To be honest, what I really did like with Wizardry 8, is the nicely detailed character models with voices. The psychotic characters sounded genuinely psychotic... though even that got stupid with one of my characters sensing an enemy. "Ooooh a creature!"
(You mean that perfectly average human looking bandit?) >_<

If the earlier games ever get the chance to be remade in NA with update polished graphics
(and only that, no changes to the actual gameplay) I would love to see that feature return. Even if some people think the voices got annoying after a while.

They were remade on PC (Wizardry I-V), but iwas a very obscure remake and it was also very buggy. Wizardry VI and VII had some very cool-looking console ports in Japan.

Basically Elminage Gothic stands as one of latest Wizardry iterations. It has all Wizardry classes and races, much better graphics, tons and tons of content. It doesn't have any voice-acting however.

Okay I totally have to buy this :D

Despite I'm totally broke, I added it to my cart lest I forget by next month.

I don't understand why you think "Japan" is responsible for this. As far as I can see there are two reasons:

1) The lack of interest from western publishers. The (classic) Wizardry style of RPGs was largely considered outdated in the west (especially in North-America) by the time the first Japanese Wizardrys started popping up. And as far as I know none of the Japanese Wizardy developers had their own publishing-branches in the West (except Atlus, who did put out one of their two Wizardry games in the west) and thus couldn't publish them in the West even if they had wanted to do so in a market that largely seemed uninterested.

2) Copyright problems. First off: the copyright belonged to Sir-Tech in the west, so if they weren't interested in either publishing the games themselves, or in extending their license to someone else, the game wasn't going to get published at all. Furthermore during the production of Wiz7 Sir-Tech entered a large legal dispute over Wizardry, which at times made it illegal even for them to publish Wizardry games. For example they had to move to Canada to be able to get Wiz8 out, and even then they got in trouble over it. By the time this was cleared up Japanese Wizardry development was entering a hiatus that it didn't get out of until the "Wizardry Renaissance" line that started in 2009 (and included the Wizardry games for PS3 and Wizardry Online both of which did reach the west).

If I'm not mistaken only the original Apple version of Wiz2 absolutely required you to transfer characters. And I think even the Apple version of Wiz3 allow you to create new characters if you didn't have any to transfer.

Elminage are Wizardry games in everything but name. Their developer Starfish used to be one of the most prolific of the Japanese Wizardry developers (mainly through their Wizardry Empire series which lasted so long that the last game even made it to the PSP). When they lost the license they just kept doing the same thing under the Elminage moniker.

This is actually quite common as far as this franchise is concerned. Some of ASCII's Wizardry Gaiden games were ported to Japanese mobiles under the title Netherdomain. Michaelsoft's (weird and somewhat silly) Wizardry Xth 2 was renamed Class of Heroes (and visually retooled to be even weirder and sillier) when it was ported to PSP. This port even made it to the west and have at-least one sequel of it's own. D.W. Bradley's (the main developer of WIz5-7) Wizards & Warriors is by some considered something of an alternative Wizardry 8 and is often assumed to contain a lot of the ideas he had for that game. And then there is Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar ...which it seems to be bad luck just to talk about at length; so I won't.

Wizardry 2, even if it allowed playing with new characters, is not balanced for it. You are fighting level 7+ (forgot the exact number) enemies right away, and it is not possible to get past the first floor without casting MALOR or getting incredibly lucky with a teleport trap. (Fun fact: The Fuzzball enemy, which is annoying but completely harmless, is actually level 100 with 100d1 - 99 HP.) The version released on the NES (and called Wizardry 3 in Japan) is actually a remix of the scenario that differs significantly from the original, is designed for new parties, and has monsters from Wizardries 1, 3, and 4 in it. (The stats of Fuzzballs, Dinks and the Knight of Diamonds equipment are actually unchanged, interestingly enough.)

The Apple 2 version of Wizardry 3 does indeed omit the create character option, so you still need to transfer from 1 and do the right of passage. (Interestingly enough, it is possible to exploit Wizardry 5's transfer routine to transfer characters backwards and level up a character who has already passed the rite in earlier games, and then keep the experience in Wizardry 3; especially useful if you want to use the Identify glitch that is only found in 1.)

Out of curiosity, how are the Wizardry Gaiden games? Are they worth playing? Do they have any interesting mechanics or spells?

As I could have sworn the Dos version of Wiz2 allowed you to create new, but already leveled up characters I booted it up to check. Turns out it doesn't allow you to create new characters at all, but it (at-least the release I have installed on my current computer, I think it is the Ultimate Wizardry Archives one) includes a pre-made party of leveled-up characters.
The same with Wiz3. Maybe I was just mixing them up with the Japanese Windows release.

Personally, I didn't find those early Japan Wizardry games to be enticing. However, I enjoyed recent iterations, including Class of Heroes II from what I played (couple of hours, not enough free time recently). There was just little in terms of game systems' evolution in early Wizardry games until PS2 title (Tale of the Forsaken Land) some short time after Sir-Tech ceased to exist.

One of things which made me interested in Class of Heroes II - quite elaborated crafting system (at least from first quick glimpse). It also features "multi-zone" maps, so one big map can consist from several 20x20 quadrants and isn't confined to some specific geometry limits.

I haven't played them much, but from what I can gather they are usually considered the best of the early Japanese Wizardry games.

Gameplaywise they are very close to Wizardry 5, including an almost identical spell-list (with a few minor additions here and there, Gaiden 2 for example have a level 7 priest spell that heals the entire party). The biggest changes start with the 3rd game which have multiple mazes and an (optional) outdoors area between the town and the mazes. It also incorporate Wizardry 6 elements into the Wiz5-like engine: races like Dracon, Faerie, Rawulf, Mook and Lizardman and classes like Alchemist (who have their own unique list of Alchemy spells), Ranger, Bard and Valkyrie (Psionic is lacking though).

