Wizardry VI: Final Rating

Wizardry: Bane of the Cosmic Forge

United States
Sir-Tech Software (developer and publisher)

David W. Bradley (writer and programmer)

Released 1990 for DOS and Amiga;1991 for FM Towns, Macintosh, and PC-98; 1995 for SNES

Date Started: 10 October 2013

Date Ended: 26 October 2013

Total Hours: 38

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Reload Count: 29
Final Rating: 53
Ranking at Time of Posting: 106/119 (89%)

Without intending to, I managed to make most of this game's discussion about its frequent depiction of nudity, with various commenters opining that the source of my discontent was my liberal political views, some deep-seated psychological issues, or just general prudery.

Some of your perspectives on the issue strike me as absurd. Some of you seem to think that the impossibly full, round breasts displayed by the Amazulus, Rebecca, the sirens, and the faeries were the product of a dedication to historic or thematic authenticity--as if David Bradley looked up "Zulu" in the encyclopedia and thought, "Well, I was planning to clothe them in chain mail, but it looks like historical Zulu women were bare-breasted. As much as it pains me, I can't possibly depict these fantasy warrior women in a way that would be inconsistent with history. My impressionable young players might grow up with the wrong idea of South African cultures. I mean, 'Zulu' makes up half of their name, and there's no way I could possibly consider changing it." If you think the nudity was included for any reason other than to titillate the mostly-juvenile audience for CRPGs in the 1990s, I think you're deluded.

I'm not the one cavorting around with an unclothed teenager.

 
But let me be clear: I have no problem with sex or nudity in games, film, or literature. Given the tastes I've expressed over the years, I don't know how anyone could possibly think that I do. I praised the Malazan series. I watch A Game of Thrones. I practically live on Bourbon Street, for Christ's sake. I was a Playboy subscriber for many years and probably would still be if physical magazines were still a sensible thing. But put my favorite issue of Playboy in the hands of some creepy guy sitting next to me on a train, have him wave it repeatedly in my face while saying, "Hey! Look at those bazzoombas! Oooh, yeah. Look at 'em! Look at 'em!," and now we have a problem.

If that's not how the game feels to you, that's fine. There's a lot of room for personal preference when it comes to these things. But every time I saw nudity in Wizardry VI, I saw David W. Bradley grinning behind the images, gurgling out his encouragement to look at those bazoombas. Maybe my reaction would have been entirely different if I hadn't looked at his photo in the hint guide before playing the game.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that this is the first nudity we've seen in a western CRPG, so kudos to Wizardry VI, I guess. Even though I mentioned it several times, I didn't mean to suggest that it hurt my enjoyment of the game. Let's GIMLET the rest of it.

1. Game World. Before this year, first-person dungeon crawlers have been notable for offering only the thinnest, most forgettable framing stories, concentrating on combat mechanics and character development above NPCs and lore. Bane bucks the trend established by the first Wizardry game by offering a story integrated throughout the game without sacrificing any of the other mechanics. The legends of the Cosmic Forge and the mystery of what happened to the castle's denizens make for intriguing gameplay, even if the game's "reveals" (e.g., the king became a vampire and is named DRACULA, the abrupt ending that resolves very little about the Cosmic Forge) don't always live up to the promise.

The various themes and encounters in the world don't always hold up well, and the game isn't big enough to get as high a score as, say, Pool of Radiance or Ultima IV, but it rates higher than any Wizardry title so far. Score: 5.

Looks more like a sword than a pen to me.

2. Character Creation and Development. One of the better ones. The game offers a substantial selection of races and classes, including some original (if derivative) ones and the ability to change classes at will. With selection of spells and assigning of skill points, the game supports extensive choice during the process of leveling up, and leveling comes often enough that you feel substantially rewarded. There's not much opportunity to role-play characters, and I don't think my all-female party had a substantially different game than an all-male party. Score: 6.

My lead character at the end.

3. NPC Interaction. Another leap forward for the Wizardry series. The basic mechanic was already introduced in Wizardry V, except that in that game, the conversations were less important, and all the NPCs were frankly idiotic (as opposed to about 20% of them in this game). There are only a handful with whom you can have serious conversations, but that handful is interesting, and I love that you can play "evil" and just kill them, but still find enough clues to make it through the game. As some commenters pointed out, the NPCs have some of the same complexity of real people: they lie, try to bend the party to their own purposes, and invite you to consider if you really want to put up with their nonsense.

I'm divided on the mechanic for interacting with them. On one hand, I love the idea of typing actual sentences and having what feels like real conversations. On the other, I think the technology isn't quite there to properly parse the sentences. There were annoying variances in responses to extremely similar questions. An NPC might say, "You must seek the wizard!" and you'll get completely different answers depending on whether you say THE WIZARD?, WHO IS THE WIZARD?, and TELL ME ABOUT THE WIZARD. But when it worked, it worked well, and there were several yes/no dialogue options that allowed some role-playing. Score: 7.

