Wizardry V: Final Rating

From a more exhaustive reading of the walkthrough post-game, I found that if you take the time to find some secret doors, you can encounter the god Lala Moo-Moo. I can't imagine what level you'd have to be to actually defeat him.

Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom
Sir-Tech Software (1988)
Andrew Greenberg, David W. Bradley
Date Started: 24 November 2011
Date Ended: 18 June 2012
Total Hours: 80
Difficulty: Difficult (4.5/5)
Final Rating: 37
Ranking at Time of Posting: 40/63 (63%)

There's nothing I can say in summary of this game that you haven't heard before.

Wizardry I was a seminal entry in the history of CRPGs. It was the first multi-character game; the first game with a complex spell system; the first game to offer such a wide variety of foes; the first game to offer so many character classes and specializations. I think it was the first game to offer a choice of alignments. It inspired Richard Garriott to offer multiple party members in Ultima III, and in its interface and approach to combat, it directly inspired both the Might & Magic and The Bard's Tale series.

Why were the developers unable to carry that innovation forward? While Wizardry's descendants made enormous strides in the depth and quality of the story, the nature of encounters, the use of NPCs, the variety of equipment, and the complexity of combat, Wizardry offered essentially the same graphics and gameplay experience for four more entries and seven more years.

"Essentially the same" and "exactly the same" don't mean the same thing, though, and it would be dishonest not to recognize a few of the additions to this game, starting with the complexity of the puzzles. I didn't like them, but some players might. The game blended CRPG gameplay with adventure-game-style inventory puzzles, and the game was largely an experience of finding Item A to open a passage to Item B to give to Character C to obtain Item D, and so on. The problem is that, unlike adventure games, most of the items were nonsensical. If they had just been keys and such, I might have found that annoying and inoffensive, but instead we had a rubber duck, and playing cards, and a caged bird, and a bag of tokens, and the whole thing was just goofy.

The second innovation was, to me, a little more welcome: advanced NPC interaction. The ability to talk, steal from, and barter with NPCs throughout the dungeon added a level of complexity to encounters that is present in only a few other games of the era. These encounters, and the hints that you learn from the dialogue, are absolutely necessary to finishing the game. I wish the NPCs hadn't included such a cavalcade of nonsense, but the interface itself was a good idea.

Overall, though, I'm glad that the series took a different approach to its next outing, which I'll play when I get to 1990.

On to the GIMLET:

1. Game World. As basic as they get. The somewhat incomprehensible backstory--involving someone called "The SORN" imprisoning "The Gatekeeper" and upsetting the "Triaxial Balance" is just an excuse for a long slog through a featureless 8-level dungeon. Programming had progressed to the point that the developers ought to have been able to give each dungeon level some kind of character or theme, like in Ultima Underworld, in text if not in graphics. But instead they populated the dungeon levels with silly characters and encounters. The rest of the "world" doesn't fare any better: the castle is a copy of the first game, with very little memorable about it. On the plus side, the game does remember aspects of your progress throughout the dungeon. "Found" secret doors remain uncovered, and slain NPCs remain dead. Score: 3.

2. Character Creation and Development. Although these factors haven't advanced much since the first game, they were reasonably good even then. Few other games of the era restrict character classes based on attributes and alignments, and I can't think of any others that offer "prestige" classes (lord, samurai, and ninja) that become available when your attributes are high enough. Leveling, with the consequent increases in attributes, spells, and hit points, is usually satisfying and rewarding. But as far as I can tell, character classes and alignments don't affect anything about the game, and this is one of the few games that still doesn't allow sexes. Score: 4.

Unfortunately, leveling up wasn't always rewarding.

3. NPC Interaction. As noted above, we finally get some in this game. If only the NPCs themselves were more sensible and interesting rather than mostly comedy walk-ons. There are no "dialogue options," but there are Ultima IV-style keyword options. (Everyone responds to "HAIL," much like "JOB" in Ultima IV.) Talking and bartering with NPCs is necessary for quest completion and game progression. They could have done better with this, but it was definitely an improvement over the previous entries. Score: 5.

NPC interactions were technically good but narratively stupid.

4. Encounters and Foes. Aside from the NPCs, "encounters" were mostly of the inventory-puzzle variety and left little role for role-playing or even logic. Encounters with monsters almost inevitably led directly to battle. Most levels featured a host of roving monsters and two or three boss-level fights. This is definitely a game in which it's worth noting each monster and its special attacks, because you have to plan defense and offense carefully. Adding a twist to this process is the fact that you don't always know what foes you're facing. The game just gives you general descriptions ("5 weird monsters") and you have to guess.

I think the "fiery entity" is a fire elemental, but I'm not sure what the "demonic figure" is.

Again, a lot of the monsters were just dumb (Quasimodo, Beauty and the Beast, King Kong), but they were certainly memorable. Respawning is no problem; you can grind on any level as long as you'd like, but the "(R)un" option usually works if you're just trying to get somewhere. Score: 5.

5. Magic and Combat. I highlighted the combat system of the first game as a major strong point, and I still have to give it credit even though I was sick of it by the end. Wizardry is one of the few game series in which you feel an authentic sense of fear as you explore the dungeons. Even allowing for reloading, the permanent-death nature of the game has significant consequences (at best, you have to take the time to quit, restore the backups, reload, and re-add your party members), meaning that you can't half-ass the combats. From the moment you leave the castle, you're balancing the length of your exploration with your available spells and diminishing hit points. One bad combat that kicks your characters into the single digits can leave you with a palpable sense of doom as you creep towards the stairs and back to safety.

