Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn (1999)

New Age of Llylgamyn is the second set of Wizardry remakes for the Playstation (Llylgamyn Saga was the first and encompassed the original trilogy). It consists of the classic and arrange versions of the notoriously hard Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna as well as a remake of Wizardry V: Heart of Maelstrom. Sporting improved visuals, new orchestral soundtrack, auto-mapping, quick-saving and a nifty feature which allows the player to switch back to the wireframe graphics and 8-bit sprites, it is arguably the best way to enjoy these classic dungeon crawlers.

Storyline

- Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna is the fourth scenario in the Wizardry series of computer role-playing games. It was published in 1986 by Sir-tech Software, Inc. The Return of Werdna is drastically different from the trilogy that precedes it. Rather than continuing the adventures of the player's party from the previous three games, The Return of Werdna's protagonist is Werdna, the evil wizard that was defeated in the end of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord and imprisoned at the bottom of his dungeon forever. The game begins at the bottom of a 10-level dungeon. Most of Werdna's powers are depleted, and must be gradually recovered throughout the game. The initial goal is to climb to the top of the dungeon, reclaiming Werdna's full power along the way. Each level has one or more pentagrams at specific points. The pentagrams have three purposes: The first time a pentagram is discovered in a level, Werdna's strength increases, and a portion of his powers are restored. This only happens once per level; finding multiple pentagrams on a single level will not increase his powers multiple times. The second purpose is that monsters may be summoned from the pentagrams. The higher the level, the stronger the monsters available. There is no cost to summoning monsters, but only three parties of monsters may be summoned at a time, and any existing monsters will be replaced by the summoned ones. The third purpose is that pentagrams refresh Werdna's health and spellcasting capacity. Instead of fighting monsters, the player fights against the heroes from the past three Wizardry games. Players of the first three games who sent their character disks to Sir-Tech might have their characters present in Wizardry IV. - Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom: Despite the defeat of Trebor, Werdna, and L'kbreth, dark times once again threaten the kingdom of Llylgamyn. So once again a party of adventurers must venture forth to vanquish the evil. Wizardry V represents a complete revision of the gaming system used in the first four installments, with larger mazes, new spells and character classes, and an expanded system for combatting and interacting with creatures. It is also the first game in the series that allows, but does not require characters imported from a previous scenario.