Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Switch) Review

[@hakjoongkim7575]

Wizardry II & III with this innovation. They’d be awesome!

[@JingerBreadMann]

Yes! Knight of Diamonds was awesome!!

[@MichaelZipkin]

This remake looks fantastic! **Insert obligatory Switch physical copy comment here**

[@huggyscolex]

You got your wish!

[@MichaelZipkin]

Sweet!

[@blackdragoncyrus]

There's a game on the DS called The Dark Spire, which was inspired by this series.

[@UndeadEggmiester]

This game will break your kneecaps with a baseball bat then while you're on the ground it will kick you in the nuts and steal your girl.

[@justmeok2]

How so? I know very little of the game but im interested, one thing that has me doubting is that i hear theres some level down if i die? Perma death?

[@UndeadEggmiester]

@@justmeok2 the game is brutally difficult you will die a lot and there's perma death for characters. You can recruit higher level ones but they also cost a lot more.

[@tobymaxmax658]

Oh yeah. This and Ultima 1 for NES were the most brutal jrpg I played.

[@SchizoidPersonoid]

@@tobymaxmax658 The Wizardry and Ultima games released for the NES were all ports of American PC games several years after the release of the originals. They're technically CRPGs, but they did inspire the early JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

[@burningkarma6400]

​@@SchizoidPersonoidcrazy Canada doesn't get recognition as the first RPGs on console It's commonly known wRPGs created the genre. jRPG just blew up very soon after

[@DMT-ix9zj]

I just party wiped on first floor like WTF 2 rows of bushwackers. Like why are they even on 1st floor they were hitting me for 3-5 every hit so they just wiped me like instantly .

[@UToobUsername01]

You mean like those girls in Goblin Slayer?

[@ozzyfanatic666]

​@@UToobUsername01Hahaha, great comment!

[@petitknightcreations7431]

Didn't know Wizardry was getting such a lovingly made remake! I'm not the best at First person dungeon crawlers (like Etrian Odyssey for instance), but I'm intrigued about this piece of gaming history for sure!

[@socrates0603]

Thanks for the review! Wizardry was the game that gave me Apple envy back in the 80s (I grew up with Atari computers). I’ve always been interested in the earlier Wizardry games, so this is fantastic. The only Wizardry game I played was Bane of the Cosmic Forge on the PC. My experience with AD&D started and stopped with the first edition, so I will feel right at home with the armor class rating :)

[@videostash413]

Thanks for letting us know about this, what music are you using in this review?

[@RockOCotte]

Can you play without character portraits, like wonderswan color version ?

[@WR3ND]

I bought it on Steam and I will by it for the Switch too, if there is a cartridge.

[@lampseven4894]

One of my crowning achievements is finishing wizardry 6 with both the samurai sword and Excalibur.

[@michaelkneist3905]

Never get that far 🙈🙈🙈 but almost hahahahhah.....bane was just awesome and still is imo...

[@christermonsen5637]

beat wizardry 8 on hardcore once... probly played that game a 100 times :D

[@teenkitsune]

If you enjoy old school wizardry I highly recommend Class of Heroes.

[@kidrobot.]

lol

[@PhantomJM]

I still have my original NES copy of the game along with the guide book. I wonder how much of it is still applicable to the remake. I suppose I'll need to dig it out and find out.

[@Terron29]

Switch physical was just announced so Ill pick that up for sure :)

[@Redeemed75]

I'm still waiting.for.a.Remaster of Eye of the Beholder!!!

[@michaelkneist3905]

Yes me too and a remake of might and magic 3

[@christermonsen5637]

@@michaelkneist3905 the normal one or the heroes of m and m 3?

[@josephpurdy8390]

1e AD&D initiative is much different than modern versions.

[@ChaosBlitzBeta]

Without the WIzardy series, Etrian Odyssey would not exist, same goes for a lot of other first person dungeon crawlers.

[@anglonicus]

It’s on switch too?! I had no idea awesome!

