An absolute all-timer dungeon crawler with a super impressive map & fun combat. It's held back by some really dreary visuals, and the removal of towns (and no all-heal) makes the rest-fight loop get tiring, but the insane combat difficulty and quality of cartography keeps this entertaining anyway. Was my first Wizardry and it set the bar very high. Would come highly recommended if it weren't for the absurdly racist bit in the middle, so uh, watch out for that first (it's slightly less bad on snes).

babe, that's our song!!! I say to my beautiful wife while the DOS soundscape sputters and gurgles out the crustiest percussion samples of all time in the purest arrhythmic expression of ambience yet composed

my goons have been punching vines for a while now and I thought they were ready to take it to the next level when I ran into approximately 15+ brigands and rogues. their bitcrushed jeers and exotic slowdown-inducing dances were the last thing my party saw before the death screen hit with what can only be described as a screamer

better save before you open a door. save before you unlock a door. save before you even think of a door unless you want to be hunting down keys from rng drops from rng spawns from random encounters. I can hear dw bradley cackling in the distance as I jam the lock and reload the game again for the nth time in a row

you won't be going a single second without thinking of keys. copper keys, silver keys, iron keys, chrome keys, sour keys — if you're not sniffing for keys at any given time you're all fucked up and doing everything wrong. when you're laying in bed at night with your beautiful wife, thinking about that time the game played your song, you best be ready to start dreaming about keys

which is to say it gets real in the weeds with the circuitous adventure game stuff. of course, sir-tech knew that at the time which is why it came with a 104 page "clue book" complete with annotated maps, walls of hints, and puzzle solutions — we're talking a full on nintendo power guide. much as I'm not fond of the old Roberta Williams design philosophy of making everything as incoherent as possible on a lark, if you're gonna do it you might as well admit it up front and capitulate to common decency. I may be hexen's strongest soldier but even I have my limits

being the first "Save/Rest Anywhere" wizardry — the first where you don't need to make trips back and forth from town, afflicted with grisly ailments or saddled with corpses — marks a significant divergence from previous games. on its face it's more dungeon more of the time, but the lack of separation between the two poles makes for crawling that has a blurrier, softer focus, demolishing the wall between safe and unsafe, and making just about anywhere an acceptable rest spot if you reload your save often enough

the main counterbalance is that you get one save slot. so sure, you can save whenever, but you better think long and hard about it. the potential when hovering over the DISK menu to accidentally click SAVE GAME & QUIT instead of QUIT GAME - NOSAVE is the biggest source of tension in the game, and I think it's caused me to develop a greater level of mindfulness. I am vibrating significantly higher; more serene and in control of my destiny as I go from blitzing thru menus to moving at geological speed on a dime. so far I've only made an error once twice, and I felt terrible both times; sitting there wide eyed in the saddest stupor knowing I've sealed a dark, deserved fate for myself

the other wrench in the gears is that it allows itself to be completely unhinged more or less nonstop. there's a bit of a chicken and egg thing where it's hard to tell whether the game fucks you over constantly because you can save scum, or you're given the option to save scum cos it's constantly fucking you over. it bounces between such extremes that virtually any situation you find yourself in could be drastically different on a second go, be it enemy compositions, stat increases, items in chests, whatever. it's not a stretch to suggest that if you were inclined to min max (couldn't be me) you could find reason and method to shape nearly every situation you find yourself in toward your desired outcome

and really, some of the time you won't be given much of a choice. I don't care who you are, unless you're pulling metagame multiclass shenanigans and stacking hide/criticals you're probably not fighting four full stacks of nightgaunts — you're either reloading the second you see that unholy sight or wishing you did. after hours where six trillion mosquitos and goblins going bananas were the best case scenario I feel like I've seen the most callous design games have to offer. go easy on me fellas, I'm a dumb guy. you see my faerie samurai? the mark of a man with no clue what he's doing. he can't even wear his own gear! his little head is too tiny for kabuto!!!

of all wizary vi's changes and additions to the formula, dw bradley's writing is probably the most significant direct improvement... for the most part (foreshadowing). the game has like one unique tile that's used on every single wall of the castle, caves, river, forest, etc , but by the time I was done exploring each area and reading the sparse flavour text I felt like I had been there myself. quietly spooling just enough information for your imagination to paint it all together over time. you don't even realize how effective it is until it's wormed its way into having you imagine mundane stuff like furniture of your own volition; just sitting imagining the woodwork on some chair. the belfry in particular takes very simple, clean mapping and uses it to perfect effect by coupling it with a touch of descriptive text, onomatopoeia, environmental interaction, and handplaced encounters — all in the span of a couple minutes. it's fabulous, honestly, and while you may not like it, this is peak ambience

but then there's the amazulu. when they were introduced as "very strange looking black women" carrying spears and crossing ravines with vines I had a good idea of where this was going, but then I saw their sprite and then I heard the yipping sounds they make in combat. the internet tells me they're not racist but I am gonna say... seems pretty racist to me!

even if we're being extremely charitable here and attribute some of the more suspect aspects of their portrayal toward the amazon half of the portmanteau + general fantasy schlock, deriving the name of your stereotypical "tribal" caricatures after a real ethnic group they have nothing in common with is real bad, and having them only exist to be monsters you do a wall-to-wall murder on so you can pillage and plunder their dungeon isn't helping things either

