I just replayed 1-6, the Apple 2 version. I used that version because I played Wizardry 1 on an Apple IIc.
I am not sure of the differences between versions, but it was fine and a nice retro experience. What people say is true:
You can grind way the hell up on Level 1 Murphy's Ghosts then waltz down to level 10 pretty fast and win. This just made me miss the original experience: 99% of the suspense was in mapping on graph paper.

If you play 1 then you might as well play 2. It goes by very fast if you know what to do. Then you might as well play 3, just because. Then you should play 4, because when you die and greet St. Peter, if your tell him you beat Wizardry 4, he will welcome you and say he doesn't care what else you did, because that makes you a great person!

I actually beat Wizardry 1 by accident when playing around. The way it works, and this method is speedrun viable, is as follows:
* Create a Bishop.
* Have the Bishop try to identify item 9. Keep trying until it succeeds. (This will give your Bishop 100 million XP.)
* Level your Bishop up to at least level 25, perhaps a bit higher. You need MALOR and MAHAMAN.
* Get into a random battle on level 1.
* Cast MALOR. If you're lucky, you'll warp to level 10, right by Werdna's lair.
* Go into the fight, cast MAHAMAN, and if you're lucky, you'll teleport the enemies away
* Get the Amulet, teleport to the dungeon entrance (or 1 level above the dungeon entrance, which is safe), leave the dungeon, and win.

A faster strategy is that, by identifying 'S" instead of '9', you can give the XP to the next party member, who should be a Mage, instead. This strategy is faster because you don't need to level up as high, and leveling still takes time when you have 100 million XP.

There's other quirks of the Apple 2 version other than this bug. For example, it's possible to cast spells in the surprise round; this applies to both the party and enemies. This was changed in other versions because it's rather unfair for the party to be ambushed and blasted with spells, resulting in dead characters.

Another quirk of the Apple 2 version is that resting in the stables doesn't age the character at all, unlike some other versions where there's a chance of the character aging a week.

I also note that the HAMAN and MAHAMAN spells are seriously bugged; each has only 3 possible effects, of which 1 is chosen randomly, and some of the effects that are coded into the game can't actually occur. Furthermore, there is, I believe, a chance of the character forgetting some spells; it's small, so most players never see it, but it is a place where they slipped up on the "Wizardry is genderless" claim they make in the manual and use the pronoun "his" to refer to the character/

Also, I have played Wizardry 4, and I would consider it one of my favorite games. My favorite version is the PlayStation (non-arrange) version. (The same disk has an arranged version that changes some things, like making summons work more like regular party members, and adding a few new endings, one of which even unlocks the ability to summon Wizardry 5's final boss on your next playthrough.) Except that I would rather not be a great *man*, because I am not a man. (Did you neglect to read my forum title?)

I watched a glitchless* speedrun of the NES version, and that run didn't actually fight any Murphy's Ghosts, as they don't give XP fast enough.

The way the run went is as follows:
* Party of 2 characters, one Fighter and one Mage, killed 12 Creeping Coins?, getting enough XP to reach level 5.
* Mage, alone, killed more Creeping Coins? to reach level 9 and learn MAKANITO (if that spell isn't learned, the run is dead)
* Mage makes their way solo to level 10, then uses MAKANITO to kill a total of 10 Poison/Frost Giants (took a lot of reloading to accomplish this), to get enough XP to reach level 13, learning MALOR (at least 2 uses) and HAMAN
* Then, mage teleports via MALOR to a specific spot on level 9, casts MALOR during combat to warp to level 10 near the final boss's lair, then just uses HAMAN to teleport the final boss away.


* There is one bug in the NES version that you can't avoid; the enemy attack hit algorithm is messed up. In particular, for party members, AC has no effect. Unfortunately, there's no workaround, other than just playing a different version or using a ROM hack.

Whatever you do, never play the DOS version of the game.

