Game 302: Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992)

Ahem. The correct term is autistic African-American.

                 

Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant
United States
Sir-tech Software (developer and publisher)
Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for FM Towns and PC-98, 1995 for PlayStation; re-released in 1996 for Windows and Macintosh as Wizardry Gold
Date Started: 20 August 2018

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is the second 1992 game that feels like a new era. The first, of course, was Ultima Underworld. Underworld is the more groundbreaking of the two, but the state of hardware, software, and programming wasn't quite ready to capitalize on all its innovations, and thus in some ways it feels like a few steps backward accompany all its steps forward. Savant, on the other hand, is all forward, albeit towards what will ultimately be a dead end. Between this game and Might and Magic III (1991), it's hard to imagine what else can be achieved with the traditional multi-character party moving as a unit over a tiled terrain.

I was surprised to see that it's nearly five years since I completed Bane of the Cosmic Forge, entry VI in the Wizardry series. Savant, of course, is entry VII, although the game avoids putting the number in the title. It is the third and last Wizardry contribution from David W. Bradley. I spent a lot of my Forge coverage (which begins here) making fun of Bradley for somewhat intrusive authorial presence in the game materials, including a cluebook interview that defines "cringe." I'll forgo any such ridiculing here because he really has put together an impressive game, and his dedication is not to his mother this time, but to "those who would stand against the weight of a universe to rise but one step further over its horizon." Yeah, don't waste a lot of time trying to parse that.

Forge had a pretty convoluted plot, but we have to get it in our heads because Savant picks up directly from its ending--or endings, as we'll see. The party in Forge, unconnected to any previous Wizardry, decides to explore a ruined castle and gets tangled up in the mystery of the Cosmic Forge, a pen with the power to write things in and out of existence. It was stolen by a king and his wizard as part of their interplanar plundering. They used it to make themselves immortal, but each suffered a "bane": the wizard was split into two beings, and the king became a vampire.

Meanwhile, the king's vicar fathered a half-demon child named Rebecca, who became the king's ward and ultimately his lover. The ghost of the queen lies to the party about Rebecca's origins and gives them a silver cross with which to kill the king and Rebecca. If the party decides that they don't believe the queen, they must show it by discarding the cross, which creates a different set of encounters than if they keep it.

Playing Forge blind, I was oblivious to all of this, and I still think it's a little opaque. First of all, few games of the era had stories at all, let alone those that require the player to judge the validity of an NPC's claims, so I wasn't really prepared for this kind of choice. Second, I thought it was somewhat counter-intuitive to demonstrate such a choice by throwing away an inventory item instead of through dialogue or other more traditional choices.

Forge ultimately has three potential endings (not counting the "Dumb Boffo Ending"). Those who disbelieve the queen and toss the cross get the so-called "best" ending, where the king voluntarily ends his own life, Rebecca leaves peacefully, and the party takes to the stars with Rebecca's brother, a dragon named Bela.

Instead, my party killed the vampire king and Rebecca left sadly. I experienced both of the other two endings: In the first, the party tried to take the Cosmic Forge, but a glowing dude appeared and said, "I'll take that!" and the game was over. In the second, we moved past the Cosmic Forge, defeated the angry dragon Bela, and took off in his spaceship on our own.
            

See, I thought those first two items were the same thing.

           

Action in Savant moves to a planet called Guardia, where centuries ago a "scientific genius" named Phoonzang discovered a secret so powerful it could make or destroy universes. (Its relation to the Cosmic Forge, which can do the same, isn't entirely clear.) He hid his secret on Guardia in a "stellar globe" called the Astral Dominae. Some group called the Lords of the Cosmic Circle caused Guardia to be hidden, but it has been re-discovered, and several factions are attempting to find the Astral Dominae. These include the mysterious Dark Savant ("one of the most powerful enemies alive"); a militaristic, lawful race called the Umpani; a greedy spider-like race called the T'Rang (who seem to be allied with the Dark Savant); a robot agent of the Lords of the Cosmic Circle named Aletheides (who I guess is the one who snatches the Cosmic Forge in the second ending); and a mysterious female descendant of Phoonzang named Vi Domina, who is either the Dark Savant's ally or his prisoner.
               

It sounds like we're going to become Crusaders against the Dark Savant.

           

Well, she has the Infinity Gauntlet. Game over.

          
Depending on how you ended Forge (if you did at all), you get one of four opening narrations--three for each of the three Bane endings, and one for a new party (or a party that didn't finish Bane). I'm not sure how the three "beginnings" affect the nature of the story and quest, nor whether they result in the party landing in different physical locations. I'll explore that more next time.

                       

The party touches down with their robot friend.

          

Although I won the game two different ways, and presumably saved after the last one, the game treated my imported party as if it was a brand new one, and the introduction ended with Aletheides dropping me off in the forest. I'm not sure what went wrong. Again, I'll try to troubleshoot for the next entry.
            

The party begins in a dark forest.

           

Savant keeps the same races and classes as Forge and the same attributes as all previous Wizardry games. Namely:

               

• Races: Human, elf, dwarf, gnome, hobbit, faerie, lizardman, dracon (human/dragon hybrids), rawulf (canine humanoids), felpurr (feline humanoids), and mooks (Wookies)

• Classes: Fighter, mage, priest, thief, ranger, alchemist, bard, psionic, valkyrie, bishop, lord, and ninja

• Attributes: Strength, intelligence, piety, vitality, dexterity, speed, and personality

            

Each character also has a selection of skills (a system introduced in Forge), including ten different types of weapons, eight physical skills (e.g., music, scouting, disarming/lockpicking), ten academic skills (e.g., mythology, alchemy, theology), and six special skills (e.g., firearms, mind control). Two of the physical skills (swimming and climbing), five of the academic skills (theology, theosophy, kirijutsu, mapping, and diplomacy), and all six special skills are appearing in Savant for the first time.

