Wizardry, in SPACE!
It's funny, much like the Dragon Quest games, the Wizardry series doesn't feel the need to outdo itself that much. But it certainly tries to spice things up so it doesn't feel "same but different but still same". Indeed, you can't say the gameplay isn't that, because it is. Create and customize a character's race, gender, classes (which can be interchanged), and upon level up, change stats and for this game, skills, some of which can be really useful. Quite complex! And it keeps this while making the game balls hard, not even allowing rookie players their time to shine without doing some grinding for skills, job classes, etc.
Honestly the biggest surprise is how well the plot goes. The endings of the previous Wizardry seem to change the beginning of this game, all things assumed that that game was played the way it should have been played. You believed the queens lies? You get a sort of bad beginning by being slaves for the bad guy. Don't believe him and you journey to the new planet yourself. The endings have something similar. Spare the life of the girl to get the endings that go to Wizardry 8, but don't spare her to get caught in endless darkness. It's so nonlinear in how you can boost or ruin your reputation with the multiple races of Guardia that it's a fairly leisurely game through all the grinding too. Sure, help the T'Rangs out, and then backstab them to work with the Umpanis. Help the Danes out with whatever monstrous things they got. There's even a Gorn race, okay maybe that's not all that amazing since it's not really the Star Trek race in truth. Everyone seems to also be searching for the same thing the Dark Savant is searching, the Astral Dominae. I kinda was hoping that that Cosmic Forge would be useful for something, and it turned out to be about a planet and all. Multiple beginnings, side stories, and endings, this one is the most intriguing Wizardry game yet.
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