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The Best RPG in Years!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: March 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The first Wizardry game hooked me on CRPGs back in the early 80's, and I have played most of the major and some of the minor releases since then. As good as many of the new games (particulary the Black Isle and BioWare games)are, it has been years since I was as immersed in a game as I was in Wiz8. Highly recommended!

Wiz8 has a strong story line, with interesting twists; but the real key to this game is in choosing, balancing, and improving your party. Characters skills develop and improve both through use and by training them when the characters level up, so you can develop your party members to meet your needs and preferences.

There are a number of races and classes available to create your party, and interesting specialties avaible as well. In fact, you can change your character's career choice at any level change, and they retain their abilities gained in the other profession.

It is a tragedy that the game that has been winning Best RPG of the year awards all over the place is the final swan song for Sir-Tech. A game this strong deserves an expansion pack -- and a Wizardry 9!

at last, a perfect RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I played RPGs for over 17 Years now, I even played Wizardry1 on a home-soldered apple2-clone. In the last years, I was annoyed by some games that claimed to be RPG, but felt more like action-shooters. On the other hand, games like Baldurs Gate just bored me, tediously following Dungeons&Dragons rule system.
I loved ultima underworld, it was the last perfect RPG.

Now, TEN YEARS LATER, here is another: Wizardry8. The Interface is great, the manual superb und funny, the voice acting is perfect and yes, the graphics are too.

What really stunned me, is the attention to detail, that makes the game both complex and easily manageable.

An example: Most RPGs have a system that simulated how the load affects your characters. Most require you to shuffle inventory around, so that no one is overburdened. Wizardry8 has a simple solution: You decide which items should be personal inventory of a character, all others are "party inventory". The burden of these is automatically shared betwenn party-members, the stronger carrying more. You may look up how much each characters carries, but this option is well hidden in the interface. In fact, most gamers wouldnt even know, that this system exists: It is just never getting in the way.

A wonderful game, indeed.

For german gamers: There is still no distributor in Germany. I got my copy from ....

Wow

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: July 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have to be honest, I'm a newcomer to the Wizardry series, and I'd heard about it from my RPG-nut friend Daniel. He had played Wizardry Gold and had quite a few complaints about the game, for instance the sort of useless and annoying skills like 'swim' and the annoying skills like 'karma' or 'charisma' or whatever it's called. Sirtech managed to totally revamp the interface on this, the 'last' installment of the series. Now it's got a snazzy 3d combat and movement system, very simplified (yet still quite complex) stats, magic and skills screens, and a bunch of great NPC voice acting. This game is a blast, and anyone even remotely interested in playing a turn-based heavy-thinking RPG should try this one out.
However, I do have a few complaints with the game. First of all, the PC voices are very annoying and repetitive. Most of the time I just turn off the volume. If you play for more than an hour or two (and believe me, you will) they drive you insane. Secondly, the pictures of certain races are light on the variation. That's a minor problem, but it is a bit annoying for replay value. Thirdly, the female voices are a whole lot more annoying than the male voices. What can I say, I like my parties balanced. Fourthly, and this is my biggest problem with the game: The sllllloooooooooooooooooowwwwwwww battles. Yes, what you've heard is true. You CAN sit there for almost a minute and a half while ten swarming wasps defend, rush you, attack you, or whatever. This would not be a problem if it wasn't so easy to die. You can take almost four or five minutes out of your life to fight, have one of your characters die, then have to reload and fight all over again! It gets annoying. Fifthly, the game is so big that it's easy to get lost. Even with the strategy guide (BUY IT WHILE IT'S STILL IN PRINT!!! YOU WILL NEED IT!!!!!!) it's hard to get around. I once spent almost three hours trying to find this one area on the map so I could continue with the plot. However, these drawbacks are not that big of a deal when compared to how amazingly robust and full this game is. In conclusion: Buy this game, buy the strategy guide, and read both in great detail. And have fun, while you're at it.

Great RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: March 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This one is a real winner.

Character creation is fun, with a whole stack of races and classes to choose from, plus a decent selection of voices and charcter portraits. The game world is huge - I played the game for about three months and still didn't see everything there was to see. The plot is fairly engaging - not novel quality, or even as interesting as Fallout, but interesting enough to keep you going. There are multiple endings, and the choices you make can have a major effect on the plot.

Combat is where the game really shines, which is good, because you'll be doing a lot of it. It's not uncommon to have one tough battle after another after another in this game, and you'll have to make creative use of terrain, party formation, and the wide variety of weapons, spells and magical/technological items available to you to survive. Seriously - if you don't like very frequent, very hard battles, you should look at another game.

Though the graphics are a mixed bag (a lot of ugly polygons), the designers made good use of 3D, making it quite a bit of fun to explore the maps, and see what's around the next corner. The music is all right - atmospheric, but not very good. The voice acting is so-so, but almost every character has a voice, which is neat.

A Welcome Trip in the Wayback Machine

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: June 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played Wiz 6 & 7 and I've been playing CRPG's since Might & Magic 1 was released on a single 5" floppy. So that's where I'm coming from.

This game is a labor of love from people who also played and enjoyed the Ulitma, Might & Magic, and Wizardry series way back when.

