Dungeon Crawlers!

[jyoung]

Gauntlet Legends 4-player on Dreamcast.

Had a lot of fun playing co-op on that one back in the day. Never did try the sequels on Gamecube/PS2.

[Thief Silver]

I spent about three hours last night playing the new Wizardry for PSN, and by playing I mean I spent two hours hitting X and O on the character create screen trying to get the max number of bonus points to add to the characters attributes. I ended up with 5 characters. Three of them had 30 BP, and then I got a 40 and a 47.
It's cheap of me to do, but fuck it. If the game designers didn't want you to do it, they would have capped the BP.

When I finally got into the dungeon I realized it was very dark. So I went back into town and bought a torch. Went back into the dungeon and used the torch. It didn't help much. Here's a vid of the opening of the game and some gameplay.



As you can see, the graphics leave a lot to be desired. It's been a while since I played Tales of the Forsaken Land, but I recall it looking better than this. I do like the character art though, though if there's more than one protrait for each race, I've yet to find it. I have two gnomes and it would be nice if they weren't twins.

I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. There are things that annoy me (the money system for one) but I do like how you're just thrown into it and you have to figure a lot of stuff out for yourself.




The nice thing is if you just want to try it, all your stuff from the trial version will carry over if you decide to buy it.
So...give it a try!

I am very curious and may buy this! Can't be worse than Class of Heroes.

[FuryFox]

I am very curious and may buy this! Can't be worse than Class of Heroes.

Assuming you meant Clash of Heroes, I'm a bit confused as I thought that game has been quite well received.

Also, it seems nothing like this, so I don't get the comparison.

[Compass]

Nah, he meant the garbagey Atlus/Acquire dungeon crawler for PSP, Class of Heroes.

[FuryFox]

Oh, well carry on then.

ps: they both look awful, but at least that character art in Wizardry is aces.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

This arrived on PSN yesterday for PSP/Vita, and I couldn't buy it quick enough. After years and years of listening to the deviants over at Warning! A Huge Podcast talk about it, I just had to play it.

For those not in the know it's made by Starfish, the company that made the Wizardry Empire games for the PS2 and a Wizardry for PSP. This game is Wizardry in all but name.
There are (I think) four Elminage games on PSP now (the most recent one is Elminage Gothic, it feature creatures from H.P. Lovecraft and looks phenom and is coming to 3DS), and this is the original which was a PS2 remake. I've put 3 hours into it now, and for fans of the genre I would say buying it is a no brainer. But if you're new to the genre or only dabble, you probably won't like this.

Graphically, it looks like a smoothed out PS1 era King's Field game. It ain't pretty. Even the character portraits are pretty generic and crappy looking. One neat feature that I've yet to take advantage of is that you can import your own character art. Just drop a 48x48 bmp or png into the photo folder on your memory stick and import it.




Here's a bit of gameplay.


So as you can see, not so great graphics and lots of menus. The menu system is a bit obtuse but that may mostly be attributed to a crappy localization.There are grammatical mistakes and odd translations all over the game. But considering that I never thought I would see it in English, I'll take this over nothing. After you register (create) your characters at the training school, you have to go to the bar and click "Friend is call" to form a party. If your character dies in the dungeon, you go to the temple to recover and instead of the character just being put back into your party, you have to choose "pick" off of the menu.
There is an electronic 10 page manual, but it's really not too helpful. It doesn't tell you what the differences in races or classes are, what objects do what, or anything really.
In the beginning the king tells you that you shouldn't go into the dungeon without an Angel's Fenestral. He doesn't have one to give you, but he can give you the components to make one. So I headed over to the Inn to make one because that's where the Alchemy warehouse is. I paid the 100 gold to use the warehouse, and then it tells me I have to have an Alchemist in my party. So I just lost 100 gold for nothing. I went to the inn to add an alchemist and then went back. I made my Angel's Fenestral and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it in the dungeon. Kind of aggravating! But this is WizardryElminage.
Half the fun is in learning the details.

I really like the music and for all the game's faults, I am having a lot of fun with it. If you're in the mood for an old school feeling and playing dungeon crawler, I would recommend it.
I can't wait for Gothic!

[Melf]

No PS3 version? Id love to play this but I'm not livin' la Vita loca.

[Yoshi]

Wow. That's some awesome art. I especially like the dragon guy in the fourth shot and Compass' winged vagina in the second one.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Funny that you should mention Compass.
My all girl team is as follows:
Dekan the human fighter
Alis the devilish lord
Fatima the fairy thief
Samus the gnome hunter
Yuna the elf bishop
AND
Compass the dwarf alchemist

Yuna joined as a last minute replacement for a character I usually name after a rude owl who isn't my friend anymore.

[Yoshi]

I'm never, ever going to refer to that poster as anything other than "Compass the Dwarf Alchemist" from now on. In fact, if Nick has a heart, he'll change the name officially.