Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (PC 2023 Remake) - Longplay Part 1/2 - No Commentary

The complete playlist for this game can be found here: • Wizardry: Proving Grou...
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Part 1 of my blind longplay of the 2023 remake of the first Wizardry game, Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. I'm playing the GOG version. This game came out of nowhere at me, I had no idea it was even being worked on until I saw it listed in the store recently. It's currently listed as Early Access specifically for bug fixes and polish, supposedly it's "feature complete" already. I've only seen some minor bugs for the most part, like the game saying a character has some brand new item from a treasure chest when they don't. There is one instance when I run away from a battle that my characters automatically pass through a teleporter and the game freaks out, making the walls phase in and out of existence until it just freezes.
This is the first time I've ever played any version of Wizardry 1. The game has a lot of the early CRPG roughness to it still where you can get steam rolled by enemies right at the very start of the game. It's not quite as bad as Might and Magic 1, but until you're fairly over-leveled for any given floor you can still have your entire party get wiped by a single bad encounter where the enemies surprise attack you. The game autosaves continuously, which is both good and bad. Getting your party members killed is pretty devastating in this. You get 2 chances to revive them and if both fail, that character is permanently dead. Having the party get wiped out is basically a show stopper since you'd have to train up a whole new team to try to reach the point in the maze the original characters died. Revives are also super expensive until you end up with a stupid amount of money. The further I've gotten into the game, the more frequently I've gone back to town to create backups of the save game. I've had to resort to save scumming a handful of times after my team got obliterated or one of the party members permanently died.
I do a lot of grinding for levels in the first part of the game and switch to grinding for money/items immediately after. Ironically I find the Death Ring near the end of my money grind, which sells for an insane amount of money. The keyboard controls in the game are a little clunky and hard to get used to. Some mouse support gets added in a later update after I've already been playing for a while and got used to the keyboard for everything. The "Identify" function also gets added at the same time along with a bunch of updated artwork for some of the characters and close ups of the enemies. The last couple of floors in the game get fairly difficult with a decent amount of random encounters that can basically insta-kill your party if they go before you. Turns out the end boss is not strong against the most powerful magic attacks and I'm able to take him out pretty quick when the time comes. I don't know what I was supposed to get out of the "hint" you're given on the wall in the final floor, I just ended up brute forcing the path to the final room and wrote down which directions ended up with forward progress until I made it through. Overall I liked the game and I'm glad I got to play through it.
In this part I go from the start of the game and explore down through all of floor 5.

[@dunetiger]

I love that the original interface can be overlaid or put in the corner as you have done. What an amazing touch.

[@pbdoughboyy]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool to see how the same exact area looked in the original game.

[@Sinareti]

This game looks amazing!

[@MatthewKruse-ri8ep]

I love this without any commentary. Thank you!

[@佐藤祐作-b6w]

時間がない中、楽しませていただいております。実況音声のない映像をアップロードしてくださいまして、どうもありがとうございます😊✨

[@JuanManuelDominguezSantana]

La Dificultad de este juego es una Barbaridad, y al principio de la partida lo hace casi injugable, creó que deberían Revisarlo y Ajustarlo, sí el Original fue así me alegró de haberlo pasado de largo ya que nunca tuve Apple II.

[@pbdoughboyy]

This is definitely the same difficulty as the original. They basically just put fancy graphics on top of it and made it run on modern systems. I've played other early CRPG's that do the same thing, where you can just get obliterated in the very first battle.

[@JuanManuelDominguezSantana]

Es que el Campamento tampoco sírve dé mucho, Cada vez que necesitas Resucitar o Subír Lv tíenes qué Salír a la Superficie, Un Tp ahorraría tíempo, Thx por él Gameplay!

[@evgeniyl7379]

Не,мне больше wizardry 8 по душе

[@Kamawan0]

Is there a way to smooth out the movement? It’s very jerky/hard on the eyes. I played the originals so I get that it is grid based, just wondering if they have accessibility options. Thanks! 🎉

[@pbdoughboyy]

I didn't see any options for changing the movement animation when I checked.

[@AdryianBoydDodd]

I played the original. But, I don't remember it being so hard to find a decent weapon. After I had access to the private elevator I skipped to floor 9. Still haven't found anything good.

[@pbdoughboyy]

There's definitely a lot of randomness to the item drops.

[@XX-sp3tt]

Aren't Kobold supposed to be dog like in this game?

[@pbdoughboyy]

It's possible. The sprite work in the original releases of the game may be somewhat open to interpretation, though I do think a lot of games had kobolds being dog-like in that timeframe.

[@rennieeves1316]

Is this a dragon quest wizardry mod? This looks awful

[@pbdoughboyy]

No, this is an official remake of the original Wizardry game by Digital Eclipse. The video is from when it was still in early access, so it wasn't completely finished.

[@rennieeves1316]

@pbdoughboyy thanx for the reply I do like wizardry allot, and have some thoughts on how it could take some modern market share so I'm just sayin.... I couldn't really enjoy your video because I couldn't unhear the DQ music.... and it bugged the crap outta me I hope to see a new wizardry but I think this is gonna miss the mark for me....

[@UNSTABLE111]

​@@rennieeves1316 have you not played the nes version?? Its the same music as that

[@rennieeves1316]

@UNSTABLE111 I did not, had no idea. I guess I'll just have to get over it 😆 Thanx!