Wizardry 8 Review

Character creation is a piece of cake in Wizardry. All characters will start off as apprentices in their profession/class. Lower-level apprentices cannot use the class-specific abilities and bonuses like monk resistance to damage, or the priest turn undead ability, bard capability to play musical instruments or the Valkyrie cheat death skill.

The most interesting thing about Wizardry, however, is the character level advance and stat deployment. This is also one of the best parts of the game and you will simply enjoy watching your characters grow stronger and gain new abilities, skills and spells - they will start as feeble apprentices, barely able to fighting shrimps, and advance all the way to demy-gods, capable of dealing with dragons and demons single-handedly. When you beat an enemy, each member of the coterie will acquire a certain number of experience points, and once a character has accumulated a certain amount of EXPs, he or she will gain a level.

The combat systems in the game feature some brilliant AI. I said combat systems, as there are in fact two different modes of combat in the game: continuous combat and turn-based combat. Turn-based combat is much slower and lasts longer, but is also far more interesting. You can determine the formation of your coterie before or during the combat. Formations can prove to be crucial in battle.

In the course of the adventure, you will find or purchase ordinary or magical items that will improve your characters' stats. These items will most commonly improve your armor or weapon class, but there is a certain number of items that will influence your other stats as well.

One of the interesting features is the option to explore areas; for instance, rangers will constantly explore their current surroundings and look for hidden items, but other characters have to walk very slowly in order to be able to spot anything.

Another interesting feature in the game is picking locks on treasure chests. I think that only the good old Betrayal at Krondor had this feature this well done. How successful you are at this will directly depend on your traps and lock pick stats.

The spell system contains six basic schools of magic (Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Mental and Divine). As the wizards advance through levels, they gain new spells. They can use the magical tomes spread all over the world in order to advance to higher levels, the highest level being seven for each school. Once you select the spell you want to cast, you will be offered to choose the level of the spell. If you are a low level wizard and choose to cast a spell at a higher level, it may backfire.

You can change character classes each time a character of yours gains a level, which with all the classes and races available highly increases the game's replay value. Wizardry VIII spans over 80 hours of active gameplay, not to mention all possible variations of certain quests. Wizardry VIII had been in development for almost four years, and the final results are undoubtedly impressive. This is definitely one of the best RPGs this year.