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Old 08-06-2003, 11:14 PM   #9
Tarjan
Dungeon Master
 

Join Date: July 16, 2003
Location: Skara Brae
Age: 49
Posts: 52
The Vorpal Bunnies WERE amusing... and scary! Actually the first few Wizardry games had a very amusing sense of humor throughout. Remember the diagrams in the manual explaining the concept of Armor Class? If I remember correctly, there was a guy wearing nothing but a barrel around his midsection, and he had an armor class of 10. Then there was a fully armored tank, which had an armor class of -10 (you had to see the pictures to understand why this was funny.)

Anyway, to keep things in perspective, here are some things I DON'T miss from the first few Wizardry games--

1. Losing stats when advancing. I hated that. I'd be so thrilled to see that my character gained a level, but then I be informed that he gained "-2 to Strength." What?! Yes, to those of you who haven't played the earlier games, characters occasionally LOST points when advancing!

2. Having to leave the dungeon in order to advance a character. Characters could only advance while sleeping, and they could only sleep in the stables. This also meant healing your characters was pretty difficult/tedious until you had a fairly competent spellcaster.

3. Those vector graphics. Yes, I said it before, and I'll say it again. Oddly though, at the time, they didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game. Just required a bit more imagination.

4. As was already pointed out, you needed characters from Wizardry 1 before you could play Wizardry 2. And not just any characters. They had to be pretty darn powerful! I had almost completed Wizardry 1 when I decided to transfer my characters to Wizardry 2. I figured they would be pretty powerful on the first few levels of Wiz2. WRONG! They were slaughtered immediately!

5. The dark areas (and smoke filled areas) in which you could see nothing but a gray box on your screen, forcing you to walk around blindly. Never quite did understand what was supposed to be fun about that.


All that aside, there is one little nod to the earlier games that I noticed immediately-- those slimes that you fight in the monastery. Remember how they populated the first level of "Proving Grounds" too? As soon as I saw them in Wizardry 8, I thought "Aha! These guys again!"
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