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How Japan Fell In Love With Wizardry

St1ka

160,664 views

Before Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, Wizardry pioneered the RPG genre with class changes, epic grinding, and quirky enemies like the Vorpal Bunny. In this video, we explore how Wizardry 4’s chaotic 4-year development nearly sank the series, only for Wizardry 5: Heart of the Maelstrom to spark a stunning comeback, rescuing Sir-Tech from collapse. From shaping JRPG mechanics to D.W. Bradley’s bold Wizardry 6 reboot, uncover why this hidden classic still influences gaming today!

Uncover why Wizardry 5 is a retro masterpiece, how Wizardry 6 introduced ninja fairies and a sci-fi twist, and which versions to play today (Super Nintendo, FM Towns, or MS-DOS). Love Final Fantasy’s job system or Dark Souls’ grim tone? It all traces back to Wizardry! Perfect for retro gaming fans and JRPG enthusiasts alike.

Wizardry Part 1 Wizardry - Where Every JRPG Comes From

0:00 - Japan's RPG Obsession
01:26 - Wizardry 5
03:34 - The Game That Saved Wizardry
06:48 - How Wizardry Class System Works
08:08 - How Wizardry inspired the Final Fantasy series
09:30 - Japanese RPG creators love Wizardry
10:58 - The Decline of Wizardry
13:13 - Apple II version
13:44 - The Ms-Dos version
13:58 - The PC Engine version
14:35 - The Super Nintendo version
15:37 - The FM Towns version
18:51 - It forever changed JRPGs
22:06 - How It Forever changed Fantasy in Japanese Gaming
24:55 - How it changed Japanese Gaming
26:05 - Wizardry 6
29:37 - You should probably just cheat
31:01 - New classes and more!
32:26 - The Ninja fairy!
33:41 - It's incredibly difficult
35:52 - The story
42:53 - The SNES version
43:56 - The Sega Saturn version
45:34 - The FM Towns version
46:27 - The Ms-dos version
46:58 - It Created Delicious in Dungeon
49:01 - The "Main Character" of Wizardry 6
50:21 - Jun Suemi, the artist behind Wizardry
52:12 - The best entry point for newcomers
52:46 - Wizardry 1 2 3 Story of Llylgamyn / Wizardry Llygalmyn Saga (SNES / Sega Saturn)
53:48 - The Wizardry Remake (PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC)
54:42 - Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaked Land (PS2)
55:32 - Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PS3 / PC)
56:27 - Wizardry Variants Daphne

#Wizardry #Retrogaming #FinalFantasy #SNES #SuperNintendo

20 Comments

@st1ka Creator 1 year ago (edited) Pinned

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMwhCj0kv3c&list=PLZ2_9M7kqCXhDTQ2Sr8PqSNTV8E9JfVjQ&index=13&ab_channel=St1ka

Credits for outside footage:

2024 Photo of Robert Woodhead / King Trebor by Shaun Musgrave: https://toucharcade.com/2024/05/23/an-interview-with-robert-woodhead-co-creator-of-wizardry-the-remake-mms-ninjas-and-more/
Wizardry V FM Towns version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJR31n75gQ
Wizardry V FM Towns version 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FWJ-0HwE3g
Wizardry VI FM Towns version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZA8aXEwAQ
Wizardry VI SNES version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WPBdmfQpFs
Wizardry music box theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KximnegBVyc
Wizardry guitar theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld4vV_GxYd0
8-bit Marcille by: https://x.com/6KLkQkFTkUmdS9t/

@Barbaryotaku 1 year ago

I clicked for the thumbnail but stayed for the detailed history.

@be-noble3393 1 year ago

We’re Wizardry Guys!
We Cast “Re Reroll Characters for the 17th Time!!!!”

@Dug88 1 year ago (edited)

Final Fantasy 2 was directed by Akitoshi Kawazu who later went on to direct the SaGa series which shares a similar skill system with FF2. The system in FF2 was made intentionally to be the opposite of Wizardry style class systems. Kawazu is a big fan of western rpgs and tabletop rpgs. Most of his games are heavily inspired by tabletop rpgs. Unlimited SaGa is basically a tabletop rpg in videogame form.

Also, there's a Japanese parody show called Yuusha Yoshihiko that parodies Dragon Quest and was inspired by Monty Python so at least some Japanese people who probably also like Wizardry know about Monty Python. It's a great show if you've never watched it.

@Chekr12 1 year ago

There's an interesting side-story to be had about Woodhead's trips to Japan and him founding AnimEigo, one of the first English localization studios for anime.