4. Encounters and Foes. There were some decent encounter options related to NPCs, and the copious inventory puzzles, some of which offered a satisfying challenge, bolster the score a bit here. For the enemies, I didn't think they were any better or worse than the standard dungeon-crawler. Only a few had special attacks that required an adjustment of tactics. A handful of "boss" battles were more interesting. Plenty of randomness and opportunities for grinding. Score: 5.

5. Magic and Combat.  Bane improves slightly on the previous installments' combat system with weapon skills, more attack options, the ability to switch inventory during combat, and a more sophisticated approach to multiple attacks. I also like the magic system better, with spell points replacing the "spell slots" system, and the ability to vary the amount of energy channeled into a single spell. The spells themselves are a neat mix of offensive, defensive, and utility spells that make each spellcasting class valuable in its own way. In total, I liked it best of the Wizardrys so far, but to be honest, I'm past the whole "line up your attacks and execute them all at once" system. Score: 7.

Fireballing some ninjas.

6. Equipment. I always like the process of slowly building and improving equipment, and this game does well with armor, shields, helmets, leggings, gauntlets, boots, and the ability to dual-wield weapons, along with the usual scrolls, wands, potions. There are also a fun series of items like "sparklers" and "fire bombs" that allow anyone to replicate certain spells. I thought the process of assessing equipment and shuffling it around was a bit cumbersome, but the "identification" spell at least made the assessment possible. I also liked that except for some special items, equipment was generally randomized throughout the game. Score: 6.

7. Economy. I didn't love it. Mostly, all you can do with money is buy things from a handful of NPCs, and they rarely offered anything that I needed and couldn't find throughout the course of my regular dungeon explorations. I ended the game with tens of thousands in unspent gold. There were a few times I needed gold for plot-related reasons, but I always had more than enough. Score: 4.

8. Quests. The game features an interesting main quest with multiple steps on the way that provide some role-playing choices. The endgame offers a series of options that lead to several potential outcomes, which is rare for the era. No side quests, unfortunately. Score: 5.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The graphics are marginally better than the previous games, although as I noted repeatedly, it replaced monotonous wireframe walls with monotonous brick walls. Monster and NPC portraits were okay. The sound is passable, but barely so. As for the interface, I didn't care for it. I don't understand why games that offer keyboard, mouse, and joystick support have to treat keyboard players as if they're using a joystick or mouse: doing anything in the game means hitting ENTER and then arrowing around a group of menu options instead of, say, being able to hit "U" to use something or "S" to search. Switching between character profiles means arrowing to "Review" and selecting the character rather than just hitting F1, F2, and so on. I don't have a lot of patience for that. Score: 3.

10. Gameplay. Bane is a little linear. You have to explore its various areas in a precise order to find the keys and other special items necessary to progress. Although there is some general nonlinearity within each of the major areas, there were times I felt I was on a rail. I give it some points for replayability, as different character choices would face different challenges, and there were some role-playing options and end-game choices that it might be fun to redo.

Despite some pre-game literature that suggested a complete game would last "200+ hours," I completed it in 38, which is just slightly longer than I would have preferred to spend on it. The difficulty was a little uneven, tending towards the easy side for the first 3/4 of the game and suddenly kicking itself up a notch at the end (although my choice to switch classes late in the game may have accounted for that). I'm not sorry that the series abandoned permadeath, but I thought it perhaps went a little too far in making saving and reloading a simple affair. Score: 5.

The final score of 53 is much higher than I gave its predecessors, influenced by the much better approach to the story and NPCs, and the slightly better approach to magic and combat. It's a good game, and if I sometimes seemed less than enthusiastic during my posts, it's because Bradley rubbed me the wrong way in the game materials and continued to rub me the wrong way (at this point that phrase becomes unfortunate) with his frequent invitations to look at those bazoombas.

We'll encounter him every few years for a while, starting with Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant in 1992, CyberMage: Darklight Awakening in 1995,  Wizards and Warriors in 2000, and Dungeon Lords in 2005.

Reviews of the game were universally positive. ACE called it "an absolute gem," Amiga Format "a great game with some pleasant touches," Amiga Action "a great game which breaks the rules and still comes up looking good." Marc Clupper's review in the February 1991 Computer Gaming World praises the character creation process primarily, but also the innovative trap system, the lack of symmetry in dungeon design, the NPC dialogue system, and the sound (which he experienced on a different platform), and concludes that the game is "a triumphant celebration of the Wizardry heritage and provides a legacy almost predestined to repeat the glory of its predecessor." The game was nominated for "Role Playing Game of the Year" in November 1991 but lost to another game prominently featuring breasts: Elvira.

As I said last time, I was a little disappointed in the abrupt ending, but I look forward to seeing how the story continues in Crusaders of the Dark Savant. For now, on to something called The Dragon Sword! [Later edit: I can't seem to find a copy of The Dragon Sword. On to Dungeons of Doom!] [Even later edit: Can't find a copy of that, either. On to Dragonflight!]