In April of 2018 I began a blog with the ultimate goal of trying to play as many CRPGs and adventure games as humanly possible with one caveat: to play them in the order in which they were published. I was a big fan of Chester Bolingbroke’s CRPG Addict blog as well as Jason Dyer’s excellent Renga in Blue and Nathan Mahney’s CRPG Adventures. I enjoyed reading about their exploits and I found myself envious of the adventures that they were having. I also found that I was fascinated with the history of gaming and how early games influenced the games which would come later. I decided not to watch from the sidelines any longer but to embark on my own personal journey. They say imitation is the best form of flattery and this is a passion project of mine and nothing more. So here we are now in July of 2021, almost 2.5 years later, and I find myself having completed my 100th game on this personal journey. I have to agree with Chester; it is an addiction but also a labor of love.
I went back and recently read my very first post I made here on the site. I then moved on to my second post, One Game To Rule Them All, where I shared that Wizardry was the game that got me hooked on CRPGs for life. I wanted to do something special to commemorate reaching my 100th game and so I jumped to 1982’s selection and decided to play through Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds. Before I begin to get into the game, I wanted to say that I haven’t really deviated from my plan that I initially set for myself. I am still playing the CRPGs in the order in which they were published though I am also playing text adventures and graphic adventures. In 1980 and 1981 there were many, many more text adventures than computer role-playing games. So you will notice that I jumped ahead to 1981, played through the entire selection of computer role-playing games published that year, while going back to 1980 and systematically continuing to play the text adventures from that year. I have still not completed the adventure games from 1980 but now find myself playing the CRPGs that were offered in 1982. Now that I have completed Wizardry II, it is my intent to go back to 1980, play two or three more offerings from that year, then come back to the 1982 computer role-playing games. The RPGs are my first priority however I am still set on playing the others AND (emphasis here) I am greatly enjoying doing so.
Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds uses the same game system and rules as the first game. The spells and the game mechanics are exactly the same. It is not so much a sequel as it is a new scenario for the first game system. Wizardry II boots on it’s own however you do not have the ability to create new characters as you did in the first game. You TRANSFER characters who have completed the first Wizardry scenario into the second scenario. The player is then presented with an entirely new scenario and six new dungeon levels to explore and conquer with those same characters. In hindsight, this is where I believe the creators of Wizardry made a mistake. It was a HUGE seller and money maker for Sir-Tech but I think the series could have become as popular as Ultima if they would have presented each new game as a stand alone offering. Still allow players the opportunity to transfer characters but also give them the option to create new characters as well. By presenting Wizardry II and later III as scenarios, they never stood a chance of increasing sales. They were never going to sell more than what the original Wizardry sold. Their decision to present the games as scenarios cost them the opportunity to increase their fan base over time.
I had beaten Wizardry II once before when I was in my early twenties. I am fifty-five year’s old now so that was many years ago. My initial thought was that I would allow the completionist in me to take over and that I would fully map out each of the six dungeon levels. I was certainly able to do so with the very first dungeon level.
My final impression with the game, now having approached it for the second time and much older, is that the combat is greatly unbalanced. The first dungeon level seems to go well and then the combat begins to go off of the rails the deeper you go into the dungeon. The five different “artifacts” that you find throughout the dungeon help to greatly unbalance the game as well. You could almost play the last two or three levels with only one character. It would be an interesting challenge. As an example, you may randomly encounter three Earth Giants on the 3rd dungeon level. If they hit you, which is very likely unless you’re wearing the magical armor from Level TWO, they do 78 points of damage. You will encounter Ogre Lords who cast MABADI (ouch) and Level 8 or 11 Ninja who decapitate your characters with one blow. So combat is extremely unforgiving. I found myself resurrecting my fighter, Sturm, so many times I wanted to rename him Kenny. This idea of “who killed Kenny” started to become a recurring theme.
It is in the first dungeon level that you discover the plot hook for the game. You need to locate and recover the five symbols of Gnilda’s favor and return them to her to prove your worthiness.
It is in the first dungeon level that you also discover the first of the five symbols: an animated suit of magic armor. Once you defeat the armor in combat then you can claim it and even equip it. Equipping the armor GREATLY reduces your armor class and also causes you to regenerate hit points. Equipping any of Gnilda’s five symbols greatly affects the balance of combat.
You also need to solve a riddle/puzzle in order to get to the armor. I thought this was a great twist introduced into the series. The stairway to the next dungeon level is always adjacent to your battle with one of the five symbols in the game. You will battle magic armor, a magic shield, a magic sword, a magic helm, and a pair of magic gauntlets. The magic armor is found on Level ONE, the magic shield is found on Level TWO, the magic sword can be obtained from Level THREE, the magic helm is found on Level FOUR, and the magic gauntlets are found on Level FIVE. The sixth level is there to provide you with three clues to help you solve the riddle of the sphinx and your final approach to Gnilda.
It was my goal to map out every single square of each level to present to everyone in my blog. I strongly encourage anyone who wants to play Wizardry I or II to do your own mapping. Creating a map of the dungeon level as you plod along and explore is part of the entire experience. I discovered quickly however that mapping every square inch was going to be a difficult task to accomplish. I had mentioned earlier that the combat is very unbalanced. All it takes is a surprise round by your opponent or suddenly bombarded with a high level offensive spell and you can be wiped out almost instantly. It was then that I realized I had to change my philosophy on how to “beat” the game.