@ShinoSarna 1 year ago

24:46 The interesting tidbit is that dog kobolds are probably because for a while in DnD kobolds WERE dogs. For example if you play original Baldur's Gate, there is a crapton of kobolds, and they appear to be very like terrier dogs or dachshunds. But by the time of Neverwinter Nights couple years later (based on a later edition of DnD), kobolds were now reptilian and related to dragons.

@MikeThePsykat 11 months ago

Learning about the history of joke enemies and they partly link back to Monty Python helps me understand what Monolith Soft might've been thinking when they made 1 of the 5 Xenoblade 1 superbosses a Bunia type enemy. Heck, Xenoblade 2 also has a superboss that's from another "cute" enemy type, a Pippito. Both of these feel like jokes that date back to other JRPG joke enemies that link back to that Holy Grail scene.

@Longlius 1 year ago

For a long time, I'd wondered why the animal people in Star Ocean were called 'Fellpool' and this video finally answered it for me - it's a weird transliteration shift from the 'Felpurr' in Wizardry VI.

@Vork_Knight_Of_Good 1 year ago

The rumours were true, he's alive! 😂😂😂

@Tacticslion 1 year ago

It's very remarkable how D&D -> Wizardry -> Japanese western RPG styles (which are radically different from current D&D). It's fascinating.

@Tacticslion 1 year ago

47:51 - fun little fact: the original "Mad Mage" who was a "lord of the dungeon" (ala Wizardry) was actually Zagyg (or Zagig, among other spellings), a self-insert from Gary Gygax explaining why the dungeons under Castle Greyhawk (where he sent his home group adventuring over and over again) existed and also why they changed and were (re)filled with monsters, traps, and treasures.

This is where the tradition started, and also is associated with the title "Dungeon Master" (the GM or "DM" of any given D&D game; as the DM's job was to use his or her figurative "mad genius" to create interesting and dangerous places filled with various dangers and loot, aka "dungeons" in the game's parlance). Essentially the GM was a quasi-character in the game world insomuch as he developed it for these dangerous places (though unless the GM had a Gygaxian-like self-insert, the actual in-character boss or ruler or creator of the dungeon was not exactly the DM themselves) - this also led to the olderschool mentality of "the DM is the enemy" because (in some games especially) the DM was literally "the enemy" in that they created the dangers to stop your characters.

(Also, also: Gygax famously had several self-inserts; another famous one that newer players are likely familiar with, in name, at least, is Mordenkainen. In fact, many of the names - though not all - associated with spells or other elements of D&D came from Gary Gygax's NPCs or his players' characters; some exceptions exist of course, like Tasha - who was a little girl who asked Gygax a question in a letter written in crayon, and so was granted Tasha's hideous laughter in the game. Later she was made an NPC, specifically one associated with Iggwilv [she was secretly an alias of Iggwilv], but neither the spell nor the character name started that way.)

@Zero_Tester 1 year ago

Heart Of Maelstorm was my introduction titles toward Wizardry back in mid 2000s,back then i didnt realized how influential this was toward Jrpg,anime,and manga as whole,just glad to be part of the fandom

@dvader518 8 months ago

8:18 The class system also is similar to Dragon Quest III except in that game, the stats were halved upon changing classes rather than resetting entirely.

@mofumofu_hobo 1 year ago (edited)

I watched an obscure Japanese/Polish film called "Avalon", directed by Mamoru Oshii. It was about a girl playing a Matrix-like world war 2 MMORPG that starts wondering that the game is more real than her afk life. Despite the game being about modern war, character classes were named as in Wizardry (a grunt would be a Fighter, a sapper would be a Thief, dungeon masters were Priests...), and many background characters were named after Wizardry spells (as "Mahalito").

@MonsterJail 1 year ago

After I recently finished watching Delicious In Dungeon I ended up rewatching your older Wizardry video as it was so familiar, nice to see it come full circle!

@ShadowXeldron 1 year ago

Hold on... Not only do Wizardry games 6 through 8 let you play as a ninja fairy, but it's also optimal to use one? I'm officially sold on this series.

@raginbutnotalways 1 year ago

Man i have watched and looked at so many videos to learn more about games and their origins, especially Final Fantasy, and never once did anyone mention the influence of Wizardry on the series. I am truly amazed. Thank you so much Mr. Stika, you have teached me so much! Cheers

@maudjito 1 year ago

I teared up from astonishment from the FM Towns version reveal. Amazing job at painting the picture there. Audible wows were uttered. Holy shit that's a great version of the game

@Beluga_Narwhal 6 months ago

25:15 Not sure about art style, but King's Field was conceived as a Wizardry style game. I do find that there are some stylistic similarities between Souls and some Japanese PC RPGs. Death Bringer's game over screen, for example, is a knight in the exact same pose as DeS's game cover.