This is a good thread imo.
The waitress girl has cool hair
Between suffering through many of this genreās recent entries and mauveās reports from the front, Iāve come to realize that not only is Etrian Odyssey a very good game, it is also, by at least a dozen time zones, dramatically better than any of the other Japanese Wizardrylikes from this century.
She does! I feel like the artist had a lot of leeway wrt design on this game.
I will go to bat for āBUSIN 0: Wizardry Alternative Neoā and honestly itās been on my list of things to show off here. Itās a sequel/prequel to the localized āWizardry: Tales of the Forsakenā which was not a very good game.
I think likeā¦ sometime in the near future Iām going to open a thread where Iāll do a weekly translatey stream for weird old JP games I can throw on an emulator. Should be good practice and an excuse for me to get back to streaming.
(And Iāll keep it weekly, not āsuddenly this happens every dayā)
I am deeply enjoying this thread
Alternate take determined by autocorrect:
I am deeply enjoying this opportunity to be a part of the success of the world
1 Like
Part 8. Nothing special to say here. Had to edit this part twice because the first one was eaten by Discourse somehow. Modern technology is very confusing.
Reminder that the whole set is 12 parts long and I originally wrote this like six years ago. Have been cleaning up the language a little bit; some of the moreā¦ colorful language I had originally is not something the me of today would use or want to use.
Honestly Iāve been trying to clean up my language a lot these past few years and I think Iāve made great strides there.
After getting drunk to the point of having the innkeeper chastise us for it, we decide to get back to business and hunt down the drugged up head honcho priest. Of course, this being the sort of game where sidequests are everything, we instead find a pair of pissed off adventurers yelling at our favorite guardsman.
āLet us have it already!ā
No matter how I look at this image, itās hilarious.
Pay special attention to the priestess in that image, because this is the only point in the entire game where you will see ever that portrait. Seriously. Never again.
Those two are here for something and theyāre willing to pay a lot of money for it. Jerk priest just tells them to get in line. Either way, they donāt say and itās not important because weāre here for head honcho Bolaire, so, of course, heās still not available. As the plot must advance, Alisha decides to ask what all the hubbub is about.
ā<Luca> Thatāsā¦ On the dungeonās 5th floor, another strong foe showed upā¦ā
Bolaire still isnāt around, but Luca here gives us a few hints on where we should be going. Surprise, itās deeper into the dungeon! Never would have guessed that.
Itās not explicitly stated, but putting two and two together basically implies that the two adventurers from before got their partyās asses whooped and now need some serious corpse revivification going on. Must be pretty lucrative for the temple: Send some guys down to get whomped on, if they donāt succeed they come back and pay you sweet golds for their revival. Repeat until rich. After all, they definitely donāt look like theyāre hurting for money.
Still, that basically implies thereās going to be a boss fight down there, so we should probably be ready for it. You know, just in case the game throws something not trivially easy out. It might happen, you never know.
ā<Kish> A strong foe, eh? Iām looking forward to that!ā
On the other hand, Kish is straight up hype.
Youād think someone whoād spent his life training as a Fighter would have at least some reservations about possibly dying, but no, heās not thinking that far ahead, he just wants to beat stuff up.
And heās still level 2 so itās not like heās going to be winning any fights. At this point Sophieās staff whacks could probably beat him.
Holy crap, a new dungeon theme! Iām not sure why the dungeon has such extravagant tiled flooring and wallpaper. Maybe we found the lounge?
Fun fact: These two dungeon themes are the only ones for the entire rest of the main game.
Turn a couple corners and weāre brought to a door with an ominous plaque next to it.
āInvaders will be driven away by the protectorās absolute power.ā
Pfft, absolute power. Whoās worried about what a silly plaque says?
āHa, whatever kind of monster comes, youāll be fine if youāve got me around!ā
Not Kish, thatās for sure!
Kish is so totally pumped for the whatās about to go down, he canāt wait to go kick some ass with theā¦ well, he doesnāt even have a weapon right now since I stripped him naked before kicking him out of the party, so I guess heās just going to go around punching whatever it is? ā¦ While naked?
At any rate, the game takes over and we automatically walk through the door in order to get a good look at this almighty protector.
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Oh.
Well then.
ā<Kish> ā¦ Sorry, I take that back. Thatās impossible.ā
You can feel him deflating.
Had to respect the comedic timing on this one though.
I have no idea what these things are called. The game refers to them as giants, but thatās vague and based on their ridiculous intro pose Iām just going to call them Hype Golems from now on.
Despite the plaqueās fearsome description, in reality this thing just walks back and forth between two points at a snailās pace, making it easy to dance all around it with no chance of ever being caught.
In the interests of SCIENCE, we go and kick it in the shins.
āYouāve been captured! Your consciousness fadesā¦ā
Oops.
Guess everyoneās dead now. Time to make a new party!
But wait!
āWhen you come to, youāre at the floorās entrance.ā
ā¦
ā¦what?