In many postings, I've emphasized the differences between Wizardry's approach and other games' approaches, but they're worth repeating. In Might & Magic, which otherwise seems a lot like Wizardry, you can rest and restore your spell points and hit points at almost any time. This means that for Might & Magic, the difficulty is in individual combats rather than accumulated combats. Pool of Radiance was similar to Might & Magic except there was more of a risk associated with resting. Wizardry V remains hard-core, though: you don't replenish a single spell until you return to the castle (barring one pool on Level 7), so you have to ration your spells carefully. You have to watch your hit points, and the success or failure of your attacks on enemies, and know when it's time to just let your melee characters finish the combat, or when it's time for one more LAHALITO.

Now would be a good time to start heading for the exit.

 
I don't necessarily love the spells themselves. Too many of them seemed useless. The priest's MONTINO ("silence") spell should have worked more often. There should have been a party-wide heal spell. Some of the high-level spells are one-use only; they disappear from your book the moment you cast them. There is no spell that adequately protects against the game's multitude of spellcasters. Basically, as with many other games, you find yourself over-relying on the same selection of mass-damage spells rather than carefully plotting your spell attacks. That's my experience, at least; I'm curious if other people see it differently. Score: 5.

6. Equipment. The game certainly doesn't spoil you. At the end, my best armor was a plate mail +2 and my best weapon was something like a battle axe +2. But since there's such a variety--melee weapons, ranged weapons, armor, helmets, gloves, potions, scrolls, rings, and other special items--and since the game seems bent on robbing you of your gear through thieves and magnetic traps, almost every expedition results in one or two useful upgrades.

Identification of equipment is needlessly annoying. It's too expensive to do at the store (the price for identifying is the same as the sale price of the item), so you have to rely on a bishop. If you choose not to adventure with the bishop, you have to keep one hanging around Gilgamesh's Tavern, but since he doesn't level with you, he has trouble with some of the more advanced items. Every attempt at identification has a chance of causing fear, which leaves the bishop unable to identify anything else until you cure it. For me, identifying my equipment was tedious process of repeatedly curing the bishop until he finally got it right. Towards the end, I just started paying for it, even though I could ill afford it along with all the resurrections.

Crooked Bee with his equipment, and a few unidentified items.

I never did quite understand what was happening when I "evoked the power" of some of my items. It would usually cause some change in my attributes or health, but these changes never seemed permanent, and I couldn't get a handle on what caused them to wear off. Sometimes "evoking" caused the item to disappear, but sometimes it didn't. This aspect of gameplay was not well explained in the manual. Score: 4.

7. Economy. You get money for killing monsters, and you spend it on healing, item identification, and occasional quest-related purchases. I never had too much money, which (as you know) I prefer, but the system isn't complex enough to give it a very high score. Score: 4.

8. Quests. The main quest consists of a series of stages leading to just one outcome. It never really made all that much sense, partly because "The S*O*R*N" has no compelling back story. There are no side quests in the game. Score: 2.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The wireframe graphics are pretty awful at this point, although I thought some of the monster portraits were well-done. The game is best played with the sound off. I do give it points for the interface, though, which I found very intuitive. It was all keyboard-driven, but the keys made sense and I was able to enter even complex strings of commands very quickly. I like how holding down the ENTER key allows you to blow through combat with easy foes. Score: 3.

10. Gameplay. Here's where, in my opinion, the game fails. The nature of the inventory puzzles makes the game extremely linear. It has virtually no replayability. If you don't spend hours and hours grinding, it's too hard (especially at the latter stages), and if you do spend hours and hours grinding, it's too long. I thought the dungeon levels were far too large and empty to hold my attention. What makes all of this particularly notable is that the creators didn't intend for the player to restore backups. A "straight" player would have all of these problems plus the annoyance of constantly replacing dead characters. A challenge is good, but this game ends up being repetitive torture. Score: 2.

This gives us a final rating of 37, equivalent to the first Wizardry. While this game improves upon NPCs, equipment, and a couple other areas, it lacks the first game's brisk gameplay, and many of V's "innovations" annoy rather than impress. I didn't deliberately engineer the rating to come out equal to I, but I think it says something accurate that in seven years, Sir-Tech was unable to fundamentally improve on the experience that they first offered in the CRPG Bronze Age.

"Heart of the Maelstrom is a complete revision of the Wizardry gaming system..." Wow, Sir-Tech had some balls.

Dennis Owens gave Heart of the Maelstrom a positive review in the February 1989 issue of Computer Gaming World. I don't understand why the game's throwback graphics and sound didn't spark any disdain. One thing he did complain about was long loading times and frequent disk access--something I fortunately don't have to deal with 24 years later. He concludes that "the game is a must for any adventure gamer's computer-game library," a statement with which I will unfortunately have to disagree.

It looks like this was Andrew Greenberg's last contribution to the series that he co-created--and frankly, I'm not sure if he had much of a role in the game; MobyGames's "trivia" section claims that David Bradley designed this one on his own. Greenberg's next credit is on Dracula Unleashed, a 1993 adventure game, and I don't think I'll play another of his games until Dungeon Lords in 2005. Bradley continues to be credited on the next two Wizardry games, and I look forward to seeing how they develop.

And with that, my friends, we are finally out of 1988 and ready to move on to 1989. I'm going to have a transition posting coming before I jump into NetHack, version 3. Thanks for sticking with me through this difficult year.

Alas, the intrepid party did not survive the battle with La-La-Moo-Moo. Their names, I'm sure, shall live on in infamy.