It has a broken random number generation routine which affects nearly all aspects of the game and seriously alters gameplay and difficultylevel. It makes the game unplayable.
- Well known is the fact that chars tend to lose stats on average instead of gaining stats in lvl ups. this alone is bad.
- because of this ninja and lord class are (imo) nearly impossible to create during regular gameplay.
- HP rolls in lvl ups are bad, regularly 1HP over several lvl ups, you will have a lot less hp as in the original apple ii version.
- If you die, chance that revive at temple of cant fails is nearly 50%! I died 11 times and lost 4 chars (!) permanently and paid monstrous sums trying to save them. Vitality was high and chars very young.
- random number generation probably effects also insta-kill rolls. On lvl 2 DOS version, a group of vorpal bunnies instakilled my two fully equipped fighters while attacking during a surprise round before i could even start my first action.

general observations on DOS:
- Enemies - if they hit you - hit hard and will take serious amounts of hp. combined with low hp from lvl ups this means you are always in danger of dying and need to essentially take out enemies as fast as possible before they have the chance to hit you
- spellcaster on lvl 2 sleep regularly 5 of 6 party members, i just tested it in apple ii version where perhaps 1 of 6 members gets to sleep. and attack spells are way more harmless.
- DIOS HP healing will be often 1HP - huge gap to apple ii spell behavior.

the difference alone of lvl 2 is staggering. in DOS it is a fight for survival with fully equipped lvl 8 chars. in apple ii I never died once (well, the DOS version teached me NOT to die in the most brutal way imaginable) and feel secure with lvl 6 chars which are not fully optimized.

I reached lvl 3 before switching to the apple ii version, 20 hours of playtime wasted on one of the most punitive gaming experiences I ever experienced. And I thought at first that difficulty was intended, bc it was an very old game! xD

Wizardry1 DOS is probably more difficult than return of werdna. At least in wiz4 you dont have to create and level up a whole second party just in case you made one mistake and are in constant fear of losing levelled up chars permanently every time they die. bugged low stat/hp + death = 50% permadeath is a killer combination.

The fact that spellcaster can cast spells during surprise rounds in apple ii version is not really an issue, at least if you played DOS version, as enemy cast rolls will be a lot weaker in general and area of effect spells rarely succeed. People who complain about that never played the original apple ii version which has worse graphics but seriously better balanced gameplay.

NES version is also very bugged - i never played it - but what to say if AC doesnt work at all.
I would also be skeptical about other re-releases and always compare other versions with the original apple ii version.
The quality of several ports is ludicrous.

the original apple ii version has a bugged 80column mode with apple IIe and newer machines/emulators.
This guy fixed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v35XbbBKQw&t=1s
For me the definitive way to experience wiz1.

Does Wizardry 4 DOS have the same broken RNG? If so, how does it affect the difficulty of that version, in comparison to the Apple 2 and PlayStation (Classic, not Arrange) versions of the game? I've beaten the PSX version, and escaped the dungeon in the Apple 2 version, and managed to trigger a really strange bug that seemed to corrupt monster stats.

For what I noticed on Apple 2 Wizardry 4, once the bug would be triggered, affecting Greater Demons:
* The demons would breathe (something they don't normally do), doing 0 damage to the enemies.
* The demons would die to missed attacks. That is, an enemy attacks the demon, misses, but yet the demon is killed anyway. (This is strong evidence that these demons have 0 HP, as that's the only way I can see a miss being fatal.)
* The demons would call for help as normal.
* However, if a demon that came to help breathes, then all the enemies die. Unfortunately, I can't see any damage amounts, because the game doesn't give damage amounts for fatal breath attacks, but it must be high, as even stronger enemies die from full health if this happens.

(By the way, for Wizardry 1 DOS, I've also heard of young characters dying of old age.)

Worth noting that, in the Sega Saturn version:
* You can encounter 2 groups on the first floor (this means the possibility of 2 murphy's ghosts), and 3 on the second floor (so you might be fighting 18 creeping coins)
* The Ring of Death lowers your HP as you walk just by holding it (OUCH!) (Since my Bishop was hit with BADI on the fight I decided to keep, I just gave them this ring; can't be killed by this ring if you're already dead!)
* MAKANITO does not ignore spell resistance in this version; as a result, it is not that good against giants. (Used on a group of 5 Earth Giants, and only 1 of them was affected, as the rest resisted it.)

In comparison to other versions:
* On the NES version, and other versions based on it (including the GBC version), you can only encounter 1 monster group on the first floor, and 2 on the second.
* Unlike HP regen items, the Ring of Death would only lower your HP if you actually equipped it (but it's cursed, so you can't easily get it off!). The GBC version, on the other hand, works like the Sega Saturn version, where simply holding it is deadly.
* Makanito ignores resistance in most other versions. It also only displays one "Perish" or "Survive" message per group, rather than for each individual enemy. I note that the Sega Saturn version behaves more like Wizardry 4's version (although, in Wizardry 4, if an enemy casts this spell before a certain point, it's a game over regardless, to the point where I'd argue you haven't really played Wizardry 4 if you haven't died to this at least once).