Nobody even loses any health. Apparently, Hype Golems are very gentle creatures and only want to haul you around from place to place.
Just so you know, this is not the last time weāll mysteriously reappear unharmed at the floor start after a seemingly fatal event, but it is the most sensible time.
At any rate, this only really means anything because it means you have to hike all the way back every time you get caught, which is more obnoxious than anything else. At the very least, it gives plenty of time to inspect the local wildlife.
Bats and spiders and bugs and gas clouds oh my.
The mission on the last panel is āDonāt decapitate monsters.ā Which leads me to asking: How do you decapitate a gas cloud? I mean itās not like itās actually solid or anything. But then again I guess youāre chopping them up with melee weapons anyway, so whatever. Itās best to not think about it too hard.
The main purpose of that mission is to lock you out of Asphyxiate, the Mageās instant kill spell, and the Ninjaās beheadings. Since beheadings happen randomly on normal attacks, youād have to just not attack with that character if you didnāt want it. Thatād be really annoying if I had a ninja. Otherwise, this is one of the least obnoxious missions in the entire game and is essentially a freebie.
Pass a few more rooms of golems pacing back and forth in the halls, and we get toā¦
āThe giant isnāt moving from where it is.ā
Oh no, itās sitting there in the way! Whatever shall our intrepid adventurers do about this turn of events?
ā<Kai> ā¦Oh well. Letās look around.ā
Kai with the master plan.
NEXT TIME: No story of any import, just good old fashioned monster bashing!
3 Likes
I actually enjoyed The Dark Spire (also on DS) more than Etrian Odyssey. The Elminage games are also supposed to be good. Elminage Original is on PSP and 3DS and Elminage Gothic is on PC.
But overall, yeah, most recent DRPGs are garbage. I want to like the Experience Inc. games because some at least have cool art, but I just canāt get into them. That PS3 Wizardry game was trash too.
Part 9.
3 edits to go.
Continuing off from last time, where our party faced off with the dreaded Hype Golem, weāre currently trying to find a path around one that is just basically taking up space and doing nothing of value. Clearly heās just not very hype at all, though we may never truly know. Obviously, this is where having the party lead being a thief comes in handy, because nobodyās better at finding stuff.
Still, ālooking aroundā in a thiefās terms means hunting for loot. Conveniently, some nearby monsters are easily parted with theirs!
Woohoo, a gold chest! This is the highest rank of random drops that you can find, so whateverās in it is going to be of a higher grade than what youād normally find. Naturally, itās junk I couldnāt use anyway, so McMordamus is going to give us some nice shinies for it.
I actually wasnāt expecting to see one this early, they donāt usually show up until the later Treasure Hunter skill ranks, so I guess I just got lucky. Enjoy gazing upon its splendor while you can, because Iām not taking another screenshot.
The path around is a few āhiddenā passageways that are very clearly marked on screen when you look at them, so theyāre not very hidden at all.
āāFightā command banned.ā
Hereās one of the more obnoxious missions, where you canāt use normal attacks anymore. This means you get to burn skills/spells/items instead, if you actually care enough to bother with completing the mission.
Thereās also āāDefendā command bannedā mission, which is actually worse because it means you can no longer use autobattle to skip the pathetically slow battle text.
At any rate, we have successfully navigated around the immobile, harmless hype golem, so a few rooms down there is, of course, another one.
ā<Kish> Hey! Itās coming right for us!ā
Kish is so not taking these guys well. He was really looking forward to a fight.
Sure, this oneās chasing us, but itās still so slow that you can dance rings around it with no hope of it ever catching you. Thereās actually two in the area so you canāt do that indefinitely, though.
Just to be annoying, there are spinny tiles on the floor. Like in previous Wizardry games, if you step on certain tiles it will spin you to face a random direction. Normally, this would just be little more than an annoyance in the presence of an automap, where they look like a circular arrow and you can clearly see your own facing, but the whole animation takes about 4 seconds to get through, giving them ample time to catch up to you.
Which is still not enough time because they are just that slow. Poor guys.
I didnāt get a screencap of it, but a Werebat smashed Satsuki in the face with an 80 damage critical, flattening her on the spot. Then Sophie got hammered a few seconds later since she got rotated into the front line. Whoops.
Good thing story characters canāt permanently die!
Normally Iād just warp out back to town, but Iām about three steps away fromā¦
A handy elevator to the surface! Which looks like perfectly vertical yellow rays for some reason. This isnāt the real elevator, since itās one-way only, but itās convenient in the case you completely forgot to buy a dozen Warp Wires.
After getting everyone all upright again, we do the adventurer thing and head down to the bar, where Tania accosts us for some money to send back to the orphanage.
ā<Tania> Seems thereās a sickness going around. Mom, too, is having a hard time.ā
Theyāre both from the same orphanage, so sheās referring to the mom character from the first part. I canāt even remember what she looks like, since she last showed up in the introduction sequence way back in part one.
