Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 17th, 2011

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The vibrant city of Aitox serves as a hub world where you'll receive quests from your guild (which necessitate going out into the dungeons), revive fallen allies (again, you'll do this a lot), buy items, and identify mysterious loot. Though these respites in town don't last long, they're crucial to use to spread the wealth around. If you don't hedge your bets properly by divvying up gold among all party members, you can find the richest member killed in combat, with no way of retrieving their small fortune later. There are no mulligans in Wizardry -- which is both charming and infuriating in an age of "Super Guide" features. Any other way would be untrue to the series, but surely some middle ground could have been found.

But it could also alienate veterans for simplifying too much. You can't specify what kind of spells your magic users should learn -- that happens automatically when you level up. Also, there are fewer classes to choose from than usual, and gone is the free roaming from Wizardry 8. Navigation is done tile by tile, which means you're walking straight into ambush after ambush from wererats, orcs, goblins, or dragons. Oops.

What I wanted from this Wizardry was what I have wanted from each iteration of the Wizardry series: simple combat, massive dungeons, and enough plot to keep me plowing forward. If you are going into a Wizardry game expecting a plot on par with the finest fantasy novels and a cast of characters that will stay with you the rest of your life, then I am guessing you are high on some sort of pharmaceutical. W:LOLS is not the video game equivalent of '˜A Song of Fire and Ice', it is pure dungeon crawler. The writing that is present is simple and to the point, with a plot thin enough to write on a playing card. This would sound like a negative to some, but it is a refreshing drink of Mountain Dew for me. Exposition is fine in a game I am playing for the plot, like L.A. Noire, but far too often plot is crammed into every orifice of games that do not need it. Brevity is a sign of assured confidence, something this game has in spades.

Like the writing, the combat system is simple enough to be a sign of genius, or at least, skill. The party of six is divided into two rows. The front row fight the enemies directly, but also take damage directly. The back row are more limited in their function, but are just as vital. Dropping a well-placed spell or potion into the fray is a rewarding experience, for sure. Each class also has a special skill, the usefulness of which varies widely. Strategic thinking is rewarded charging in without a game plan is penalized with death.

What this game teaches you is that your characters are very, very vulnerable. Fighters begin with a single dagger and they wear robes without developing equipment as quickly as possible, you will die. terribly. This equipment isn't cheap, either. For each successful dungeon encounter you might make a small percentage of what some significant upgrades might cost. if you survive. As for casters or any support characters, you will need them in the back row (the right side of the screen) or else they will be picked off like the weaklings they are.

It had been so long since the last Wizardry that I'd forgotten I'd lost all memory of what it was like to not rely on Phoenix Downs or Revival Potions. When a character dies in Wizardry, they stay dead until you drag their sorry corpse bact to a church and pray that the gods will be kind enough to allow you to have them back. Sometimes, the gods will only do a halfway decent job in that respect, which might cost you even more hard-earned cash to finish their shoddy work.

With all that said, it is hard to quantify the appeal of a retro game like this. Part of the reason you keep playing is the thrill of exploring ever-deeper dungeon levels and seeing what else there is out there to try and kill. Despite the minimalistic visuals, sticking around to see what lies around the next darkened corner is a big part of the attraction. The stark visuals are entirely in keeping with the retro theme, of course, although the backdrops are perhaps a little too dark, even when you have assistance in the form of a spell. Another issue has to do with the six character portraits that line both sides of the screen to provide a look at the party you're leading and to keep an eye on their overall health by tracking hit points. These big and brightly lit anime-flavored icons contrast so much with the darkened dungeons that it is hard to make out where you're going when adventuring underground. Being able to turn them off would have been welcome, so you could better immerse yourself in the spooky dungeon corridors. The anime character art is also a bit extreme in spots, with some of the big-eyed female heroes dressed in risque outfits that are wholly inappropriate for exploring a dungeon stocked with goblins and dragons. Creatures are more appropriately drawn, although they are represented by flat, mostly unmoving models that don't have a great deal of detail. There are a lot of different types of monsters, ranging from floating evil coins and orcs to dragons and demons, but all you see of them are simple little figures that don't have a great deal of visual impact.

(...)

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is one uncompromising game. To really appreciate this sort of RPG, you need to be either someone who fondly remembers the good old days or someone who has always wanted to take a trip back in time to the dungeon crawlers that dad used to play. As such, it's either a good game or an awful one depending on your perspective. But the developers have clearly succeeded in their efforts to turn back the clock for the nostalgia-minded, so you have to admire the effort and the end results, even if you can't fully get into its old-time atmosphere.

Players begin the game just as in previous Wizardry titles by picking a fantasy race for their character such as Elf, Gnome, or standard Human. Each race begins with a fixed set of base stats that can be raised or lowered by applying bonus points. This is the first time Labyrinth shows its archaic RPG roots, because the amount bonus points is randomly generated each time a new character is created. Back in the day, this random point generation was supposed to emulate the rolling of dice to generate stats in table-top RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons. Players who wanted better stats often just restarted the character creation process in order to (re-roll) their character. It's a tactic that works in this game as well, which is to say that if you want the highest stats possible all you have to do it continually re-roll. If the whole re-rolling process seems a bit silly and unnecessary to modern players then welcome to RPG gaming circa 1982 kids.

Labyrinths of Lost Souls old school design tendencies don't end with character creation, but that's not necessarily a bad thing depending on the player. The developers clearly had nostalgia in mind while creating the game, which incorporates several game-play mechanics that are rarely if ever present in modern games of any type. Things like having to pay to identify items and treasure picked up in dungeons before they can be used or even sold might seem frustrating and senseless to some gamers, while instilling a sense of wonder and anticipation in others. The absolute and complete lack of any type of tutorial or in-game instruction could be seen as a roadblock to players unfamiliar with older Wizardry games, then again it could encourage players to experiment with the game as they might have back in the days of gaming yore.

Game-play is fairly straight forward in Labyrinth of Lost Souls, and this is where the game will resonate with all gamers. Newly minted characters arrive in the town of Aitox which is easily navigated by menus. Aitox is a convenient location for new adventurers as there are a few dungeons just outside. There's a guild in town where you can pick up quests that will send you into the dungeons to kill monsters, collect items, and even make deliveries. These fetch-style quests will seem very familiar to both current and veteran RPG fans, as will the very basic core RPG mechanics such as stat points and equipment management that now permeate every genre of today's game landscape.

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