Requesting honest non-review opinions

[chuckpolk]

Point blank - games that are “in development” phase while dropping purchasable DLC makes me wary.

That said.

I love the Wizardry concept. Since the earliest games, and even the 6-8 variations. I absolutely loved “Tale of the Forsaken Land”. I have enjoyed the Elminage games, Stranger of Sword City, and even found an odd appreciation for Mary Skelter. I have played all the “Sorcerer” clone titles and am currently working on Wandroid #4.

Which is why it is so perplexing that I did not enjoy “Labyrinth of Lost Souls”. I can’t even pinpoint exactly what it is, because every flaw is also found within the other games which I still enjoy.

If I had to point at something, it’s probably the meaningless backtracking to find quest-related locations and the grinding for fetch quest items.

Has anyone had this somewhat inexplicable experience? And if so, does 5 Ordeals seem to you more like classic Wizardry, or more like Labyrinth?

And, does it feel like an unfinished game, waiting for the next DLC to - hopefully - finish the experience?

[nftyw]

There's not much closure in most scenarios in my opinion, you do the main quest, get a little reward that you've probably outgrown, and then maybe have a bonus dungeon or boss open up. The game is 99% fighting, mapping, exploring, and looting, the plot points are usually very sparse and easily glossed over, unless there are hints for a puzzle or item that is needed. Though, I've played a few user scenarios that had some nice story bits or throwbacks to other wizardry games, some of which exceed the level of polish in some official scenarios.

Backtracking is going to be a thing. One of the stupid random people I ran into on an early floor would not be relevant until hours later, and you can easily miss and/or forget about both of these points of interest entirely if you aren't through (and you do need to finish this sidequest to progress). There's a lot of 'quests' where the solution is to fight an enemy, find an item and bring it to spot X so you can get one of three items that you need to unlock progress, etc. etc lather rinse repeat.

There is a teleportation spell that you can use to really cut down on the level of downtime and wandering you need to do, but that's a late-game spell so it's a convenience you have to earn.

The more you enjoy the essence of mapping dungeons, figuring out the puzzles, delving deeper to get better loot and stronger enemies to fight and becoming stronger yourself, the more this game might appeal to you. It does autosave, so if you wipe out in a dungeon you'll have to get another squad to fight to and evac out your fallen heroes.

Things will probably get more interesting when the Scenario Creator is released in English, because at the moment only a handful of user-made Japanese scenarios have English text. Then the game will lean very much towards what kind of experiences users create.

[acslacker]

I'm a bit mixed as well on Labyrinth of Lost Souls. I don't think it is a bad game, but overall I felt the area to explore was small. I never finished it. The last boss seemed to be a gear check more than anything. I had the levels, but never found the really good gear.

5 Ordeals is definitely more along the lines of the original Wizardry than Labyrinth of Lost Souls in terms of classes, statistics and party management.

Unfinished? The individual scenarios are complete games in themselves, but yeah, the overall project will never feel complete to me without the English editor. It's my understanding that the devs do not intend to provide that, unfortunately. If I break down and grab DLC for 5 Ordeals, it'll be at a very high discount.

Help me out... What is Sorcerer?

Labyrinth of Refrain - Coven of Dusk and Labyrinth of Galleria - The Moon Society are missing from your list. They were missing from mine too for the longest time. I took a shot at them, and they're crazy good. It'll be difficult for me to go back to a 5-6 member party after Labyrinth's huge 15+ reserves parties I make. Not perfect... I'll be stuck grinding for Red Stone Gems for a while (very poor design decision...). Overall, these have been two of my best dungeon-crawling experiences. Probably second and third only to Wizardry - Tale of the Forsaken Land.

[chuckpolk]

Originally posted by acslacker:

Help me out... What is Sorcerer?

It is a clone series for iOS. It has 6 scenarios, each one borrows heavily from the Wizardry title it imitates - even moreso than the Wandroid titles. (On the App Store, search for “Sorcerer #1”) It’s old school, wire frame dungeons, and comically horrible translation issues, and it’s fantastic!

Another somewhat interesting attempt at Wizardry cloning is “Niz” and “Miz” also on iOS.

Thank you for the suggestions for other titles!

[chuckpolk]

Originally posted by nftyw:

Backtracking is going to be a thing.

The backtracking issue I had in Lost Souls had to do with events triggering long after you’ve cleared floors. Many quests had you going back, because someone or something was spotted, say, on the 4th floor. You’ve just cleared the 8th floor. Now you’re having to go through the entire 4th floor again until you find the trigger spot. And that’s if you’re lucky; some quests are even more vague, “Somewhere on the middle floors” types. And considering the game doesn’t have many quests to begin with, it’s just a cheap way to extend gameplay by making you go through the same floors over and over again.

[Rocky Glacier]

Level 4 is impossible without a step by step walk through, and even then without no magic or potions .
the game is too hard , not worth the money.