Either way, 100GP is basically pocket change at this point, so we hand it over and move on our way doing the rest of our Adventurerās Errands. Weāre apparently not yet rich enough to hire other people to do it for us.
ā<Mordamus> If you add 30 more items to my lineup, I might just reward you.ā
Thereās a little minigame with the shop I have been glossing over, where Mordy keeps track of the number of unique items youāve sold him. With only 30 more, heāll give us something for our trouble! Probably a nickel, knowing him.
Note that unique items also includes cursed equipment. This creates a rather odd situation where you donāt just want the best loot when you kill enemies, you want to get the junk too. It works out since it effectively means you donāt really have to care if you finish missions or not, since youāll get work towards something even on failure.
This still doesnāt change that heās selling cursed equipment. Who is even buying that junk? Is there a black market for soggy rotted shoes that you canāt take off or something?
Enough loitering around, itās time to go clear out the rest of the 4th floor.
Hereās the real elevator, a beam of light from the ceiling. This one lets you go up and down. A true marvel of modern technology. Too bad it still doesnāt work, so thereās no point bothering with it right now. Donāt worry, itāll become available just in time for it to be completely useless.
Weāre done here, so itās time for the dreaded fifth floor!
ā<Kish> ā¦The temple said this is the floor with the strong monster in it.ā
ā<Alisha> Please donāt push yourself too hard. If you get wounded, letās turn back.ā
How sweet, Alisha is concerned for Kishās well-being. I think I would be too, heās obviously having a bit of trouble coping right now.
ā¦I mean. Seriously. I kicked him out of the party. He has no equipment. He could barely beat an Orc right now. What does he think heās going to be doing down here? Does he still have his mop? Does he plan on sweeping it away when he finds it? Argh my head hurts thinking about this.
Ignoring him, we run into all kinds of fun stuff down here to raid like good little barbarians.
Back to human enemies again. Theyāre not really that much tougher than what weāve been facing, but I have to watch out for the mages since they often hit my entire party, forcing me to waste precious heals early. Really, I mean that. Thereās very little chance of dying down here, but thereās a high chance of being forced to turn back very early due to running out of healing magic. Great game great experience.
Except when this happens. A scorpion criticaled Moof, which also poisoned her. Somehow, she survived the fight with a whopping one hit point remaining. A true survivor!
A little bit further on we run into a large open room with three exit doors and a plaque sitting in the middle.
North - Shortcut
East - Winding Path
South - Inbetween
This is a tough choice. Obviously the shortcut would be the best path if this plaque werenāt a huge pile of lies. Seriously who built this dungeon? Did they have nothing better to do than be this obvious?
Wait for next time if you actually care which path is taken! Also BOSS FIGHT!!!
And a clown.
NEXT TIME: I hate clowns.
3 Likes
discourse stop eating my post drafts.
Part 10/12.
I edited it a second time, sleepily, while nighttime medication kicked in, and then I clicked the little down arrow on the corner of the post box to minimize.
And then, sleepily, I think I should back up the draft. So I clicked the widget on the corner of the bottom draft box to open it back up, at the same place it is when itās open.
The one thatās a delete button when you have it minimized.
So this is a third timeā¦
Discourseā¦ You win this round.
When we last left off, we were at a crossroads with three possible paths. Which one is the correct way?!?
North - Shortcut
East - Winding Path
South - Inbetween
They all lead to the same destination, but this being the sort of videogame it is we all know the descriptions arenāt going to be even remotely true. We also know that, eventually, weāre going to have to scope them all out anyway, because thatās just what you do in dungeon games.
Obviously, this means I have to choose the long winding path.
Whee!
Which, for 75% of the way, is just a really long conveyor belt!
There are no enemy encounters while riding around on the Dungeon Coasterā¢, so all in all itās a pretty uneventful trip. Although, they do try to spice things up a little bit on your way through.
Oh no traps! A deadly pendulum and a boulder rolling sideways across the belt!
Because you have no control of anything while riding one of these things, they are specifically placed so there is absolutely no way any of them can ever hit you. They just look like near misses every time you pass through.
Iām not sure what the point of this is. Whoever built Ancient Dungeon Landā¢ here clearly decided people needed some excitement.
On a side note, you can see clear floors to the left and right on the boulder image. Those spots cannot be gotten to by any means that I am aware of. Maybe teleporter traps can do it, but I doubt it. I donāt even think they can teleport you into a wall, and what fun is a Wizardry game where that canāt happen?
(Why yes, I absolutely did try to intentionally teleport the party into a wall, what of it?)
On the pit stops between rides, we run into a dark zone and some sexy new enemies.
The trolls on the left are the toughest ones as they hit the hardest and generally have a lot of hit points for the quantity they come in. Iām still not sure how those little legs can support their weight. Maybe theyāre just really gassy or something? Ew.
As nothing else is really interesting, we go back to proceeding along the windy path.
Whee!
Still, all rides must come to an end eventually, and it dumps us in a hallway with no path back to where we came from. So weāre stuck here. Ominous!
