SkeleTony: I think that the Japanese version is loathed by most fans of the Wizardry series because of the whole 'consolve RPG vs. "Western"/tabletop RPG style thing. I can't stand Japanese styled CRPGs so I just don't play them for the most part (every once in a while I will try to play Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star hoping to see what console fans see but every time I quit in disgust.). I think I am fairly typical of traditionalist CRPG fans but that may be way wrong for all I know. I just know the Japanese versions are not exactly praised at the typical Wizardry forums I used to visit.
GeeLW: That's because no one in those forums seems to have PLAYED the Japanese versions of Wizardry I - VII and are using some of their bias against JRPGs as an automatic starting point when the subject of Japanese Wizardry games comes up..
Go check out that video link above - see anything JRPG about the game other than the text? That's Wizardry up there to me. Also, here's another vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlprISspzXM Nothing to hate there, right?
As you can see, in terms of the first seven games, nothing was changed from a core gameplay aspect.
As far as the original games created by a bunch of developers and publishers (too many to go through here), most of them I've seen and own follow the same format of straightforward presentation, party creation, dungeon diving, et cetera. - the problem some fans seem to have is with the art styles used or fact that yes, some elements in a few game have been simplified compared to the originals. This doesn't make them "bad" at all - just different.
That said, here's a bit of StarFish's Wizardry Empire from 2000:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW0lxZfb6Ek not too shabby at all... just never localized (boo).
Here's Soliton's WIzardry Dimguil, also from 2000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztXQxX5Kn80 again, not bad and in fact, quite respectable.
Also, there have been a number of very good Wizardry-inspired JRPGs released from The Dark Spire (Nintendo DS- probably the best "WIzardry" style game I can recommend on that system) to the Etrian Odyssey series (which is also great, but some fans of western CRPGs just can't stand the art style), to Class of Heroes on the PSP (ditto about the art style to some folks) and some really fine never-localized games like Solid Link: Tower Side and Solid Link: Dungeon Side, Sleeping Cocoon, and a bunch of others, as this style of RPG was and is quite popular in Japan (more so than some of the folks on those boards seem to realize)...
g.
Full disclosure here but I too hate JRPGs. This version of Wizardry may not be as bad as many JRPGs but it is still pretty bad. The interface is just a Final Fantasy type simplistic interface they tried to apply to Wizardry's more elaborate game mechanics and the result looks like crap. I barely saw anything in that video that did not seem heavily Console styled JRPG. Just my opinion and I would bet I would be in a small minority if we polled people the world over.