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The Hardest RPG Ever Made

The Cellar [Taigen Moon]

662,598 views

One of the most influential RPG series of all time... almost died in its fourth (well, really second) outing. What happened to Wizardry 4? And I don't say anything offensive this time.

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Music used (in approximate order):
Mirror of the World - Guilty Gear Strive OST
Fu-Gee-La (Instrumental) - The Fugees
Fierce Battle - Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne OST
Eastern Mind (TONG NOU ZEN MIX) - Osamu Sato
Soulless Awakening - Eastern Mind OST
Strange Dreamer - Melty Blood OST
Title - Brain Age OST
Victory - Final Fantasy OST
Vampire Village - Goosebumps Horrorland OST
Menu - Postal OST
Quick Man Stage - Mega Man 2 OST
Character Select - Super Mario Bros 2 USA OST
Smoke and Mirrors - Rise of the Triad OST
Above Stoneship - Myst OST
Mumbo's Mountain - Banjo Kazooie OST
Cyberspace - System Shock OST
In the Shadows - BlazBlue Centralfiction OST
Dust Man - King of Fighters '96 OST
Temple Dojo Ambient D - LSD Dream Emulator OST
Fever Swamp - Goosebumps Horrorland OST
Holy Orders (Be Just Or Be Dead) - Guilty Gear XX OST
Running from Evil - Doom OST
Devil - Harvester OST
Good Fighter [bliriant mix] - Street Fighter III Original Arrange Album
GCV2009 For the Future - Melty Blood OST
Truth - Melty Blood OST
Funky Solution - Osamu Sato
Fierce Battle - Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne OST
The Head Shaker - Tekken 2 OST
Final Boss - Final Fantasy X OST
The Last Message - Myst OST
Feels Like I Just Can't Take No More - April's in Paris
N.M.H. - No More Heroes OST
Promise - Next New World - Mega Man Zero 4 OST
Rise Up - Andra Day

Sources:
Archives page with packaging materials-
https://www.wizardryarchives.com/w4.html

Robert Sirotek interview from @MattBarton -
Matt Chat 246: Robert Sirotek on Wizardry 1-5

Unboxing video by @hermitintheforest3647 -
Wizardry The Return of Werdna Unboxing (PC...

Super Best Friends, Friday Night Fisticuffs: Tough Guy-
Friday Night Fisticuffs - Tough Guy

Society for Creative Anachronism footage by @GenovevaVonLubeck -
Introduction to the Society for Creative A...

Sacred Geometry animations by @chaosandlight

Ultima IV footage by @LordFentonGaming -
Ultima IV Quest of the Avatar Walkthrough ...

Trebor Sux footage from @MiraudersGaming -
Wizardry Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlo...

Wizardry 2 Bestiary by FatRatKnight on GameFAQs-
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/...

Softline Magazine, March 1982-
https://archive.org/details/Softline_...

Orthodox Jewish Shabbat service footage from @JewTubeTV -
Authentic orthodox Jewish Shabbat service ...

Blackpool Synagogue’s last service by @wardenblog -
Blackpool Synagogue Last Service Part 1

Dair Hawkwind of Skara Brae’s Order of Precedence page-
https://op.eastkingdom.org/op_ind.php...

Ultima IV Hawkwind footage by @CheckersPrefect -
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar - Let's Pla...

Robert Woodhead interview by @AnimEigoWGP -
The Anime Business - Robert Woodhead

Dragon magazine review of Wizardry IV, February 1989 issue-
https://archive.org/details/DragonMag...

Computer Gaming World review of Wizardry IV, November 1987 issue-
https://archive.org/details/Computer_...

Metadata stuff:
#cellar #retrogaming

20 Comments

@JustAPlayOnWords 1 month ago

This game feels like it was literally only meant to be played by the creator which is weirdly kinda respectable. The fact that you need to play other games just to progress is wild game design.

@sanity000-x2r 1 month ago

This is the dungeon crawling spiritual predecasor to all those Kaizo Mario romhacks made for the clinically insane.

@zusafrostbite 3 weeks ago

My dad was actually the second person to solve the game back in 1987. Was a tester for a few other sirtech titles as well. I grew up with him telling me about how he figured out you had to teleport below the map and how shocked everyone was on compuserve. Thanks for the video I’ve actually never seen a play through of this game before so it feels like I’ve unlocked a lot of dad lore I never really understood.