As you can see, it took us all over. This also conveniently lays out how big the other paths would be if we took them: The black spot on top is the āshortcutā path, whereas the big black blob below the center is the third path.
If we were playing Qix, weād be really close to sealing that part off!
At any rate, no sense dawdling around so letās get moving. Of course, shortly after opening the door into a new room, the party hears a loud scream! Must be time for more cutscenes!
ā<???> GYAAAAAAAAA!ā
ā<Alisha> ā¦!ā
Whoops. Guess someoneās dead.
I like Alishaās delayed reaction here. Itās like she hears the entire scream and then spends a few more seconds processing that it was, in fact, a scream before going into full-on worry mode.
While normal people would think thatād be a good sign to get the hell out, we are both trapped in here and brave(?) adventurers, so we just rush right on in.
Nice doggie.
Having eyeballs everywhere is cool, though the one on the tongue is just weird. Does it watch its food get eaten or something? Thatās pretty gross, dog.
ā<Fighter> I-Iām fine, but my alliesā¦ to that thingā¦!ā
Whoops, guess his friends became dog chow.
If you remember from back in Part 8 there were a pair of adventurers yelling at Jerk Priest probably asking for their buddies to be revived. Yep, itās them again! Specifically hereās the Fighter guy, whoās name is apparently Fighter. So I guess they all got wiped again. Maybe to the same thing, as itās implied that they got beat up by something on the fifth floor.
Also notice that the priestess is missing, so sheās probably dead. Hope you didnāt care about her too much! Maybe she had the good sense to ditch them back in town.
Still, this is pretty deep in the dungeon, so Iām wondering how they made it this far in the first place.
No worries though, they clearly died only a couple minutes ago, so we can just lug whatever remains back up to the temple and have them get fixed up at the Resurrect-o-tron 9000 afterwards, right?
Oh wait, this is a cutscene. They are totally goners. Sorry, dude.
ā<???> Hehehā¦ Now, Vascal, a second helpingās arrived!ā
And thus we bump into Armor Clown.
Iā¦ What?
Seriously, what is up with this outfit? Everything above the neckline confuses me.
Dig the nails though.
At any rate, apparently having chewed up one party of adventurers is not enough to sate the wild beast, so it gets sicced on us too. You know what that means?
BOSS FIGHT!!!
Yeah! Finally some real action. Note how I havenāt bothered to heal up in preparation for such a tough fight.
I like the skull by its giant fuzzy yellow foot. As the picture never changes I like to think itās attached. Flattened skull is monster dogās best friend.
NEXT TIME: Still hate clowns.
4 Likes
I had a look at the filesystem in Tinke, and it looks like all the system text is in unicode text files with no obfuscation. The character dialogue might be too, didnāt check. On the other hand, the graphics werenāt in a nice easily-extracted format.
hereās staff_msg.txt: http://textuploader.com/dqzk8
I didnāt have any luck with the names that were listed, but maybe youāll have more luck. Given the number of other names that are associated with companies, it could be that those two were part of Genterpriseās internal development staff.
Probably overlooking it somewhere, but I donāt think you mentioned that Wedge of Life was only available by ordering it online via Amazon.
Iām still trying to figure out what that means in the context of the whole Renaissance project, which I suspect was meant largely to doā¦somethingā¦for Wizardry Online. Cheaper than a full retail release, of course, but perhaps also meant to measure online engagement with the property? Who knows.
Yeah I didnāt mention anything about how it was sold.
I actually figured out how to extract the image files from the rom forever ago, in one of my amused hazes, but I didnāt think to look at the scripts.
Some googling around on the names makes it sound to me like they are not really people who did original art full-time but it was just a side thing.
I have no idea what they were trying to do with Wizardry Renaissance, personally.
(I probably wouldnāt use Wedge of Life if i were translating for real, but i think the name is hilarious so iām keeping it for this silly LP)
edit: on a side note, absolutely not surprised but both character designers have female names. I had a gut feeling about that given the character designs are reasonably tasteful and interesting. Sophie even has good posture!
11/12
i properly backed up my draft the first time this time!
only one more part to go then i am done with this game. i found some screenshots i took from stuff later in the game that iāll probably post afterwards, but i donāt think iām going back after that.
Boss fight time!
Remember how I put two Samurais in the front line of the party? Well, at this point theyāve both leveled up enough to have a full stock of attack skills available for use. Time to see how much they do!
FOUR BILLION DAMAGE
Poor dog.
Iām pretty much just unloading everything I have on it, and it only has about 500 HP, so this is a really short fight.
TWIN SPARK
Oh whoa what is even happening
Strangely enough, this game has coop attacks, that are caused by having two characters activate one skill and one spell right near each other in the battle turn order. Additionally, Iād like to note that the battle turn order is extremely random and the activation rate isnāt 100% even if all the conditions are met, so the only remotely reliable way to do these is to have the entire party do a whole bunch of related-ish skills/spells at once and hope for the best.