[@madcat789]

They remade this? How come I've not seen any advertisements for it - also, is there a physical edition?

[@punkydudester3]

Looks great, they should have implemented a rules list & other things a manual should have in the options menu as you play. I hope you can save anywhere & has auto-saves. Us people with jobs & families can only play a short time every week.

[@TravelinFolkie]

I played it in Early Access on Steam. It does have auto-save and when you exit the game or return to the title, it saves where you are. I had to leave a game early and exited the game and I returned back to where I was in the dungeon. Not 100% sure if it'll be the same for consoles, but I would expect the same.

[@garythebard]

Nice. I generally enjoy these dungeon crawls and having the overlay of the old graphics is really cool. I love when remakes have that feature. Diablo 2 remaster did that really well.

[@Kamiyouni]

Been playing Wizardry Variants Daphne. Very fun too.

[@Uncle-Jay]

I'd love to see a modern release of Dungeon Hack or Eye of the Beholder.

[@Ssargent888]

Tale of the forsaken land was some random game my parents bought me with my ps2 I got for Christmas. They had no idea what it was. Guy at funcoland said it was a good game. I had no clue what was doing but that game especially the music just was so amazing to me.

[@michaelkneist3905]

It was truly a great game...I was impressed by the new things they add to the older games...for example special actions that could hit them all....and still was the old gameplay....total score if U ask me.....if u have any chance try bane of the cosmic forge - wizardry 6.....hard as fuck but so much fun.....once u understand how wizardry is working u getting better on it....the most important thing was saving.....every time u have the chance too... specially after won battle's....stay on the first floor until U get to level 4 or 5 and then start exploring the whole castle.....it was a pain in the ass after spending hours to get a good party by rolling the dices countless times hahahaha...but even this was sooooo exciting....another RPG were I spend almost a couple of days to form the right party was the black eye....that was unbelievable hahahahahha.....but awesome

[@focabox5594]

Great video. I was looking for it! Oh, what's the song in the video background? It definitely seems something from a game.

[@d12.studios]

This reminds me of Bard‘s Tale, which I love a great deal. Thanks for putting the game on my radar, gonna check it out 👍

[@jimbryant2157]

Love the original Bard's Tale series. I completed the first game while working overnight at a radio station in Sacramento (with the help of the station's engineer...). Definitely filled the log hours during the slow winter months!

[@d12.studios]

@@jimbryant2157 I was still very young when the first one came out. Couldn‘t wait to get home from school to continue playing. Played the remaster when it came out and finally defeated Mangar… after more than 30 years 😊

[@UToobUsername01]

The big names of the 1980s: Wizardry, Ultima, Gold box, Bard's Tale. 1990s: Daggerfall, Dungeon Master, Might and Magic Now: Wayward Realms. (Daggerfall spiritual sucessor.) All these old games gave birth to the "open world rpg" game genre where people demanded to have a giant overworld map along with dungeons too. Dungeons were no longer scary enough. Getting lost in the forest could be just as scary. Future: AI controlled party members that speak and act like the characters and take actions like other players controlling them.

[@robertsides3626]

"Combat is based on the idea of having 3 melee fighters in front." Except you, Thief. Squishy son of a... I'm SICK OF RESSING YOU!

[@grey_wulf]

Other games like this? Thanks

[@Idkwhtpsipto]

If you have access to any type of computer, Eye of the Beholder. On the phone you can get Legend of Grimrock . Console has Labyrinth of Refrain.

[@grey_wulf]

@@Idkwhtpsipto Thanks!

[@Idkwhtpsipto]

No problem hope you can access one or all of them 😃

[@_knaff]

Heroes of the Monkey Tavern

[@anthonybfernandez]

Mary Skelter, and like he said Dragon Quest. But they are both definitely jrpgs.

[@CursedCommentaries]

1:44 *cooms*

[@darrenmifsud5477]

Great Review, thank you!

