Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (NES) Playthrough
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- Опубликовано: 5 апр 2024
- A playthrough of Nexoft's 1990 role-playing game for the NES, Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.
If you'd like to skip the character creation stuff, the game begins at 12:42.
In the world of Wizardry, the great wizard Werdna has stolen a priceless amulet from Trebor, the eponymous "mad overlord," and he has taken refuge in a chamber located at the bottom of a ten-story-deep subterranean labyrinth teeming with monsters. Trebor has offered a huge reward for the return of his amulet, and groups of hopeful adventurers now begin to gather at the castle town near the labyrinth's entrance.
As a cornerstone of the RPG genre, Sir-Tech's Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, originally released for Apple II computers in the fall of 1981, is one of the true pioneers in gaming history. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and countless other classics owe a huge debt to Wizardry (and Ultima) for laying the foundation.
Unencumbered by a complex story and deep characters, Wizardry represents the purest distillation of a first-person, combat-focused dungeon crawler. After rolling stats to determine the starting classes of your six party members, you're dropped off at the entrance to the labyrinth, and it's up to you to figure out how to proceed from there.
There are plenty of ways to approach the adventure, but Wizardry does not treat players with a light touch, and the game makes that crystal clear from the beginning. Death is an ever-looming specter, and since there's no guaranteed way to revive a fallen party member, everything you do carries weight.
It's easy to stretch your resources too thin, to overestimate your abilities against a tough enemy, or to become hopelessly lost in the depths of the labyrinth, and the punishment for making such mistakes is swift and brutal. Careful planning and keeping tabs on the details are essential to making progress, but the challenge is surmountable with enough dedication.
The NES version, developed by Game Studio and published in the west under Ascii's Nexoft label, remains generally faithful to the original computer game. The layouts of a few floors were changed and the text-based puzzles were axed, but all of the character classes, enemy types, and items are here, and the NES version brings with it a major upgrade to the presentation. This was the first version of Wizardry to feature a soundtrack, and it was the first to sport non-wireframe dungeon graphics.
This port was extremely popular in Japan, and it would've been considered the definitive version of the game in its time had it not been plagued by bugs that severely hamper its playability. The worst of them result in the accuracy and strength of enemy attacks being determined by the enemy's AC rating instead of their target's, making armor and AC-related magic essentially useless. Enemies also mistakenly receive massive stat boosts when occupying certain positions in the attack formation, which tends to have a nasty impact on the late-game difficulty balance. On top of that, there are issues with things like stat growth and moral alignments. These problems can be circumvented to some extent by exploiting the game's autosave system and by creating backups of your save data before leveling up, but they cast a pretty dark shadow over an otherwise good game.
Even with its litany of issues, the NES port of Wizardry is a fun game, and it's one that's arguably more playable than its IBM PC counterpart, but it's still not the ideal way to experience such a classic.
(And if you're interested, check out my Super Nintendo arrangement of the PC Engine version's battle theme! • ♫BATTLE (Wizardry I・II... )
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games! 
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Wizardry is like the video game version of Stockholm syndrome. The more abusive it becomes, the harder it is to tear yourself away.
Ha. Love your channel, bro. I'm getting serious Immortal vibes at the moment.
Indeed,with Wizardry Heart Of Maelstorm being the pinnacles of chaos in the series,too bad i felt it somehow lose it uniqueness after Japanese takeover( it being so influential in Japan gaming culture because they loved it)
Still liked the Forsaken Land and 5 Ordeal though
@@bobobandy9382Thanks! I could see that. It has a similar grim, isolated sort of feel.
@@Zero_TesterI dont think so . I think the japanese touch gave Wizardry its own unique and stylistic spin . The american versions are still there but japan took this as an inspiration to have their own presentation of european fantasy and i cant blame them for that .
But i can understand what you mean and actually agree in some degree .
Nothing beats these oldschool RPGs
This is the kind of game I would have hated as a kid but loved as an adult. I didn't understand anything about RPGs and DnD at the time and I would have gotten so confused by all the character creation stuff and never even got to the game before I returned this game to the store to rent something else. As an adult, I really appreciate what they tried to do.
Such legendary game.
The theme of this game is even the first track of the Orchestral Game Concerts series from the Tokyo Philharmonic. That's how respected is its legacy.