Being required to perform one can be a Mission, by the way. This is usually not worth the skill/spell point cost on most random battles unless you have a lot of low level abilities lying about, especially since you arenāt even guaranteed to get it.
I do like the sweet cut-ins though.
This was on the first turn, so Iād had the Samurais doing their specials de gozaru and Sophie casting whatever her highest tier magic was, which happened to be a lightning attack.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the doggie is lightning resistant, so it didnāt do very much damage. Itās not a total waste, as this is on top of the damage given by the skills normally, so itās sort of like a small bonus.
Iām not entirely sure what the attack description is trying to say since it sounds like they just jammed a bunch of random fancy sounding kanji together to make it sound cool. Something like āringing with electricity, the peerless blade shakes the ground.ā Likeā¦ what, is it a shockwave attack? Did we just do sonic boom elemental damage?
Still, the onslaught continues.
And so Vascal dies.
Not even any sort of fancy boss death animation, just the standard enemy fadeout. Weak.
Iād like to note that the trolls and golems in the random enemy encounters did more damage to the party.
ā<???> Now was a fun show. I didnāt there were humans capable of defeating my Vascalā¦ā
ā<Kish> Owowowowā¦ Dammit. Iām all worn outā¦ā
Armor Clown is highly pleased with us chopping his dog into electrified kibble.
He does specifically say humans here, though, so clearly this means there are non-humans that he thinks can beat them up. Maybe some dwarves or something.
But what the heck is Kish doing here? He wasnāt fighting and he still doesnāt even have any weapons! So it seems heās still part of the dungeon cleaning squad. Maybe he just finished rushing around cleaning up the mess we left on the floor.
Wait, does that mean he also cleaned up the bodies of the other dudeās team?
Viscera Cleanup Detail: Dungeon Edition
ā<Euller> My name is Euller. I am the lord of this dungeon.ā
Couldnāt resist.
Even though heās named now, Iām still going to keep calling him Armor Clown. Because, well, really. Just look at him. If there were ever a hybrid jester/tank class, that is totally it.
He thinks weāre taking him too lightly, so he gives us a bit of a show himself.
ā<Fighter> ā¦Gā¦Gyaaaaa!ā
ā<Alisha> ā¦Kyaaaaa!ā
With the DBZ-like speed only possible in cutscenes, he warps behind the npc and does ā¦ well, whatever static portraits do in cutscenes. Whatever it is the clown did, the full party wipe is now complete. If only they had made the party Thief into the leader like we did, they could have avoided all of this.
As is standard by now, Alisha goes into freakout mode a few seconds later. I like to think she does this every time someone falls in battle. The odd part is even Kaiās surprised at this, so Iām just going to assume he is totally in awe of this technique and is trying to figure out how to copy it right now.
After the clown finishes up the show, he helpfully says heās going to let us offā¦ THIS TIME.
ā<Euller> But today onlyā¦ just today, yeah? Next time Iāll kill you. Even more brutally than turning you into ashesā¦ā
So basically what heās saying is heāll do worse to you than what the temple does when they screw up resurrecting you.
When I played this game through I was hoping heād turn out to be the same as the old dude from the first floor, in sort of comical twist, but that turned out to be wrong. So sad.
Also, see the mouth movement on the portrait? Thatās not a mask. Thatās his face. Heās not just playing a clown, he is a clown.
We finally get control again, so we pass through the door to find the actual elevator. As this is the fifth and final floor of this section of the game, it helpfully activates. We can now warp between any of the first five floors with it.
There are a couple areas in the first few floors that are normally inaccessible without taking the elevator, but weāre not going to bother with them right now.
Still, the warping from the first floor to here would be awesome, except that as soon as we set foot on the sixth floor, we get the ability to warp directly to it from town. So heck, letās just do that, the stairs are right around the corner.
ā<Sophie> Weāre tired too, so itād be good to go back to town for now.ā
NO NOT NOW SOPHIE! I WANT MY SIXTH FLOOR WARP!
Like it or not, we go back to town.
But Iām not satisfied with that, so in an attempt to fool them all, I try to sneak everyone back into the dungeon.
ā<Satsuki> Kai-dono. We should first give the news of the monster from earlier to the temple de gozarou.ā
Nope, we canāt even go back to the dungeon now, weāre railroaded into the story. Oh boy, strap yourself in, itās gonna be a real exciting ride.
I should note that Satsukiās name and class name are both in Katakana, which means the Samurai of this world are foreign to the Samurai of Japan, and thatās a whole can of worms I donāt think I want to think about too much more.
On the bright side, some characters level up to 13, which is where the second tier of skills become available. Some are flat upgrades from what we already have, some arenāt. Either way we canāt really do anything with that right now as we have to advance the story first.
NEXT TIME: Finally, some plot happens! Also, the end of this LP.
2 Likes
Final part, as least of what I wrote six years ago.