I'm here to delve into a spooky ooky cenotaph, give a lich the stone cold stunner, steal his favourite shirt, and smash two beers together like WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? and this is decidedly not that

eventually you move past that and return to the stuff you're here for: the crypts and temples, opaque npcs, incoherent quest item sequences, and tooth shattering random encounters. the last third really benefits from being leaner and more propulsive, and it helps that you finally get some idea of what the game's even about (a special pen, maybe incest) and what your goal is (kill dracula) and if you're a little smarter than I am your party's probably turned into a wrecking ball by then

alas, about three tiles away from the final dungeon I was struck by divine inspiration and sabotaged my samurai by changing his class to ninja without the gear required to make it worthwhile — and then to a monk to try to salvage the smoldering mess. naturally, this occurred after I was past the point of no return, after I relinquished all my gold, and after I lost access to all the equipment shops. not my best work, to be sure; I was so driven to capture EXO's missing potential that I lost sight of who he really was, and perhaps who I really was too

it's not about having 100 NINJUTSU and KIRIJUTSU on every character. it's not even about having a samurai that can wear armour. it's about exploring some of the greatest dungeon designs of all time, enjoying the robust character system, using your imagination, and the appreciating the friends who stand by your side while you do it

I can't shake the feeling that while wizardy vi wouldn't top my list of games in the series, nor games inspired by it, it's something I'll inevitably return to. perhaps the gorgeous SNES version, perhaps another go of the DOS version. who knows. there's a magnetism here that already has me wanting to try other party compositions, or to subject myself to Expert mode and finally break my spirit for good. maybe scam the multiclass system until the game absolutely crumples beneath it

hell of an adventure — sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. the binding thread between classic wizardry and the far more expansive, ambitious follow ups; a singular entry in both the series and genre that showcases dw bradley's immense talent as programmer, designer, and writer, and the transformative nature of his larger than life influence. might be a while til I get around to vii again, but I'm very much looking forward to whenever that may be :)

(no way I'm bringing these clowns with me when I do tho)

p.s.

I've reuploaded mad god's cosmic forge unicode editor because the original site is down and I couldn't find it until after my playthrough was over. while I'm not super familiar with all its functionality, it's quite robust and if nothing else could aid in sparing you from toiling in the reroll mines trying to get that faerie ninja or perfect valkyrie before you get thwomped by a Giant Rat or whatever

xoxo

Wizardry 6 has got enough meat on its bones to satisfy people who like complex RPGs and reading manuals (like me). However, it suffers from 2 fatal flaws: only 1 save slot in a long game where it's not impossible to reach a dead end, and the fact that the game has 4 endings, and they all suck.
This game is also hard, but you can make it easier on yourself if you plan your party well like the manual advises you too. Wizardry VI is older than me, but I managed to get through it just fine by reading the manual and occasionally consulting the clue book. It looks a lot more intimidating than it really is. The most difficult part of the game is really the beginning, by late game your party is basically bulletproof and insanely overpowered.
I recommend the cosmic forge editor, which includes all the necessary bug fixes in one place and some extra mods just in case. I recommend faster resting because that's just tedious.
You could also try an automap mod because this game is insane with the teleporters and stairs that go to who knows where, but you can also find a full map in the cluebook that comes with every modern version.

The first game in the Cosmic Trilogy of Wizardry games, this was the part of the series I was looking incredibly forward to playing because of being able to play through all 3 games with one party and them all having interconnected stories. I don't like this one as much as V, but it's quite good.

On the plus side, despite the graphics still being ass, this is the most coherent Wizardry world by a long shot, the dialogue does an excellent job of painting the environment and playing with the imagination, and the way everything connects is so cool and makes sense. The world is quite small overall, mostly just the castle and the weird shit going on around it, but damn is it a really fun setting.

The gameplay is a bit mixed, on one hand, the spell power system and much freer class changing is very cool, I love all the new classes and it was nice playing this game with a completely unique feeling team. (Samurai, Valkyrie, Monk, Ranger, Bard, Alchemist was my initial setup, but it changed a little bit, turning my last 3 into Ninja, Priest, and Bard) The new skill system is fun albeit a little awkward with how a lot of skills naturally progress.

The downside is class changing is still a pain if you aren't planning a ton ahead of time, it resulted in a lot of points where I would have to save scum stats and try to get some decent stuff. It mostly resulted in everyone but my Bard and Alchemist staying the same, which resulted in some weak feeling characters in the end game.

Save scumming is a big note, this is the first Wizardry that features saving anywhere (outside of battle), and this is fine except for the fact it ends up resulting in A LOT of save scumming cuz battles are much more dangerous and the game is a lot more endurance heavy. That plus the fact full party spells are unreliable at best results in some annoying combat, ESPECIALLY in the last three areas.

While the pretty ugly graphics and some annoying save scummy stuff gets in the way of an experience greater than Wizardry 5, I still think this is a great game worth checking out (though maybe play 5 on PS1 first to get a taste of the series), and I'm very much looking forward to continuing off the cliffhanger where Wizardry 6 ended off.

P.S. The game says it will be continued in Fall 1991, but Wizardry 7 came out in 1992!!! This is the canon reason why Wizardry died after 8.