With respect to CALFO in Wizardry 1-5:
* The spell is only 95% effective, so it can still fail, which could be very bad on the cave floor in Wizardry 2. (Teleport trap warping you into solid rock is the worst thing that could happen in *any* game, as far as I know, barring a bug that deletes other data on your system.)
* A Thief with 16+ AGI is just as effective at inspecting traps; if you use a Ninja, however, that character is not so good at trap inspecting (so you need CALFO if you have a Ninja but no Thief); Ninja are at least good at disarming them, however.
* Luck affects the chance of triggering a trap if you fail to disarm it. I believe that at 20+ Luck, you won't ever fail to disarm it, but that's not possible to reach (barring glitches) in Sir-Tech's releases. (It is possible in SNES Wizardry 5, if you make your Thief a Hobbit.)
* At high levels (ideally 50+), you don't even need a Thief to have a decent chance of disarming traps, but there's no practical reason to level up that high.
* In Wizardry 1-3, traps (barring the aforementioned teleport-into-rock risk) can generally be manageable (though for Priest Blaster you'll want a Lord or a class changed character); this is not the case in Wizardry 5, where the traps are much nastier.

I read on a Japanese site that apparently the AC bug wasn't discovered until somebody decided to make a TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun) of the game.

It's worth noting that TASes of these games are very different from normal gameplay; often they involve things like getting an item that lets you teleport freely *and* getting a teleport trap that just happens to teleport you right where you need to go. In other words, something that would require getting absurdly lucky if it weren't for tool assistance (and even the TAS used a bot to get these unlikely events to happen).

I'd have to say Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land on Playstation 2 (aka Wizardry BUSIN) is my favorite. The music and the new mechanics added to the battle system got my attention...and boy did i luck out getting a copy of the game too!

Still have yet to beat it...but that's alot of games at this point, haha. XD

I may try emulating that game (and possibly its Japan only sequel) eventually.

In any case, Wizardry DIMGUIL is the best of the Wizardry Gaiden subseries I've played, mainly because the other two have issues:
* Wizardry Gaiden 3: Treasure is boring for a long time. Bugs make the game much harder than it should be (CORTU, normally a good strategy against spellcasting and breathing enemies, is broken, and some enemies gain levels (instead of regenerating HP) each round). If you decide to take a Bard or Ranger instead of a Thief or Ninja, you will encounter locked doors you aren't able to open, and won't be able to progress because of that.
* Wizardry Gaiden 4: Due to the structure of the game, the enemy difficulty will effectively stop and not increase for a long time. The end of the main game is too easy; the only challenge for even moderately high level characters is the dragon dungeon.
(I have not played Wizardry Gaiden 1 or 2.)

I dislike Blind and Fear too. They're just annoying. It should be trivial to use the CF editor to tweak the properties, altho you'll have to mod each model individually. Not sure I'd buy Insane...and I also don't even remember if that's an option. You can do Knockout, tho; that's a direct, physical effect like Blind. Fear and Insanity are...weird for the Omnigun.

Yeah, I'm aware of that glitch. That wasn't why, tho. This goes BACK!!! Early 80's. Massive nostalgia factor. Wiz 1 might've been my 2nd most favorite game from that era...I really liked Phantasie too. That might've been because the automapping was pretty good...for the time, and being on a C64.

Actually, at level 26 the Omnigun can inflect all sorts of status ailments, including fear and insanity. It also has disease and drain SP, and I am not sure if those effects actually do anything to creatures that aren't party members. (It seems that the game does not track SP for enemies; they can use their spells as much as they want.)

With respect to that Wizardry 1 glitch, here are some other things that can happen, depending on what key you press (though I don't remember what key does what):
* Set the length of the character's name to 1.
* Corrupt the 8th character in the character's name, which could make the character unusable. (To prevent this, give the character a shorter name, or make sure the character in that position has an even ASCII code (i.e., B, D, F, etc.)
* Set the length of the character's password to 1, making the character likely unusable if the password is empty. (To prevent this, give the character a 1-character password.)
* Corrupt the 8th character in the character's password.
* Make the character "OUT". (The Recover utility should fix this.)
* Change the character's condition to the unused "AFRAID" condition. This won't work for characters who are "PARALYZED", "DEAD", or "LOST", though it will work on characters who are "ASHES" (allowing for free risk-free revival of such characters, but remember to heal them before you leave the menu).
* Give the character 100,000,000 gold (much the way you can get XP this way)
* Change the low byte of the character's max HP by 1 (usually resulting in a loss of Max HP)
* Set the casts of certain spell levels to 1, including mage level 4 and priest levels 1 and 5.
* Possibly changing the character's spells known list. It's possible to get "LOKTOFEIT" this way, which in turn allows the learning of other level 6 Priest spells when the character levels up (notably, this includes MADI!)