Probably going to dig up some Bonus Material for one last post beyond this.
So now weāre railroaded back into town, once again completely unable to do anything except advance the story. This is undoubtedly the most accurate Wizardry experience, a series well known for its forced story scenes. Cough.
I start off by trying to go back to the dungeon yet again, with predictable results.
ā<Meena> Thatās right. The temple wants to hear our reportā¦ā
Sigh.
Time to stop slacking off.
ā<Luca> Kai!ā
ā<Kai> ā¦ā
I like to picture that they have this exchange every time they meet. And possibly repeat it for a few minutes before Kai actually responds.
That there are two sorts of ellipses in the second image is also amusing. Like the silence needs its own punctuation to let you know how it ends. Maybe itās not silence and heās just mumbling really quietly? That would seem like a Kai thing to do.
āThe Archbishop will return in another 2~3 days. At that time, Iāll contact you, and you should come with everybody else from your party.ā
So formal. I especially like the use of the tilde in conversational dialogue. How does he say that?
At least weāre finally going to stop getting the runaround from Bolaire. Maybe. It wouldnāt surprise me if he ādisappearedā again right in time. This game has been trying so very hard to drag this out as long as it possibly can.
That should be a hint as to how few story beats this game has, on the whole. Thereās a lot of talking but not a lot of things happening.
Still, nothing to do here, so weāre out. But before we can get back to dungeoneering like a right proper team of adventurers, Alisha senses something is up.
ā<Alisha> Kaiā¦ā
Worry Mode ENGAGE
ā<Kai> That monster is probably the one who killed my parents.ā
No proof whatsoever, weāre just going to jump to conclusions that we found the culprit.
Though I canāt totally blame him, clowns are pretty terrifying.
ā<Alisha> Kai. In my hometown, I was a doctor.ā
And now she completely derails the subject for some backstory exposition! She rambles on uninterrupted for a good long while, so Iām just going to summarize.
Every year from her hometown in the north, a mass of cold air would come down from the mountains, which would cause a contagious epidemic. Medicine had no effect on it, and every year she saw many people die. Even though she was a doctor, she couldnāt do anything about it. Tired of seeing death almost every day, she thought about the dungeon called Spring of Life, and thought that maybe there would be something to counteract the sickness in it.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention thatās what the dungeonās called, didnāt I? You can actually see the name in one of the screenshots in the first part and I just didnāt bother with it.
According to this story, she has absolutely no idea if thereās anything in the dungeon, she just went āwelp, canāt do anything here, guess Iād better go adventuring!ā and left. Wonder how her hometown feels having had their doctor just up and leave to go bash orc skulls in bare-handed. Now she can see death every day!
For the duration of this entire story, Kai stands there with his usual blank, slightly irritated expression and gives no response whatsoever. Afterwards, she says she wants to get stronger so that she doesnāt have to see people die anymore. Iām wondering if that means that sheās giving up on this whole doctor thing and just going full-time adventurer, but whatever.
That statement causes Kai to perk up, of course, since now weāre talking about strength! Hereās a thing he actually knows something about, since he does like to brood about vengeance all day every day.
So she goes back to the inn, which leads to Kai talking to himself.
āā¦The way I am now, I probably canāt beat that demonā¦ But, if I meet him another time, Iāllā¦ā
Well, at least he recognizes his power level is currently insufficient and he needs to go rake in those experience points. Finally, a protagonist with enough sense in his brain to know he shouldnāt charge in completely recklessly!
But heās still brooding about it, so heās clearly set on vengeance against Armor Clown. As this trope is extremely well known by this point, this means that is not actually the guy who did it.
Whatever. Back to the inn, where itās freaky dream time.
āHahaā¦ Thank you.ā
Oh hey I almost completely forgot about Mysterious Girl! And yes, thatās still her name. She last showed up at the very beginning of the game, where she conveniently went off to tea while a book jumped into my hands of its own accord.
Sheās very pleased at me reading the book off to her, which is apparently what Iām doing. I didnāt know. She starts going on about how this storyās protagonist is different from all those other ones whoāve challenged the dungeon and so forth, and how I should keep going to see what mysteries he encounters.
This book we are reading is supposed to be the ninth book in a series. At the time of release, there were 8 mainline WIzardry games. Devs were really optimistic on this one.
I have absolutely no idea what the purpose of this is, but thereās one of these at every chapter end. Oh, by the way: Chapter one is now over. Onwards to chapter two!
ā<Wanza> The hooligan named Kai should be staying here! Bring him at once!ā
Talk about your rude wake-up calls. He actually has a name this time, heās not Jerk Priest anymore! Except he totally still is because heās yelling at our friendly innkeeper, who absolutely deserves better than having to put up with this.
Kai comes down to get yelled at. Bolaireās apparently finally around, impossible as it may seem, and is calling for us to show up. So the temple sent him to go get us. How thoughtful of them! Everybodyās thrilled at the early wakeup call, especially Sophie.