[@jimbryant2157]

I am old enough to have played the original version on my Apple IIe. I dabbled a bit in #s 2 and 3 (pirated version imported from Singapore by a friend...), but the one that grabbed my attention was Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna (named after Sir-Tech's Andrew Greenberg - Werdna is Andrew spelled backwards). I just liked the idea that I was the bad guy and had to fight off groups of adventurers trying to take my ill-gotten gains!

[@Tanno_Buchino]

Interesting remake. This gameplay reminds me of Legend of Grimrock.

[@wannabkain4400]

Interested in this, waiting on physical

[@JOEmega64]

You might really enjoy the PS2 Wizardry. Tales of the Forsaken Kingdom, or something like that.

[@pathfinder1983]

I forgot THAC0 is gone now.

[@Geidi174]

Great review!

[@Bajso84]

Wizardry 8 port on Switch please!

[@newhope33]

I liked the game until the last floor there it falls apart, just far to many party wipes on that level to justify playing any longer get surprised by a decent sized mob of monsters like level 10 mages or plague gaints and it's pretty much a guaranteed wipe, and by that time in the game you can't really get any stronger because leveling gets ridiculous level 1-12 isn't to bad but 13 plus takes 300k+ experience and the average fight gives 500-2000 experience per hero.

[@PoundShopOrwell]

Badly needs patching. Keeps hanging mid fight like it’s waiting for an input and all you can do is exit to Home Screen and force close - hoping it has saved as far as possible. I would avoid buying right now. Very annoying for a £35 game.

[@patricknilsson4360]

First Legend of Grimrock, and now this? It is still awesome to play on the Switch.

[@UToobUsername01]

Don't forget Etrian Odyssey (the JRPG series inspired by these games containing Yuzo Koshiro 16-bit music. He was the guy behind Streets Of Rage soundtracks and Revenge of Shinobi) Etrian Odyssey lets you make the grid based maps like the old days when you would use grid paper to track where you are in the dungeons so you didn't get lost in them. The Switch has a few of these: Vapporum, Vaporum: Lockdown, Opperencia, Undernauts: Labryrinth of Yomi, Heroes of Monkey Tavern, Moonshades, Legends of Amberland, Drawgeon, Legend of Grimrock, Etrian Odyssey 1-3. They are all on switch man. They all use the oldschool Wizardry and Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder thing. Get all these games if you want to see more of them.

[@GamingTranceSeer]

The predecessor of etrian odyssey

[@MackerelSushi]

Whoa! Time to pull out the graph paper…

[@macsdf1]

no need, has built in map now if u turn on the option. i might still have my old graph paper maps somewhere lol

[@javiero1711]

It looks amazing and I’m not even familiar with the franchise 😱

[@donstarlancer]

NICE

[@yasinachekzai2567]

Probably too old school for my taste. I do hope though that this will only be a first step, and that they will either remake more contemporary Wizardry games as well, or perhaps even make a new one. This genre, in concept, is too good to just go extinct and have its old classics reanimated every now and then. Some modern quality of life features could make a game like this work great, as more recent Japanese attempts, like Etrian Odyssey or the Elminage series ("Elminage Original" being my personal favourite in the genre) have shown. I believe that western devs should look back into the genre as well. The core dungeon crawling gameplay offers a great skeleton for a dev to add all sorts of unique ideas to it, not much different from the currently much more popular deck-building formula.

[@MistyKathrine]

They make new Wizardry games all of the time though most are Japan only. Wizardry Variants: Daphne is currently in beta and will likely release later this year.

[@michaelkneist3905]

But to be honest I don't wanna have it too modern...sure graphic, sound I do appreciate but gameplay leave it as it was and the difficult level.....that's why we loved those games

[@calebb7012]

It looks like a rushed mobile game. 😂

[@christermonsen5637]

didn't see any money grab did you? cause mobile phone is 98% credit card and 2% game..

[@jaym5118]

First person = PASS