I ended Forge with the following all-female party:

        

• Nysra, a female dwarf ninja
• Nofri, an elf priest
• Harquin, a faerie mage
• Lashi, a Mook ranger
• Paisley, a Dracon Valkyrie
• Selky, a Felpurr Samurai

         
The characters were all Level 11, having achieved that level for the second time (the game lets you switch professions as often as you want). Upon importing them to Savant, they were all reduced to Level 5. This still makes them far more powerful than the Level 1 characters you create here. Most of their equipment was stripped, although a few powerful items (including my valkyrie's Avenger Sword) remain. Still, since I didn't get any of the beginnings from having won Forge, I'm toying with creating a new party.
           

My converted faerie, busted down 6 levels.

         
My game began in a forest. I'm not sure where Aletheides went, but he's not with me. After equipping my items, I started exploring systematically, contending with creatures like giant ravens and plant-based enemies called "bambiphoots." I noticed immediately that the game frequently pauses to give you atmospheric messages, enhancing the much-improved graphics. Some examples:
               

Text interludes like this enhance the feeling of playing a tabletop RPG.

            
Forge used the same textures for everything, but Savant has some of the best images we've seen in a tiled first-person game, including some great encounter animations that transcend the silliness of their Forge counterparts. One limitation, though, is the inability to see enemies in the environment, like you could in Might and Magic III. Combats just suddenly come upon you.
            

The animation makes the birds seem scarier.

          
As we explored, a blonde woman came flying down in an air car, welcomed us, proclaimed it "the time of the coming of the Crusaders!," and flew off. Based on the manual's descriptions, she would appear to be a Helazoid, an enigmatic native population on Guardia.
           

I suppose the game had to have some goofy elements.

         
Continuing my explorations, I soon ran into a dungeon. Normally, I'd be more interested in finding a town and getting a bead on the main quest, but I figured it would help me get used to the controls. The dungeon turned out to be two levels, both small enough that I didn't have to map, with a variety of combats and special encounters. It was a good introduction to the game and its conventions.

The interface is okay. It's primarily mouse-driven, but with keyboard backups for the most common commands. (You can disable the mouse and arrow around the buttons, but that's a lot slower.) I'm sure I'll get used to it. Switching between characters is a little annoying, and you can't do it at all when you're in a sub-menu, such as skills or spells.

Sound effects are also quite good (yes, I'm using SoundBlaster for the effects and Roland MT-32 for the music), with satisfying clangs and crunches during combat. There are a sparse number of background sounds, like drips in dungeons and howls of wind in the forest. There hasn't been any background music so far, just a well-composed main title theme and brief melodies punctuating the beginnings and ends of combat. At first, I thought the music was unnecessarily delaying the transitions in and out of combat, but they didn't happen any faster when I turned it off.
            

This is accompanied by an appropriate "crunch."

         
Combat is otherwise similar to all of the previous Wizardry games. You specify an action for each character (fight, cast, use an item, parry, and so forth) and then watch them execute, along with the enemies', in order of initiative. Spells offer a lot of tactics. A lack of permadeath and an ability to rest between combats means that the difficulty is in individual battles rather than accumulated ones.
             

Menaced by giant insects.

              
The dungeon had easy battles with insect creatures, cruds, and birds. I barely even had to touch my spells. There was a healing fountain, a couple of buttons and levers, a door for which I had to find a key, and a skeleton clutching an advertisement for "Paluke's Armory" in New City.
          

A crummy commercial?

          
A couple of chests defied my ability to disarm their traps--that's a whole process I'll have to describe later--so I had to suck up their damage.
           

I have to read the manual more carefully to make heads or tails of this minigame.

            
The dungeon culminated in a chamber where a skeleton or ghoul named Ra-Sep-Re-Tep (the developers must have known someone named Peter Pesar) came to life and attacked me with some black ravens. They succumbed easily to "Sleep" and he was destroyed by "Dispel Undead." A chest in his chambers had some potions and other magic items. My character with the best "Artifact" skill isn't very good, so I'm hoping there's a way to pay for identification once I reach a city. I didn't gain any levels in the dungeon, but I imagine a new party would have gotten a couple.
            

The priest does what we have a priest for.

             
Continuing on, I fought off an ambush by some "rattkin" thieves and eventually ended up on a road that brought me to New City. It looks like it's been taken over by the Dark Savant. A sentinel asked my business in the city, and on a whim I tried "Paluke's," and it worked. I'm not sure if this means that I had to explore that dungeon, or if there's another way to get into the city. Either way, soon after entering I got into an impossible battle with "Savant guards" and decided to call it quits for the night while I figure out whether to continue with this party or create a new one.
            

We-are-going-to-Paluke's.

      
Other notes:
          

• I guess you want to build up that "Swimming" skill as soon as possible. My entire party drowned when I accidentally stepped into a small patch of water. It was my only reload this session.

           

I guess what my grandmother used to say about a teaspoon of water is true.

      

• Loot distribution takes a little longer than necessary. I wish there was a default button. Also, you can't leave the loot screen until you've taken all the items. You can drop them later, but you can't leave them sitting there in the chest. "Leave" doesn't work until it's empty.

               

My party divides a bunch of unknown items.

          
I gather from previous comments that this is a long one, and I'm going to be (as usual) playing it completely blind. I can see that there's a mapping skill (and one of my characters started with a map book), but I don't have any points in it yet. Ultimately, is the automap good enough to rely on, or should I start my Excel sheets as usual? I'm also happy to take opinions on the party situation. Next time, I'll let you know what I found in New City.

Time so far: 4 hours