ā<Sophie> Itās been awhile, hasnāt it? Thank you so much for the courteous aid the other day.ā
ā<Wanza> Guhā¦ Iām going back! Okay?! Since I finished my business here!ā
Sophie takes all of one sarcastic line to get under his skin. Whatās with his overblown reaction? Did something else happen between these two? I feel like Iām missing some important lore here.
And so finally we get to meet head temple guy, dragging everyone along.
ā<Alisha> A-A-A-Alisha!ā
Oh hey, there he is. And Alisha totally stammers her name when Bolaire asks for it. I think that sheās probably just nervous because Kish is standing right there, looking all happily oblivious about everything around him. To be fair, that does seem to be his normal state of existence.
They talk for like 5 minutes worth of dialogue boxes from this point onwards, giving the player as much of a backstory dump as is possible while saying absolutely nothing of note. Flavor!
Wait a minute!
Finally, our objective is met!
We are all free now!
THE END
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So spoilers for story, late game, endgame, etc are all here.
I suspect none of you care about any of that, so away I go!
This is all new, not part of the original LP, Iām writing it up now, so if the style sounds different, thatās why. Also Iām not playing the thing again to take more screenshots.
This ended up longer than I expected it to be.
I played this game early in my time learning Japanese, and I was completely confused when I got to this kanji. And really, could you blame me? This is some kind of pixel salad.
Itās ęø(jisho), but hell if I could figure that out at the time. I had taken a screenshot to ask some people who knew better than I did.
Honestly itās still kind of hard to read for me. I didnāt recognize it for a little bit. I need more practice.
So what even is the story of this game? At this point, itās not possible to tell.
āSpring of Lifeā is the name of the dungeon and that is a quite literal turn of phrase. It turns out that the abnormally high success rate of resurrection owes to a wellspring of life energy underneath the town, and itās specifically this town that it happens in.
Like, yeah, we all knew the Temple couldnāt be that competent. Itās Wizardry, after all.
The name of the game refers to how itās being bottled up, with a stopper or cork to keep it all from leaking out. Or, as I named it here, a wedge. Obviously that means that āwedgeā is the wrong term to use for a real translation of the name knowing this, but screw it, I donāt care right now.
Soā¦ Bolaire.
Heās old and sickly. He needs medicine to ease the pain.
But heās actually after something else here. Surprise!
It turns out that, by releasing just a little bit of the life underneath the city, he can wind the clock back and make himself young again. And then he joins your party as thanks for discovering all this! Because nothing says āIām alive againā like going to get yourself killed in a dungeon. Also given heās so high up in the Churchās hierarchy, why would they even let him? Is this his way of sneaking out?
Cool pose, dude.
I donāt have an in-game screenshot, apparently, so hereās his portrait extracted from the game data.
As a normal player, you would probably go āmy current Priest is better and has more spells/skills, also sheās cuterā and bench this guy at the bar immediately.
Now, if you guessed that using an unfathomably powerful source of energy to make yourself young was a really, really bad idea, youād be absolutely correct!
Whether or not heās in the party, at the end of the third chapter, it overcomes him and he turns into a monster, which is the boss of that chapter. You see, the energy of the dungeon is also creating the monsters and cultists you have been fighting since the start of the game.
Heās then permanently dead and out of your party forever. Yay! Hope you werenāt actually using him!
So after that, leading into the fourth chapter, the cork on the spring of life has been let loose, and the town changes! Specifically thereās a funky blue fog throughout town, and literally everyone in town gets sick from it.
This changes absolutely nothing about what you can do. You can still go to the inn (which no longer has an innkeep portrait), you can still shop (even though Mordyās no longer there), you can go to the bar (even though Taniaās not there anymore). Itās rather odd.
The best part is that the music is no longer grating harpsichords. Yay! Thanks Bolaire!
On the 17th floor, there is a puzzle.
I got stuck on it for awhile, and I thought it was because I was bad at Japanese, but it turns out itās just really vague. It is literally the only puzzle covered on the JP wikiās FAQ outside of the beginning zone.
You enter a room, the door clicks behind you, youāre locked in. There is a small bit of story describing how the ceiling is slowly grinding downwards in a crushing trap. Have to find an escape!
The room is empty, has a bunch of spinners on it. Thereās a door on the far side, it wonāt open. Thereās a plaque that says something about going to the left.
When, not if, you fail this ā¦ the party blacks out and is teleported back to the start of the map, just like with the golems from earlier. How? This doesnāt even make sense.
The solution?
You slide the door open sideways with the touchscreen.
This is the only sliding door in the entire game. It looks exactly like every other door, all of which swing open.
I cursed a lot at this.
The final boss is the āNo Life King,ā which is a sort of poor English rendition of āUndead King.ā The name has its origins in a short story written in the 80s about a king who used necromancy to bring himself back to life. Itās also the kind of name thatās shown up in a lot of other games jp side, like Lord of Vermillion.
