The original Dungeons & Dragons-flavoured first-person dungeon crawler makes its current-generation debut on the PlayStation Network this spring, as XSEED Games brings Japan’s Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls to North America and Europe.
Ah, Wizardry, how I love thee. From the 1981 original, which I played all-too-briefly on a school computer, to 1990’s Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, the first PC game I purchased with my own money (up until then I had been stealing them from mall bookstores), the series’ dungeon-delving adventures have eaten a large chunk of my gaming hours over the years.
As much as I love Wizardry, Japan loves it more. There have been a ridiculous number of new games and spin-offs in the series produced in Japan, only some of which made it out of that country. Now the fabled series finally makes it to the North American PlayStation 3 in the form of a port of Japanese developer Acquire’s Wizardry: Torawareshi Tamashii no Meikyū.
The gameplay is as simple as it ever was. Players create a party of up to six characters, lovingly rendered in 2D sprite form by artist Yuki Hayabusa. Once the party is assembled, they are free to traverse grid-based 3D dungeons, facing off against 120 different monsters as they quest for whatever it is they are questing for. It doesn’t really matter. Wizardry is about forming the perfect party and kicking dungeon arse.
Look for Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls to hit the PlayStation Network in North America and Europe this (northern) spring. Look for me to disappear soon after.
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