What does that mean? It means: party play - lots of stats & numbers - oodles of badies to kill - an interesting story (that's mostly an excuse to kill even more bad guys but interesting) - quirky classes - uniques skills - odd humor - wide open fields of exploration.

If you love games - well remember the people who made this game love them just as much as you do. It's a steal at this price.

Good RPG not as good as the Baldur's Gate Series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: April 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I just finished Wizardry 8 and it was a very solid RPG. Character creation has TONS of options and is a lot of fun. Graphics and sound were phenomenal. I loved the music score in the Rapax Rift.

However, if you're a fan of the BGs you might find the pacing a little slow. There are not many side quests. Combat takes forever. I found myself running around trying to avoid it at all costs. I love the fact that ranged weaponry is modeled accurately, but when you run into a group of 10 ranged weapon enemies you'll just love (Sarcasm) watching all those seconds add up watching their arrows fly by or into you as you charge them. The ending(s) were just plain lame. I'm not going to reveal them, but couldn't they have created some cut scenes ALA: the BGs or Diablos (Diablo 2 IMHO had the best Cut Scenes I had ever seen).

Overall, solid RPG nice Tide me Over until Morrowind comes out.

Too Much Fighting

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is exactly the type of game that I enjoy playing. And, for the first couple of weeks, I really did enjoy it. But, after that, the amount of fighting necessary to do ANYTHING started to grate. Essentially, you have to fight huge groups of ridiculously powerful enemies every time you go anywhere. In all, playing several hours every day, it took me almost two months to finish the game. On one hand, that's just too much effort. On the other hand, I certainly got my money's worth out of the game. Fighting might not have been that bad if the game didn't constantly examine your party's stats and up the level of the attackers so that they were always better. I also became frustrated with the leveling aspect of the game. Like most games like this, every level takes more points to get to than the previous level. But, this game is ridiculous. By the end, my people were something like level 25 (after two months, remember). It was taking tens of millions of points to level up. Sure, you can practice to up your performance. But, there's more satisfaction to going through a level. Also, there's no way anyone can get through this game without reading hints around the internet. Some of the things necessary to solve some of the situations are in no way obvious (even after reading the hints). For the most part, I did enjoy the game. But, it was extremely frustrating, too.

A Good Amount of Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I recently bought this (1 week ago) and have not been able to stop playing. It is a wonderful throw back to some good ol' D&D fun. There is another review on this where the guy say that he does not like all the fighting when you are trying to accompish stuff. I disagree. I infact like the fact that there is nothing but fighting. I am tired of the games where you can "Clean" a level out. There is none of that here. Infact the best part is when you are wandering from one quest to another, unlike most games where the creatures of a particular level stay the same weak pathetic scum that they are, this one increases their hitpoints and level. SO you cannot simply back track to an easy level to gain hp's and stuff.

Pro: Lots of different classes and spells
Leveling up does not take an eternity
Lots of monsters that are challenging(especially spell casting ones)
Relatively good game play.
Spells are really great

Con: A little herky jerky in the POV. But not bad.
Not enough really cool magical stuff (either that or I have not found any)
Not enough blood (really there is none at all)

This is a really good game. I like it better than Diablo and its on par with Baldurs (baldurs is a little more adventury and this is more characture specific friendly)

For $$$...get this game, it's worth it.

Be warned!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The title of this review holds two meanings: one, if you are not a hardcore, old school rpger you might not like this game, and the other is that the rest of you might lose your very soul to this game.

This is an wonderful, story driven game with a huge enviroment to play in. The charaters are memorable, the quest more that epic, and the game does not take itself seriously. There are many ways to do most quests, and your actions can effect the whole of the game for good or ill.

Let me warn you, this is a very hard game and is rooted in the old school style of rpgs. Party creation is key and if you have a bad party you will have a bad time with the game, it just becomes way too damn hard no matter what you do if your party is not prepared. Battles are frequent and long, and the game tends to level up your enemies to a level where they more or less match for you at the begining of the game. Only after playing for quite a bit, leveling up, and getting a handle on the combat system can you cut loose and really kick ass.

Morrowind freaks look this way, this game is more geared in your direction than those who play Diablo and the like. Diablo fans may find something if they stick it out, but the learning curve is steep and unforgiving.

I have played through the game four times with four different parties and got wildly different games each time, so the replay value is wonderful.

Overall this is a very good game if this is your cup of tea, I most certainly recommend it to all the old school players out there. If you are willing to invest hours of your life into a game, this is one of the best.

It was fun...for a week

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 18
Date: February 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

At first I was very excited about this game. The graphics, combat system, and character development system are well made. I quickly found the battles to be time-consuming and boring. I would sit there while my party battled group after group of wandering monsters, when all I wanted to do is go somewhere nearby. The monsters automatically get stronger as you gain levels. This is a [jterrinle] feature, I think. RPG's should get easier as you gain levels, not more difficult (it made me not want to raise levels, because the battles only get harder). Another annoyance is the way your party is interrupted EVERY TIME it's your turn to walk or run during combat.

I don't think that anyone could figure out the many clues and quests without the hint book. I certainly could not, and am not about to waste ten or twenty bucks to explore every nook and cranny of this game. The game world itself is small when compaired to simular games. After a week, I have been just about everywhere I can go (and that's only after playing about two hours a day).

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