Wizardry: Labyrinth Of Lost Souls comes to PC today
Hip to be square
Wizardry: Labyrinth Of Lost Souls is a translated PC port of the Japanese game released in 2009.
Sir-Tech's original Wizardry games were among those that defined the entire RPG genre, particularly those concerned with sending a party into dungeons to kill everything. In 1991 they inspired a separate branch of spin-offs in Japan that continued long after the North American series petered out. This entry in that line finally came to English speaking PCs today.
This square-happy dungeon fest was developed by the sinisterly-named Acquire Corp, best known around here for Octopath Traveller, which Katharine was conflicted about.
Wizardry is a series in the odd position of being enormously influential, yet semi-forgotten. The originals spanned the 80s and 90s, dying out in 2001, not long before Sir-Tech (also of Jagged Alliance fame) folded. They are, let us say, an acquired taste. Tile based dungeon crawlers with an emphasis on the crawl, in which you drag a party around every inch of somewhere horrible looking for chests to open (wooden) and chests to cave in (fleshy). On reflection, their focus on grindy party based combat, complex character classes, and hidden depths and details are an obvious fit for JRPG design in general.
Their popularity in Japan led to a frankly intimidating list of anime-flavoured spin-offs until as recently as 2014, very few of which were officially released to Anglo markets (and even then, not on PC). Labyrinth Of Lost Souls is one of the few that made the jump, in 2011, onto whatever a PlayStation 3 is.
I'm not exactly convinced by the trailer or footage I've seen of the old PS3 version, but then I would only play an 'old school' anime dungeon crawler if I lost a bet with God, so I may not be the best judge. This is probably not my jam and that's ok. Maybe it'll be yours.
Wizardry: Labyrinth Of Lost Souls is out now on Steam and GOG for £13/€15/$15.