Basically, any byte of the character's data whise address is a multiple of 8 can be changed to 1, but only if the value is even to begin with; odd values will not be changed. (This odd/even quirk is why the "AFRAID" trick can only cure some conditions, and why it can cure "ASHES" but not "DEAD".)

For me it's probably Wizardry I-II-III for SNES. Followed by Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls. Followed by Wizardry VII. Followed by Wizardry VIII.

Wizardry: Story of Llylgamyn for SFC (which is the game you listed) does have one annoying bug; if a character has more than 15 AGI, the character will sometimes act last in the round.

(I also remember SaGa 2 having a bug like this, incidentally, and that did put a dent in the late-game usefulness of AGI robots, though that setup was still really good.)

Also, apparently Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls got a sequel that added some new classes to the mix, and that some say is the better game; unfortunately, it has only been released in Japan. (I think XSEED has stated that, if the PC port of LoLS (to be released tomorrow, I believe) does well, they might consider porting the sequel.)

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord for Apple IIe. Was my first time playing this game and loved it.

Wizardry 7 GOLD.
It is extremely rough around the edges, it has many riddles etc. that are really hard to solve / understand if you do not use a guide.

The class system is awesome.

The multiple endings are fun.

each are and monster group you manage to defeat feels like an accomplishment because the game IS hard for first time players.

There are no real safe areas, so you will always kind of feel... watched.

The soundtrack is awesome.

If you played 6 first you can have a really long playthrough with the same party from 6->7->8
with unique starting conditions, items which can only be importet from the previous game and NPCs which will react differently to you! because of your actions in the previous game.
And taking the same party from 6 to 7 and then to 8 feels like a real story progression. Granted there is not THAT much story to it, but it feels like "We have been through this together!"

No matter which dungeon crawler i play, i always get reminded by myself that they are not even close to what these games were like.

That is IF you can look past the outdated graphics and sometimes clunky controls.

It is the rough edges (the base miss chance mechanic, the fact that healing takes too long at high levels (the game *really* needed an upgraded healing spell, or at least auto-recast like Wizardry 8), the inability to leave characters behind and create new ones mid-game, the bugs added in the GOLD version) that keep me from playing this game and its prequel. (Wizardry 8 I do occasionally play; it suffers from the lack of a place to leave characters behind and pick up new ones (replacing characters has the downside that you can't get the old character back), and other issues like slow combat and being real-time outside of combat, but it at least doesn't have the other issues I mentioned for Wizardry 7.)


I can look past those, but I can't look past the other issues I mentioned, unfortunately.

I do not agree with any of that.

Leaving characters behind is a design and taste choice. I prefer it this way and never did it even when games offered it.

Compared to some current AAA titles this game is bug free. I know, kids these days can not be bothered to have multiple savegames to avoid getting stuck due to a bug.

Combat speed can be significantly speed up if you disable sounds (not music). But everyone who likes wiz 6+7 knows that.

And I played the "new Wizardry" games, like Labyrinth of the Lost Souls. And they are so bad i would call it fraud to call them "wizardry". It is like painting a red horse on a FIAT Panda and calling it a Ferrari.

You don't address some of the other issues I mention, like the base miss chance mechanic, or the issue with healing being too slow outside of combat.

Also, I never complained about the combat speed in Wizardry 6+7 in my post; maybe you didn't read the post carefully?

I should also point out that I am enjoying Labyrinth of Lost Souls (which, by the way, isn't *that* new; it was a PlayStation 3 game, and it even got a sequel in Japan, which added 5 new classes).

Wow, great to see so many different takes on people's favorites. I never got to play Tale of the Forsaken Land as far as I remember, I did want to play it. I've heard so many people mention it was amazing. I should try tracking a copy down sometime.

I know I will be pelted over with rotten tomatoes but I like Wizards & Warriors much, it's like Wizardry 9 for me.

As for the favorite one it's W6 I suppose (maybe just because being my first Wizardry).