?" etc., and the "Quickly reorder the party" feature where you pick the slot the character is currently in to be first, the next one to be second, etc. (So hitting "5 1 2 4 3 6" would put the fifth character in the lead, the first in the second slot, etc.)
-Presentation-wise, I like the little Apple II representation in the dungeon. I also loved the nods to the NES version music (Especially in the battle theme--see about 50M30S in the video above for my reaction). The graphics are cool too, a lot of neat dungeon touches like the skull near the stairs to the city or the statue at the end of one of the hallways. I haven't actually gotten very far into the dungeon yet--turns out it's really hard to get a party going in this. I presume you're aware of that, hence the premade party beginning at Level 2.
-Finally, I noticed the Battle Log didn't auto-scroll as much as I would like it to. It seems to just stop once it fills up a "Screen" worth and I need to manually PgDn it to get it to work again. Oh well, minor thing.
-As far as the difficulty goes, I think I agree with the people who want some form of save file backup. Yes, I know the "Developer-intended" way of playing Wizardry was very hardcore, but as I understand it, almost no one actually did that even back in the day--they either made multiple backups of their character disks or, if they felt particularly lucky, took said disc out of their drives before any catastrophic failure could be written to them. I came along a little later, with the console ports of Wizardry...and I had no problem basically living near the Reset button so I could dive for it if something really bad happened.
(Speaking of "things done back in the day", I'm crushed that you can no longer identify Item 9/S/J, though I do understand why that bug as a whole isn't a thing here anymore)
Overall though, I'm very excited for what this can be once it's completely finished, and look forward to hopefully seeing Wizardry 2-5 on GOG in some form (Be it this, straight ports, or something in between).
That being said:
If you feel like wasting 3.5 hours of your life, my Twitch VOD of the initial experience is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1927305918
If not, and I don't blame you, some of the highlights/lowlights/bugs/etc:
-Like others, I initially had problems with getting my new party and/or other changes to save. I'll go back through the VOD and see if I can be more specific later, but I created a party, went back to the main menu, and the game basically decided "No you didn't." and acted as if that never happened. Then I tried changing the names of the default party, went into the maze with them, and noticed the name changes had also been reverted (You can actually see the changes revert at right about 48 minutes in the above video). It wasn't until I did some adventuring with the default party and then exited the maze that any subsequent changes I made in terms of character creation/name changes/etc. seemed to actually "stick". If it helps, I think that's when I stopped seeing the "You start with a premade party..." prompt every time I loaded the game as well.
-EDIT TO ADD: The bug with things not sticking until you did some adventuring with the default party carried over to Options changes as well. At about 42 minutes into the video, you can see me change the "Random Points on creation" to "On", and go to the Training Grounds...where the option turns itself off mid-creation (I go back into the menu just before 44 minutes).
-Others have reported this, but the help text implies that when you create a character, they start with a basic set of equipment. They don't. They start with some Gold...but that gold doesn't actually go into their pockets until they enter and exit the Maze (I note that in general, entering and exiting the Maze seems to be the most reliable way of saving progress, even if you shouldn't ordinarily need to, IE when gaining a level at the Inn). Fixing that so you see the gold as soon as a newly created character joins your party (Or just giving them the implied basic equipment) would be great.
-Speaking of equipment, love the Quality of Life descriptions of weapons/armor/etc. No more looking up an online list of weapon/etc. attributes for me! No more guessing how good an item is based on the price either! Wahoo!
-On that note, I appreciate showing some of the resistances that were apparently in the original game (And had to do with your Lineage, I guess), but were never actually shown.
-Also love the QoL mapping features, particularly the "quickly see last Dumapic cast" feature in conjunction with it showing a map of what you've explored so far.
-One of the QoL features I'm less a fan of is the "Predetermined attribute points at Character Creation" one. I get it, but I also think the "quickly reroll bonus" option if you go old school is enough of an improvement there.
-Two smaller bugs: 1. Sometimes back row characters get reported as having an AC 2 lower than it actually is. It looks like it's doing some real-time tracking of AC a la Elminage, and setting it to 2 lower when those characters Parry...but it doesn't always properly set it back such as when a battle is over. 2. This may actually be intentional, but when running from a battle, the minimap gets a little wonky.
-I'm just going to vent here: You should really be able to automatically succeed in running from a battle where you surprise the monsters. I know, the original Apple II version behaved this way (I think), but c'mon.
-Speaking of the Apple II version, that version (And other ports) had a few features this one seems to be missing and it would be great if they could be included somehow. Someone in another topic mentioned doing a lot of character maintenance in Gilgamesh's Tavern, but the two big ones for me are both in Camp in the Maze: The "quickly equip everyone" feature where you just say "Equip" and it goes character-by-character and asks "What weapon do you want to equip? What armor do you want to equip?" etc., and the "Quickly reorder the party" feature where you pick the slot the character is currently in to be first, the next one to be second, etc. (So hitting "5 1 2 4 3 6" would put the fifth character in the lead, the first in the second slot, etc.)
-Presentation-wise, I like the little Apple II representation in the dungeon. I also loved the nods to the NES version music (Especially in the battle theme--see about 50M30S in the video above for my reaction). The graphics are cool too, a lot of neat dungeon touches like the skull near the stairs to the city or the statue at the end of one of the hallways. I haven't actually gotten very far into the dungeon yet--turns out it's really hard to get a party going in this. I presume you're aware of that, hence the premade party beginning at Level 2.
-Finally, I noticed the Battle Log didn't auto-scroll as much as I would like it to. It seems to just stop once it fills up a "Screen" worth and I need to manually PgDn it to get it to work again. Oh well, minor thing.
-As far as the difficulty goes, I think I agree with the people who want some form of save file backup. Yes, I know the "Developer-intended" way of playing Wizardry was very hardcore, but as I understand it, almost no one actually did that even back in the day--they either made multiple backups of their character disks or, if they felt particularly lucky, took said disc out of their drives before any catastrophic failure could be written to them. I came along a little later, with the console ports of Wizardry...and I had no problem basically living near the Reset button so I could dive for it if something really bad happened.
(Speaking of "things done back in the day", I'm crushed that you can no longer identify Item 9/S/J, though I do understand why that bug as a whole isn't a thing here anymore)
Overall though, I'm very excited for what this can be once it's completely finished, and look forward to hopefully seeing Wizardry 2-5 on GOG in some form (Be it this, straight ports, or something in between).
Post edited September 17, 2023 by Emptyeye