I like Wizardry, the first one, but wonder which one would be the best to start playing?

They're a consistent trilogy with a cohesive storyline. You'll get the most mileage out of starting at VI and playing all three.

That said, most people seem to feel that VIII is the best, most technically advanced, and easiest of the three. So if you don't care so much about the overall storyline and experience, I'd start with VIII. All three are fun, though, so if you have the time and energy, I'd recommend playing the whole trilogy in order.

Thanks, I'll start on Wizardry 6. If I can find Wizardry fun enough to nearly beat (I had the trilogy on the C64 and got all the way to Werdna who fried me) I think I'll enjoy 6-8.

Someday I'll try to beat Wizardry I again. A friend of mine digitized my Wizardry Trilogy before the disks 'died.'

Heh, I played the original on a Tandy back in 1984. A piece of advice-unless you're going for pure nostalgia with the original series (ie 1-5), I encourage you to snag an SNES/Super Famicom emulator and play the 16-bit Japanese versions. The ROMs all have translation patches available and they are almost exact replicas of the originals with significantly better graphics, music, and user interface. The challenge is still there, but much of the frustration of playing with 30 year old graphics and interface is removed.

Wizardry V was released in the US for SNES, but the earlier ones were only ever released in their updated form for Japanese consoles.

If one were to go that route, it might be preferable to get the PSX collections, Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga and Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn. Between the two, it collects the first five games with enhanced graphics and native English text (search Wizardry PSX English and then go to images to see what the settings screen should look like). Behold this screenshot of Wiz IV: The Return of Werdna.

Interesting. Its been a few years since I went through the Llylgamyn games, so I hadn't even realized they had been re-issued on PSX.

Here's video of Wiz V in action. As you can see, there's some loading when entering the dungeon but only a minor hiccup when searching for the battle music. The uploader left the character and monster names in Japanese, though they can also be set to English. If anything, New Age of Llylgamyn is worth it just for an updated Wiz IV, which isn't as readily available as V.

I think I have Wizardry V for the SNES.

***UPDATE***

Found the cartidge, dunno if the battery in it still works or not.

IIRC it uses a battery for saves.

I haven't played the PSX Versions but I have played the SNES Wizardry: Llylgamyn Saga using the English Translation and Emulation on my PSP and I highly recommend playing them. I will need to look into the PSX games.

Note that there were also Windows versions of both of those; I don't know how rare/compatible they would be (eBay seems to only have the PlayStation versions at the moment).

Indeed there was, as well as a Sega Saturn edition of the first collection. I mentioned the PSX versions for the ease of emulation. And your concerns of compatibility are well warranted; if I recall correctly, the Windows releases aren't entirely stable. I know that the PSX versions list at ~120-140 on ebay. I've not seen the others posted, though I'm not a collector.