Digital Eclipse’s Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord delivers a new but rustic coat of paint to the 43-year old granddaddy that inspired some of the biggest RPG franchises out there.
When I was gifted a review copy of the game, I knew I was in for a rather unique experience. I’ve never touched a single game in the Wizardry franchise and the original Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Wizardry: PGMO from now on) is old enough to be my dad. However, after spending quite a few hours dungeoneering into the proving grounds’ depths, I can’t help but feel a bit conflicted.
Wizardry: PGMO’s (2024) attempts to remain faithful to the original release refuse to go unnoticed, so much so that the game defaults to displaying the classic rendition of the game as part of your HUD. For someone who had no knowledge of the original’s charms, being able to actively compare the game to both of the 2 glorious bits of its predecessor was eye opening. Every line of text and questionable sprite has been translated into beautiful HD, with an art style that wouldn’t seem out of place among the illustrations of the Dungeons & Dragons’ Player’s Handbook; like your imagination has come to life.
Being a remake, the game features a handful of quality of life adjustments to iron out the kinks and weirdness that’s bound to come with a 40 year old game. But, to my surprise, most of those tweaks are completely optional. So you can relive your classic experience, mind-numbing warts and all, adjust it to meet a standard better suited for the modern gamer, or craft the perfect balance to tickle your fancy; the choice is all yours. In my case, I learned the hard way that the modern tweaks were nothing short of blessings.
Wizardry: PGMO (2024) is no pushover by any stretch of the imagination. When first jumping into the game, I started by painstakingly crafting my six-person party before delving further into the titular proving grounds; having invested stat points to match each of my members’ imagined, poorly-optimized personalities.
They only made it 5 steps into the dungeon before meeting an unfortunate, domino-esque demise at the hands of a pack of undead kobolds. Poor bastards never saw it coming. But that’s when I realized that Wizardry: PGMO (2024) wasn’t here to mess about, if you were going to play, you were going to have to play well in order to make any form of meaningful progress. But that just further maintains the nostalgic charm of the game—the 80s was all about imbuing the experience of stubbing one’s toe repeatedly into the art form of electronic gaming, even at the expense of one’s controller.
I’m no stranger to the joys of seeing something old once again become something new with a handful of tweaks and a new coat of paint. But disappointingly, its Wizardry: PGMO’s (2024) fervent dedication to its former self that makes up the majority of its shortcomings as well.
After a few party wipes and unfortunate ends met in the dungeon’s slew of levels, the nostalgia of something so faithful is quickly overshadowed by the aged jank that would come with it; Wizardry: PGMO (2024) feels unpolished. The shops, a major source of much needed upgrades for your scrappy squad, contain only a handful of items, the most powerful of which is an item that they already sell with a shiny “+1” tacked on to the end of it. They also carry utility items like health potions and status recoveries, which would be all well and good if they didn’t cost both an arm and a leg to restore only the leg of a wounded character.
The eventuality is that you end up spending hours personally making extinct the local baddy population in order to afford better gear for the next six-man-made extinction event—considering the combat’s repetitive nature, this becomes quite tedious much quicker than it realistically should. I also found it harder to become invested in my party of misfits for this exact reason. I can’t exactly make interesting character arcs or moments out of watching the group do the exact same thing repeatedly until their numbers go up or they die brutally trying.
Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the overwhelming scope of modern day RPGs, but I can’t help but feel as though this is an experience that is best tailored for those who wish to relive their glory days of 2-bit dungeon crawling in a brand new light; I feel a bit underappreciative not sharing in the same experience.
Overall, if you’re looking for an old-school dungeon crawler to wet your appetite for your days of yore, Wizardry: PGMO (2024) has everything you need to get stuck back in where you left off.However, if you’re looking for a more modern take on an older format, this game and its retro pitfalls might be a miss for your particular tastes
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord can be purchased on Steam and GOG.