At any rate, itās an undead king! Who keeps himself alive forever with the infinite store of life energy underneath the town! Also heās kind of stuck there.
It turns out Kaiās parents both got themselves killed fighting him and sacrificed themselves to keep the dungeon protected, and Armor Clown was one of the ones tasked with keeping everyone the hell out so it stayed that way. Whoops!
Once you beat him, finishing the main story, the town resets to normal but also: The Spring of Life has fully leaked out. And thatās the excuse the game gives you for having the Temple actually be able to permanently kill people when trying to resurrect them.
After this point, no PC speaks ever again. Because they are all now generics, and all now expendable. Itās a real Wizardry game, finally, at long last!
Of course, thatās not the end of the game. Thereās another set of floors beyond him, and thereās even a new theme for the wall geometry!
Iām going to stress that I did not complete this. I got frustrated and bored with the game because its tedium factor gets even worse from here on out.
Butā¦ There is one new gimmick I need to show.
ā<???> Ufufufuā¦ Greetings, everyone. I am called Moura.ā
So the guardian of the final postgame dungeon is a gothic lolita girl named Moura.
She is not a joke. She is also the only enemy in the game with a 3d model, because she appears in dungeons.
One of the things the game does is it locks you into an area, where the Warp Wire equivalent doesnāt work, and she chases you about. She does not show on the map, you have to actually look at her to see her.
And then you have to navigate a dark zone maze.
If she catches you, your entire party instantly dies. No battle. Just game over.
Eventually you do get to fight her. I donāt know. I didnāt get that far. I know that there is a True Last Boss beyond her and I honestly couldnāt care less. Iām suspecting the āoops, she was holding back something Even Worseā trope is at play. Again. For the umpteenth time this game.
You may remember this character being shown on the gameās site! Actually you probably donāt because the siteās gone now.
Who is this mysteriously generic Sexy Ninja character?
When you clear the main game and are heading into the postgame, Jean here joins your party. She is the gameās only Felpurr, which is Wizardry for catgirl. She covered her head because of her cat-like nose and ears.
Soā¦ Felpurr tradiitionally have heavy restrictions on what they can equip, because they canonically are decidedly more humanoid than human. In fact, they may as well be Kzin or Kilrathi styled cat people as fra as mainline Wizardry is concerned. Of course, once anime got a hold of them, that stopped being a thing.
She has no such restrictions, being exactly the same as every other character, except she has cat ears. Nyan.
Best I can tell is that someone on staff really really wanted a sexy catgirl ninja.
A nyanja, if you will.
This game is a mishmash of ideas. Some work. Most donāt. Many of them would have been better off in a game not attached to the Wizardry license; and probably would have been liked/respected a lot more for having been there.
This being one of the first games I played when I was learning Japanese still hangs with me; I think it is not a bad game at all. By JRPG standards itās actually pretty above average. Thereās just a lot ofā¦ very questionable design decisions, and it flat out isnāt very good at being a Wizardry game.
Wizardry was never a game about a bunch of JRPG tropes running around; it was a game about recruiting a bunch of misfits and having them die horribly in a dungeon in the promise of future glory.
The sequel to this, āBoukyaku no Isanā(åæå“ć®éŗē£)/āThe Forgotten Legacyā actually fixed almost everything that was wrong with this game, impressively enough! Almost. But, unfortunately, you only get one shot in gamedev, and the first game was a swing and a miss, so that was the end of that. I doubt it had even half as many players.
For reference, the sequelās story takes place simultaneously as the main game, and the characters from this story cameo in that one a few times, but itās separate and your party is entirely original characters you make yourself. You do escort an annoying non-combatant NPC for about ten floors to help with the tutorialā¦
And then she gets petrified and the entire rest of the gameās story is about figuring out how to unpetrify her all by yourselves with absolutely no NPCs tagging along which means fuck yeah itās a real Wizardry game. The dungeons are even way more interestingly laid out!
I really want to show off BUSIN0 because itās likely the best executed Wizardry alike that Iāve run into.
By the way, if anyone can find me the Wizardry X series, I totally want to give them a try sometime. They look kind of really bad.
Finished for real now!
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I actually twitched reading this. Random one off solutions are the worst, and the DS touchscreen convinced numerous devs that they were clever for using them.
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Yo this was great. Thank you for presenting games Iād never hear of in a way thatās sensible to an English speaker.
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No Life King is a really good name
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If I set up a thing to do a Weekly JP WIzardry stream on twitch, where I translate as I go, would yāall watch?
(just bloodpotion if you donāt want to spam up responses)
'Cause thatās something Iāve been meaning to be doing for awhile and BUSIN0 is really tempting once I give myself a refresher on some of the harder JP in it. Itās the sequel/prequel to Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land(link is to LP Archive), which is what Atlus localized the original BUSIN as. It has a rad art style and a good sense of humor.
Promise itāll stay weekly. Probably wednesday or friday nights, weekends seem likely to be pre-empted by something else.
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welp, this is a thing iām doing