Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PC) Review

RPGs have come a long way since they first started appearing in video games in the '80s. Some of the original ones like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior, still retain some degree of charm and character even after 30 years. One lesser-known series is Wizardry, which actually predates the others by a couple of years. Taking many themes from Dungeons & Dragons, with its focus on classes, stats and finding treasure, many modern gamers can see the roots somewhat set down in this old series.

For better or worse, this has changed little from its origins, which means many modern gaming conventions are missing, something that will scare off players. A dungeon crawler through and through, there is little time wasted in a town or anything beyond just getting into the dungeon and start crawling. It opens up with you choosing an avatar of sorts from a few different classes, male or female. The portraits look nice, and from screenshots this might give an otherwise inaccurate picture into what the game actually contains.

The problems start pretty quick. There are subclasses, which are very vital to actually get far in here, as these give special moves. In order to get them, the character has to have enough various stats like strength to unlock said class. At the beginning characters can be re-rolled, giving them a random amount of stats, and prepare to spend a lot of time here trying to get a good roll to actually make a character viable and have a class. Skipping this part can prove to be disastrous later on.

Hoping into a dungeon starts at first as a typical experience, moving forward and turning 90 degrees, advancing to the next spot. The first couple of monsters go down in a single hit. With a party of six, it seems the player is stacked pretty deep, but only the front row can fight - and unless the back row wants to cast one of its very limited spells, they will have to be content with picking 'defend' 90% of the time. Advancing around even on the first floor, the player will encounter pure black zones that are a complete nightmare. There is little indication if you can move forward, or if you are not moving forward and merely running into the same wall. Stumbling around through the dark, the player finally gets back into the light. Wait… where are you anyway?

...At this point a horrifying truth emerges. There is no auto map. There is no map period, unless the player happened to know to buy a map in the item shop. Good luck even trying to get back to the exit. Further problems can crop up, such as getting poisoned, which the slow HP drain is as good as death when there is no antidote, unless these were also purchased. Enemies themselves have an insane variance to them. Sometimes a single one will pop up and is killed in one hit, to groups that are rows deep and take large beatings.

In the end this is more masochistic than fun. Yes, there are things you can do to prepare: bring a map, get antidotes, reroll perfect characters so they actually have a subclass, and so on, but the largest question is... why?! There are much friendlier dungeon crawlers that can still be challenging or interesting. This one's challenge is much more from fighting its design that anything innate in its character. There might be some fun for an awfully specific type of players, but the fun would be found mostly in spite of itself.