As a kid, it was so exciting watching RPGs evolve from things like this and into the sweeping epics the SNES and PS1 would become known for. But, later on in life revisiting the NES games like Dragon Warrior III and Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, I realized that the genre traded in those earlier games' challenge and player-driven gameplay for the playability and presentation in games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII. Dragon Warrior III, for instance, requires a degree of mastery of its gameplay that the more artistically impressive and much more player friendly SNES RPGs absolutely do not demand of the player in order to succeed. As much as I love the refined classics of the 16 and 32-bit eras, I really miss these old games that really required real time and dedication to figure out. I remember even when I was young coming to the realization that there was a point when I stopped "beating" games and started to just finish them. The newer games were definitely more fun and playable, but the older ones were more rewarding. I began to miss the days when seeing a game to the end wasn't a guarantee.
You perfectly summarised what i thought was lacking in RPGs lately and i completely agree with you .
Those older RPGs were more immersive because it is indeed a dangerous place which you should be careful and pick your fights instead going headfirst into everything . Even preparations are needed to overcome huge challenges . That makes the grit and fun as if you actually go into adventures to explore the wilds and areas unknown by man to find great discoveries or treacherous places no one dares to set a foot in .
@@Snyperwolf91 And talking to the NPCs wasn't just for local color and world building, but for clues and hints on where the player should go and what the player can do.
Come gather, fair people,
For my tale be not done
It's time that ye heard
Of the hero named... 1.
in the early 90s our family gathered around the tv to watch my brother play wizardry. he created all of us as characters. i'm still haunted hearing that music and seeing that i died along with the rest of the family in record time.
0:24: Don’t let the copyright notice fool ya: the NES port of Wizardry was published in the US by Nexoft, which later became ASCII Entertainment and later Agetec, and developed by Game Studio, a company made up of ex-Namco employees including Xevious and The Tower of Druaga creator Masanobu Endo and sound designer Noboyuki Ohnogi and a young and then-unknown Naoto Ohshima, who, along with Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara, created Sonic the Hedgehog one year later before leaving for Artoon, which gave us Blinx: The Time Sweeper.
Use to have this on My NES back in the day good times 😊😊
Oh my lord I still have this game to this day I remember buying this a flea market years ago
My first experience with PGOTMO was on PC-98 where there is no sound. I absolutely love this.
Never played any of the Wizardry titles, but this NES port looks pretty good. Loving the soundtrack.
YOOOO, I love Wizardry so much. ❤
Is it crazy to think that this channel is only 31 NES games away from having all NES games released for North America?
My uncle had this damn game and I've been trying to find it for yeeeaaars.
I just got it yesterday at Core Gaming for $19.99.
Ah yes Wizardry 1. I've only seen videos of this game and played the fifth game but I do remember that the battle music to this sounds like a small segment of Riders of Doom from Conan the Barbarian.
Hugely influential game, this. Was a big inspiration for games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star!
Still continues to this day too, albeit without the involvement of the original creators.
Ended over here know I gonna watch the movie+-+
Don't understand how they could screw up the code so much, that's huge. We praise your persistence.
Thanks :) haha I don't get it either. At least they did much better with the sequel.
here we come murphy ghoust, creeping coins, and frost giants. no fire giants or poison giants though.
For those of us who thought the bards tale was too easy was this gem.
They just released a remake of this game for Steam a few days ago. It's back!
This game is very...
An encounter
Interesting.
All right, one of the more surprising things is that there’s an our options menu a rarity for its time
BRUH. Yes. Do KoD next.
Just when Digital Eclipse has a (really damn good) remake in Early Access. Though, based on the original Apple II code.
Interesting...
"Making Gnome Fighters: A Tutorial"
Trebor and Werdna? Where is this game set, the kingdom of Sdrawkcab? 😜
GG, WP... it's fascinating to see the genesis of a genre, before conventions have been firmly set.
12 minutes of rolling stats? Yeah, that sounds about right for retro TTRPG gameplay. 🙃
Ive always been curious ehat the original looks like. We randomly had a copy of wizardry 3 on SNES growing up. But i neglected it because the button commands are so confusing i couldn't even get the danm game started.
You could not get more D&D on the NES then this BTW, what was that you did on the title screen before beginning the game?
I showed the option menu, but I didn't change any of the settings
I'd argue that Pool of Radiance is more D&D on the NES than this (due to being adapted from an actual D&D scenario and rules).
I didn't have access to the NES versions, but I know the PC one in the golden boxes were awesome
Thank You. 🖤
...this game looks horrible...
Yet it's legendary and directly influenced games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
This game sucks lol