One of the things that is very different about the second game as opposed to the first is having direct access to high level spells right away. Remember you transferred powerful characters over from the first scenario into this one so you don’t have to necessarily grind for new spells. What you will need to do is familiarize yourself with the manual and all of the spells contained within because you will use them all often. One of the spells that I hardly used at all in the first Wizardry game was MALOR. MALOR is a teleportation spell that is able to be cast by your wizard. However in this second scenario the use of the teleportation spell is encouraged; and you will be using it often and in a tactical manner. You input specific coordinates and you can teleport anywhere.
While I was mapping out the second dungeon level I realized I was using too many spells to try and stay alive and I would have to turn around and go back to the castle. Then I had an “aha experience” and I realized I was going about things the wrong way. I knew my maps were thus far accurate because of the DUMAPIC spell which which tells you exactly where you’re at in the dungeon. So once I entered the dungeon what I began to do is teleport myself to where I left off mapping in the game OR to a key stairway. Once I found one of the symbols on a dungeon level and the stairway to the next I realized there was no need to map out the entire level and that trying to do so might spell the end of the game for me. This new method worked very well and proved to be economical and efficient. I always had to keep two slots available for my MALOR spell. One slot to get to where I needed to go and I always held one back so that I could escape the dungeon if I needed to. There are no side quests or anything of that nature in Wizardry II and while I was not aiming for a “rush” through the game or anything of that nature I also did not want to perish because I wanted a complete map level.
It was on the third dungeon level that I encountered the magic sword. You could certainly equip one character with all three items found thus far but what I chose to do was split the three items between my three fighters to balance them out a bit more.
I found the fourth dungeon level to be a bit of a pain because there were a lot of pits you could fall into and rocks from cave-ins that you could bump against for damage. It took me awhile to find where the magic helm was located on the map as well. The magic helm seemed very easy to beat compared to the other three items which was surprising. I had expected each symbol on each level to get progressively harder to beat but I found that the opposite was true.
The fifth level battles became extremely difficult. It was already very difficult to get this far but now every single battle and who or what you would encounter became a “nail biter”. I actually got very very lucky on Level FIVE. I fell down a chute which deposited me on Level SIX – in the dark! I groped along and actually stumbled across the stairs going UP to Level FIVE! What a stroke of luck because the stairs were always adjacent to the symbol you had to find. So I climbed the stairs and then moved one space and underwent combat with the magic gauntlets. Once I defeated them I teleported back to Level One and made my way back to the castle. Falling down that chute probably saved me at least two more hours of mapping. Sometimes I’d rather just be lucky than good.
The sixth and last level of the dungeon is just dastardly. I had played and beaten Wizardry II when I was in my 20s and I remembered the answer to the sphinx’s riddle however I couldn’t remember any of the other details concerning this last level so I set out to find as much as I could without seeing the whole thing go up in a ball of flames. There are three hints that you’ll find scattered about the level to help you with the sphinx’s riddle.
When you have the five symbols in your possession, and the answer to the sphinx’s riddle, only one member of your party can return to the first level of the dungeon and visit Gnilda. If you give her the correct answer to the riddle, and you have the five symbols in your possession, she takes them from you and then presents you with the Staff of Gnilda.
Once the staff is in your possession all you have to do is head back to the castle and you’ll receive the following message:
I still love the Wizardry series; particularly the first game. I really enjoyed coming back to the series and getting into a good old fashioned dungeon crawler. I love the turn based strategy involved in the combat. I like the idea of taking your time to think about how you want to handle or best approach the situation and then watching it play out. I appreciate again that Wizardry remains the first series to present multiple party members each with different skill sets, spell lists and special abilities. It quite literally paved the way for others which would come after. The series is solely responsible for creating a sub-genre of role playing games known as Dungeon Crawlers. I also liked the plot hook in this second scenario and I liked how each dungeon level had it’s own personality. In the first game I remember that levels six through nine felt a little “sterile”. This second scenario seemed to have more flavorful text than the first game.
What I thought was a glaring weakness with this second scenario was the combat balance. The first dungeon level seemed appropriate and then I felt like was starring in a Quentin Tarantino film for levels two through six. Many of the combat encounters could be extremely deadly and I found myself starting over multiple times. I have the feeling that Wizardry fans wanted a high level, high octane scenario and that is exactly what they got. Playing a second scenario with seasoned, high level adventurers is a double-edged sword though. Sure it was really fun to transfer your characters over from the first game along with their hit points and spells. The downside is that you transferred old characters with all of their hit points and spells. What I am trying to say is that the game seemed to lack a certain excitement because the characters didn’t really improve or advance through the adventure. The focus WAS the adventure and there was no emphasis on level progression and there really were no spells to try and get; the characters had them all. The characters I was controlling did end up advancing 2 to 3 levels each (remember to make a level they needed like 250,000 experience points) but that was about it. In most cases all that did for me was give me another hit point and I got to watch my ability scores move even lower – yes that’s right I played the DOS version. My understanding is that the PSX, Saturn and SNES ports do not have such a drastic ability score drain when making a level.
So while I was ECSTATIC to return to the Wizardry series, had an amazing time with it and thought it was still stronger than most of the CRPGs I’ve played thus far, I encountered some chinks in it’s armor. I believe that most of my complaints were addressed and ironed out in Wizardry III which I will get to play and discover for myself when I get to the 1983 selection.
I played Wizardry II on my PC using DOSBox and it took me about 20 hours to complete. If I had the luxury of time and didn’t have lists upon lists of games to get to (gleefully rubs hands together) I would like to play Wizardry I and II on all of the different game systems that it was ported to and compare them all from a first hand perspective. I think that alone would likely take me over a year.