Dark Savant Trilogy arrives on GOG

[sirdilznik]

Prepare your arses for a propper whooping, the very epitome 'brutally difficult' is now on GOG so we can punish ourselves yet again. Of course, I'm speaking of Wizardry 6-8, better known as the Dark Savant Trilogy. People these days laud Dark Souls for being brutally difficult, that game has got nothing on the Dark Savant Trilogy. Wizardry 6-8 is the Ghosts'n Goblins or Battletoads of the cRPG world.

Needless to say, as soon as these games go on sale, I'm scooping them up and preparing to digitally self-flagellate.

[deathknight1728]

Prepare your arses for a propper whooping, the very epitome 'brutally difficult' is now on GOG so we can punish ourselves yet again. Of course, I'm speaking of Wizardry 5-7, better known as the Dark Savant Trilogy. People these days laud Dark Souls for being brutally difficult, that game has got nothing on the Dark Savant Trilogy. Wizardry 5-7 is the Ghosts'n Goblins or Battletoads of the cRPG world.

Needless to say, as soon as these games go on sale, I'm scooping them up and preparing to digitally self-flagellate.

How does this game set 6-8 compare with Legacy (redshift) and other games of similar style? I didn't like Might and magic one bit but found that I prefer isometric top down like Eschalon to first person any day of the week.

My favorite party-based rpgs are Avernum, Bg EE, Avadon, and Planet Stronghold.

I don't mind first person so long as its turnbased and not too archaic. I might have to start with Wizardry 8 or 7 as 6 looks too hard to look at. Either way Im glad that gog still putting out old games!

[sirdilznik]

Oops, I meant to write 6-8, not 5-7. Corrected OP. I can't compare it to Legacy since I haven't played it. There is some similarity to the early Might & Magic games, when they were still turn-based, though I always found the Wizardry games to be far more in depth and hardcore. Might & Magic felt a bit like Wizardry-lite, more forgiving, more newbie friendly. Wizardry will chew up and spit out newbies.

[severian]

Gosh, I remember those. I took me 3 months completing W6 and more than 6 months for W7. I still have my pencil maps.

They are demanding and rewarding. Never managed to beat Fiend of 9 Wolrds.

I tried playing W8 but combat system was too slow and clumsy - far from I remember in parts 6&7.
I almost died form heart attack several times, playing W7 ^_^ due to it`s rapid jRPG style monster encounters. Puzzles are decent, combat requires focus and perfect tactical approach. And some luck...
I also remember i has an almost perfect lockpicking game mechanics.

[noname]

The only one I ever played was w8 and that was years ago but I remember it as being a great game although very difficult. I never finished it though. I got to the point where the battles were so difficult that I knew I needed another level to continue. So I checked to see how many experience points I needed to level up: around 3 million!!! That's when I got discouraged. I calculated how many of these very difficult battles I needed to level up and lost interest. I admit that if I had the game I would try it again.

[sirdilznik]

They're definitely very lengthy and very difficult games. I doubt kids these days (oh boy, I sound like a grandparent) would have the patience and nerve to complete one of these games. Between the 3 games it will probably take some 400 hours to complete the trilogy... and that's a rather optimistic estimate.

Still, as severian wrote, the games are quite rewarding if you can put in the time and effort to finish them. The systems are deep and give you tons of options to make a variety of party members and you have to really think through every battle (and rub a rabbit's foot), you can't sleepwalk through anything or you'll get MURDERED.

[sirdilznik]

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on 6 & 7, I'll get 8 when it goes on sale. I won't be finishing 6 & 7 any time soon anyway, due to the aforementioned length of the games. First up, I'm going to read up on some guides to the games. I'm not looking for a walkthrough, just some character creation and advancement pointers as I vaguely remember there being some quirks, things that were pretty much useless in 6 being very useful in 7 and/or 8 and such. I know some choices made at character creation wouldn't be a very big deal because your stats would change so much, but other choices would have deep ramifications a hundred hours later in the game, or in the following games. Seeing as I plan to use the same party for all 3 games, importing them into each subsequent game, it seems like a good idea to brush up on this stuff I had mostly forgotten since playing these games 10-20 years ago. Better that then to find out I had royally botched my character builds 200 hours into the trilogy.

[noname]

Yeah, MURDER is right! That's what I mostly remember. You must be using dosbox or something. I couldn't even play Wiz 8 anymore after upgrading to Win XP.

[sirdilznik]

Yeah, MURDER is right! That's what I mostly remember. You must be using dosbox or something. I couldn't even play Wiz 8 anymore after upgrading to Win XP.

Yeah, the GOG version comes bundles with dosbox.

[severian]

class changing in W7 was often a dead end.
I remember that the best approach was to choose race and start in simple classes (or import from W6), and then change into more efficient one.
Like female fighter -> Valkyrie
or felpurr thief ->ninja/samurai
or elf ranger->bard (very useful class due to limitless spell charges using instruments)

Bishops and Lords were quite useless - too high exp. caps. Psionics - too many monsters with psi resistance.

And remember to take Diamond Ring if importing from W6 - great reward in W7.

[sirdilznik]

I think people can get carried away with class changing in both W6 and W7. There's a tradeoff to class changing, and it's generally beneficial to a point, but becomes counterproductive eventually. The main goal, in my mind, is to pick up good spellcasting skills somewhere along the way, then settle into a good hybrid class like Valkyrie, Ninja, Samurai, Monk, Lord, and Ranger. I tend to start with multiple Priests in W6 because of their good spellcasting and not being as crippled physically as mages or alchemists, and I always make sure to have at least 1 bard to start. Another consideration I'm making is the inclusion of both a Hobbit and a Mook. Neither of those races is particularly good in W6, but as I plan to keep this party throughout the trilogy, I think it will be worth it because both of those races become considerably better in W8.

[Sslaxx]

Got it. Playing it. Intending to go through 6-7-8. Going to be using the DOS version of 7, seeing as I've heard it's generally superior.