@SuperLlama42 1 month ago (edited)

Dude designed the game like he was trapping a REAL evil sorcerer for all eternity

Between the sudden Kabbalah reference, the proto-monster collecting mechanics, the Grandmaster ending and just being kinda bullshit it's confirmed, Wizardry 4 is a MegaTen game.

@richardtorruellas2370 1 month ago

So not only was this the first rage/kaizo style game but the guy behind it was an actual living legend who may very well have been an actual ninja with how much he got around. All of this and he still had time to help out his friends in an anime. Like seriously, WTF man.

@atmosdwagon4656 1 month ago (edited)

I have "beaten" Wizardry IV once.
And I did it on a dare back when I was in college, discussing old, unfair computer games with my tech professor and fellow students.
I used to use Sierra Entertainment's point-and-click adventures as my barometer for "Blatantly unfair bullshit difficulty" when it came to obscure nonsense in gaming. Wizardry IV changed that.

Never again.
Never. Again.

@LegalPhantom 1 month ago

I can't believe this game has an abuse Dink. The prototype of the abuse goblin.

@neverreadyfries8066 1 month ago

This is like putting a Mary Sue self insert in your story, except in this case the self insert is the entire game.

@BFBeast666 1 month ago

That reminds me of that one obnoxious DM who loved to torture us with un-solvable riddles and surprise reinforcements when we murdered his elaborate encounters faster than we were supposed to. After five sessions of this nightmare, I left the table and started my own, vowing never to become such a vindictive, petty and miserable person. Oh, the joys of high school in the heady days of 1992.

@TheMoulie 1 month ago

When one of my students says, about a problem, "that was easy" I always reply "anything is easy if you know how to answer it".
This seems like a game where you have you know all the answers before you start. But with no help or fore knowledge of said puzzles.
I started playing AD&D back in 1980 and computer games in '83 (including many text based MUDs). I have written and run many, many adventures. It's very, VERY easy to write an impossible adventure only you know how to solve. It's a LOT harder to write a challenging yet solvable, fun for the players, adventure.

@robertsides3626 1 month ago

"How was I supposed to know that?"
Has got to be the most famously timeless adage every Gamer has sworn by spanning decades. Hell, it transcends cultures and languages. It is the great unifier.

@hemangchauhan2864 1 month ago (edited)

Brave to even attempt playing Wizardry IV, let alone covering it

@renatocorvaro6924 1 month ago

Honestly though, the premise of "Evil wizard has to escape their own dungeon using summoned monsters as party members" has such fucking traction that it's both sad and embarrassing that Wiz4 is the only example of it I can think of.

@TheOutslav 1 month ago

I love how just saying "80% quit in the first room" is enough to tell what RPG you're talking about.

@AsafAqua 1 month ago

I suppose Dink was an anagram for "Kind", as only kindess could soften him, or "Kid-n", his son/daughter could soften him too.

@sirtacovi3262 1 month ago

I’m sure at least one other commenter probably mentioned this, but the first Megami Tensei game actually came out a few months before this. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t inspired by Wizardry, of course. Just that it wasn’t inspired by this entry specifically.

@Cynidecia 1 month ago

I'm hardcore but I do not know if I am WERDNA HARDCORE.

@RolandTheJabberwocky 1 month ago

So this has taught me that Roe Adams became the end boss of nerdery and in celebration created a kaizo dlc for his game where he made it so only a collective of nerds could possibly match him, made his OC the nigh indestructible end boss killable only by an obscure weakness/joke, and told everyone they're a bitch if they can't beat it?

Honestly? Insane amount of respect. That's pretty based.

@scavengersix2161 1 month ago

"Is the difficulty of this game smart, or numbers?"
"I don't understand"
Pull out diagram explaining the difference
"It's a good difficulty, sir"
Buy game, get home and look inside
It's Wizardry

@polygonvvitch 1 month ago

The fact that this game throws away so many mechanics from the previous ones makes it such a weird thing. It both is entirely for people who are absurdly into Wiz 1 through 3 and also not for them because of how much it changes.