I last played a tile-based, turn-based dungeon crawler in the 80's. I was looking for another one and found this - one of only two that I know of that are available on PS3. It's a shame that all of these games are on mobile systems these days.
I don't have much to compare this to besides the 80's games I played.
What I like most about this game are the dark corridors, atmosphere,I last played a tile-based, turn-based dungeon crawler in the 80's. I was looking for another one and found this - one of only two that I know of that are available on PS3. It's a shame that all of these games are on mobile systems these days.
I don't have much to compare this to besides the 80's games I played.
What I like most about this game are the dark corridors, atmosphere, turn-base/tile-based system, and hard difficulty. If you want to get lost in a dungeon and then barely make it out with only a few of your party members left alive, then this game has that.
It follows the formula of the older wizardry games almost exactly. The bad part about this is that there's really no improvements and several things are simplified (particularly the story).
The difficulty is great, but it relies more on randomness instead of anything that you can control. For example, all battles on a floor are random, regardless of where you are on that floor. So your very first fight on the floor might be an overpowered mob of enemies that's impossible for you to beat, or it might be a single weak enemy. Enemy placement based on where you are on the floor would have been better.
Also, enemies use attacks and skills randomly. They might heal themselves (when they don't need healing), defend (for no reason), use a standard attack, or they might use a devastating spell that wipes your party. There's no consistency in what each enemy type does, which makes saving after each battle almost a requirement on certain levels. Well, unless you have been grinding and have over-leveled, which then makes the game too easy (although you're still not impervious to instant random death by a fluke battle).
The thing is, is that I seem to like the randomness. Well, at least for this game. It's not much different from the 80's games I played, but I fully expect I'll get tired of this as I find and play more of these types of games.
I was having a fairly great time in the game, going to each new level, figuring out which enemies might wipe my party or use skills that decrease character levels (permanent level loss is horrible by the way - in any game). Getting new random weapons and armor from enemy drops, which helped me in later levels, was also great. And then level 10 came and it was over. It sure is short. I might have spent maybe 30 hours in the game, and I didn't want to double my purchase price of the game to get another 5 DLC levels.
It was quite fun finding new weapons when I was in a state of just barely killing enemies. But there wasn't nearly enough of this. One of my main fighters only had three different weapons throughout the entire game. The default weapon, the Katana I bought from the weapon shop, and a better Katana that I found in the dungeon. I found nothing else, not even +1 or +2 versions of those weapons.
To scratch that itch of progression and delving deeper into the dungeon, the game really needed an endless level mode or extra dungeon that you can progress through after the main story. But, there's none of that (unless you pay more for DLC - and it doesn't offer enough).
Fighting and combat mechanics are also basic. For the most part, everyone gets the same spells and attacks. Spells are named and described quite strangely (and some are mistranslated), but you eventually re-categorize them in your head as just single, row, or group attacks with different elements. Physical attacks are singe-target damage dealers only. No special things here. And then each character class gets a special ability, some of which are useless, so you'll naturally move toward turning your casters into Bishops and fighters into Samurais, just to get the most useful abilities.
The main story is basically a side quest. At some point, you get it, go to a few specific spots in the dungeon to read some short dialogue (about 6 different places), fight a few bosses, and then that's it. The last boss is also disappointingly easy compared to the other random battles on level 10. Although I might have just gotten lucky since it did just stand there and do nothing a few times.
So if you're looking for a first person, turn-based, tile-based dungeon crawler to play, and primarily only care about progression through a dungeon, you'll have some brief fun with this one. Just don't expect it to be a full game.… Expand
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost SoulsYour Score0 out of 10User Score