Additionally each of the games had a different theme: the first one has the standard fantasy setting, the second one is Arabian Nights inspired, the third one has an occult theme and the fourth one's setting is inspired by medieval Japan. For the first three this doesn't translate to much beyond the plot and the enemies, but the fourth one (being on the more graphically powerful SNES/SFC rather than the GameBoy) also applies it's theme to the interface and the mazes' backgrounds.

As for the later Wizardry Gaiden games (Dimguil, The Prisoners of Battles and The Five Ordeals), I honestly don't really know much about them. Although the graphics and the level editor of The Five Ordeals are tempting me to track down a copy if I get the cash to spend on it.

Oh, I forgot: The fourth Wizardry Gaiden game also adds Felpurrs and Psionics. It still operates on the classic spells-per-level system though (which is fine by me as I prefer it's simplicity to Bradley's somewhat arbitrary-feeling system anyways and it is almost never utilized anymore in favor of mana systems.)

So to summarize: the Gaiden games are the play-it-safe, more-of-the-same option of Japanese Wizardry. ASCII were also responsible for most of the console and Japanese computer ports of the main series, so the look, interface and even packaging are close to those as well. Even the Wizardry Empire games, which also started out very close to Wizardry V, added more original content. The Gaiden games still have a reputation of doing what they do very well though, so if what you want is something that feels as close as possible to the classic games they are probably your best option.

I forgot to mention the Generation Xth series. They are made by one of the developers of the Wizardry Xth games and seems to be where the semi-seriousness (style-wise at least) and overt sci-fi elements that Class of Heroes threw out went (some of the monsters and environments go as far as looking like things out of early Silent Hill and later Resident Evil games). I haven't had a chance to play any of them though, but I'd like to give them a shot at one point. Also the character sprites change depending on their equipment, which is a little thing that I've always wanted in these kinda games (although they all look rather bland as a result. There is however a less bland "class sprite" option that doesn't change.)

I agree about the "speed racer" school of anime--would never buy a game with that style of graphics. They've never appealed to me--even as a child I never cared for them. I don't like cartoon graphics at all in computer games and won't buy them--even Borderlands was far too cartoonish for my tastes. It's just a personal preference. People today have to learn that it's A-OK to have personal preferences. It's fine to not like something and fine to state why you don't like it. It's a mark of clear intelligence, I think, when people know what they like or don't like and can tell you why...;)

It just so happened that people, who dislike "cartoon" graphics and Japanese approach, usually use their personal preference to bash those "cartoon"games, e.g. Torchlight II - I saw a lot of people bashing it for its artstyle and strongly asking developers to change it.

On other side, I never saw people bashing "realistic" games for not having "cartoon" graphics.

Surely there might be exceptions to both rules, it is just general observation. Just like with this thread, which didn't avoid having some people come and show their dislike of Japanese games.

People's problem with what he said wasn't that they disagreed with his preference, but that he stated completely incorrect things about the Japanese Wizardry games that a quick google-search could dispel. Therefor his comments seems to be more out of laziness and/or blind prejudice than intelligence.

If your objection is purely to cartoony graphics then I see no reason why this (Wizardry Gaiden: The Five Ordeals) shouldn't appeal to you more then the styles of 6, 7 and especially the 90's American-cartoon designs of Wizardry Gold.

It kind of happened with the new game from the HuniePop creators. They wanted to switch to a more western ero style and everybody complained they want their anime style back. =p

Those games are way out of any of my areas of interest so I may be wrong here, but wasn't the Western-style even more cartoony than the "anime" style?

The only example I can think of is the Legend of Zelda fanbase which has more or less divided itself into pro-realism and pro-cartoony camps, although the latter only appeared as a reaction to the former.


And since this is going off-topic... um... here is another marginally relevant info-dump:
The Wizardry Summoner game is sometimes considered an Wizardry Gaiden off-shoot (although as far as I know it is not made by any of the same people as the Gaiden games) for apparently basing it's content on those. In particular Japanese reviewers like to complain it ripped-off Gaiden II (which is a rather absurd criticism since Gaiden II itself just "ripped-off" Wizardry V).

Anyways, in addition to the Wizardry V/early-Gaiden standards it has a Summoner class which works differently from any other Summoner class in the series. Unlike Wizardry IV or Wizardry Empire/Elminage (where you have your standard adventurer party and one addition party-slot reserved just for summons) Wiz.S. puts your summoned monsters straight into the same party as your summoner(s). In effects this means that the fewer adventurers you have in the party the more slots you have open for summons. Just send out a summoner alone and you can walk around with five summoned monsters at a time, bring five adventurers and you can only have one summon with you, fill your party with six adventurers and having a summoner in your party at-all would be useless since you don't have the room to summon anything, etc. Summon spells are also learned from "capturing" monsters rather than the shrines of Empire and Elminage.

It's an interesting mechanic, but sadly the game (at-least the GBA version) had a reputation of being horribly unbalanced. That being said; the reviews that say this often also claim that you can only either have a one-summoner-party or a six-adventurers-party, which is flat out and obviously wrong. So I'm a bit inclined to doubt them, but I haven't played the game enough to make up my own opinion on the balance. It did seem much easier than the average Wizardry game though.

English reviews seemed to have liked it at-least. (The game was going to be released in the West, as Wizardry: The Summoning but was canceled right before release, after review-copies had already been sent out. The game's Amazon-Uk page is still up.)

Hopefully this is interesting to someone.