Game Play 5 out 5
Replayablity 4 out 5
Graphics 3 out 5
Sound 4 out 5
Details 4 out 5
Fun Factor 5 out 5

What is very likely the last of the Wizardy game, Wizardy 8 does manage to go out with a bang. An excellent and well balanced game system, a complex world to explore and multiple ways of getting to the end give this game a lot more role playing then most computer RPGs.

The game takes place on the world of Dominus, where both you and the Dark Savant have come following the events of the previous game. Much of the game centers around getting the three items needed for Ascension. But there are also a lot of subplots and side quests to mix things up. The game manages to balance the fairly direct main plot with enough side plots and plot twists to keep things interesting.

One of the strengths of the Wizardy series was their complex worlds with multiple paths from the start to end. This is well executed in Wizardy 8, where there are several different groups that you can ally with or become enemies of. Most of the factions are inclined to like you, either because they consider you a hero or because they consider you usefull. Despite this, it is possible to win the game by simply killing everything you can, making enemies of every faction in the game.

The complexity of the game also shows up in the detailed game mechanics and wide range of possible parties that you can assemble. Your party has 6 characters, and you can recruit 2 more allies from among the population of Dominus. But there are 15 character classes, all of which have something to recommend them.

The game mechancis are complex enough it will take you a while to master them. But they are effective, fun and fair. Fair here means that, for the most part, both the monsters and the PC are laboring under the same set of rules. For instance, characters in Wizardy 8 have stamina, that is used up by doing pretty much anything. But monsters also have the same problem and there are some monsters that can be effectivly fought by running them out of stamina rather then trying to directly kill them.

The one place the game seems to cheat blatently, is that monsters armed with ranged weapons have unlimited ammo, and those using spells seem to have unlimited spell points. But those armed with ranged weapons do have the problem that they can't fire through allies to hit you, and missed shots may accidently nail an ally. By the same token, monster spell casters have the same chance of misfiring spells as your PCs do. There was actually one major fight that I won because a monster trying to cast mass death had the spell backfire and wiped out half of his own side.

One of the best things in the game is the way your characters have character. You assign each character in your party a personality, which controls the voice and message used by your character to make various game annoucements. Thus, rather then having a single generic "Out of ammunition" message, one character might say "Give me somthing to shoot" while another says "I need more ammuntion." This sounds trivial, but the comments are often hilarious and give the characters more sense of being people then most games.

One of my characters has a female, southern bell voice. When poisoned she sometimes annouces "This feels worse then when they tell you how much they love their wives." Another character, an ill tempered mage, commented that a certain NPC was "a kind and nice man, I hate him."

There is a wide range of monsters you can face, all of which are well animated. The game makes good use of skins and modular enemy forms to mix things up. The polygon count is not super high though, and the end result is more Quake II then Quake III. The game worlds large maps, detailed world, and high quality bit maps largly offset this though and the end result is better looking then many games with higher polygon counts.

Other then the excellent voice acting, the sound is average. Installation and game stability are good. There was only one case where the game locked up do to a game bug. The game manual explains the mechanics and background well. If by some chance you still have a Wizardy 7 end game save, you can load that in Wizardy 8 and it has some significant impact, controling both your starting location and there are some items that can be had only if you carry them over from Wizardy 7.

Amusingly enough, the game does save your final posistion. So if by some chance there is a Wizardy 9 you may be able to load your Wizardy 8 characters.

Overall, Wizardy 8 pushes into the top 10 RPG games I've ever played. It offers real depth rather then eye candy, and does it well.

Jay