Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
Game
Game2023
Wizardry: The Five Ordeals
Developer 59 Studio
Wizardry is a series of role-playing video games originally created by American publisher Sir-Tech. The series was influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games alongside Ultima and Might and Magic. The original Wizardry was a significant influence on early console role-playing games such as Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Slayer, the Shining series, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
299 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
79
LovedLoved
116 positive · 30 negative
95% range 72–85%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 116 | 30 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 31 | 4 | 97 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 1 | 7 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
119 of 150 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
79% recommend · 115 yes, 30 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 145 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (473 of 558 positive).
Players say this is a faithful, old-school Wizardry experience that is brutally difficult and unforgiving. [1][2][3] Some reviewers note the game offers extensive content, including multiple scenarios and user-made modules. [4][5][6] A few players criticize the English translation as poor and the game as lacking charm or quality-of-life features. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
If you're after a Wizardry fix, this is a good source for that. However, the biggest issue of this particular game is its selling point: The English Translation. Their update logs are in perfect English but the in-game English looks like it was quickly converted using a 10 years out-of-date google translate. There's constant grammatical errors, things sometimes become cryptic due to making no sense, and the worst …
- [1]
I see a LOT of post about how this game is unfair, but this WAS old school RPG's from the day. No comments to sway developers to nerf things or complain about *cough* balance. These old school RPG's simulated random danger and events one might find in dungeoneering. Tragedy can and will happen. Us old school wizardry players are familiar with this so here are some tips. 1. If you create your own characters never …
- [3]
While I've loved the Wizardry series since I was a kid, this game is not for the faint of heart. It is very much a classic CRPG experience and very difficult and at times extremely unfair. You will experience highs and some very big lows. It is a hardcore experience, and if you are not save scumming be prepared to be wiped out at any time. Large groups of monsters with breath weapons can annihilate you in a single …
- [2]
From what little I played, this is a like opening a time capsule and experiencing the same unforgiving yet compelling gameplay as in the original Wizardry entries. Everyithing apart the (rare) text messages is translated in the original scenarios, and for those who do not speak japanese, it is easily resolved by playing in windowed mode and using a program like Screen Translator or another OCR. I've google …
- [4]
I love this version of Wizardry. Out of all of the current options available - I like this one the best. Here are some things I like: - Five full scenarios (games) included in the base package. The DLC adds two levels that are remakes of previous Wizardry games (Playstation 2 - Prisoners of Battle & The Absence of Misericordia ). Add to this all of the user created scenarios and you have unlimited Wizardry. - The …
Summarised from 34 of the 272 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Wizardry: The Five Ordeals sits at 79% positive across 146 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The original Wizardry game was a success, selling 24,000 copies by June 1982, just nine months after its release according to Softalk's sales surveys. In the June 1983 issue of Electronic Games, Wizardry was described as "without a doubt, the most popular fantasy adventure game for the Apple II at the present time". While noting limitations such as the inability to divide the party, or the emphasis on combat over role-playing, the magazine stated that "no other game comes closer to providing the type of contest favored by most players of non-electronic role-playing games... one outstanding programming achievement, and an absolute 'must buy' for those fantasy gamers who own an Apple". In the…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 299 · most liked firstI see a LOT of post about how this game is unfair, but this WAS old school RPG's from the day. No comments to sway developers to nerf things or complain about *cough* balance. These old school RPG's simulated random danger and events one might find in dungeoneering. Tragedy can and will happen. Us old school wizardry players are familiar with this so here are some tips. 1. If you create your own characters never settle for bonus points less than 12. That means a LOT of not accepting character…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →wait, so the real reason the resident evil mansion has all those traps and puzzles in it in is because this game has been a dungeon crawler this entire time? This entire time it was another work inspired by Wizardry? We have Resident Evil and Dunmeshi and Souls games because of the same game?
neutral · AI labelView post →Wizardry, you are such a bastard of a game
negative · AI labelView post →first up is Wizardry, probably the single most influential video game of all time. almost every game can trace part its lineage back to wizardry, and also then begin to evolve back into wizardry as they add in RPG elements, like the unkillable crab of video games:
neutral · AI labelView post →Wizardry Daphne is a good dungeon-crawler, the devs clearly love Wizardry a lot... but it's also a gacha game. It's "free", but if you wanna dungeon-crawl old-school style without monetization & game-as-a-service drama, here's a short thread with some alternatives with a similar vibe🧵
neutral · AI labelView post →Your hands are guns in this indie first person finger-banger! Hand-to-Hand Wizardry is FREE on Itch: vfs-gdpg.itch.io/hand-to-hand... Gameplay Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Url... By Vancouver Film School indie game dev students #gaming
neutral · AI labelView post →Somewhere out there there's a timeline where Wizardry and Ultima just failed to get any interest in Japan and it's a radically different video game history. No Berserk for bonus points.
neutral · AI labelView post →Blobber studies continue with [Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land] on PS2. Immediate new favorite... Truly beautiful game, very compelling presentation, with tasteful writing and very very sexy lady art. Love the winter mountain vibes a lot!!
positive · AI labelView post →You'll like my indie game if you played these games: - Mercs (Especially Original Mode)🎮 - Wizardry 🧙♂️ - Contra🌴 - Might and Magic⚔ - Etrian Odyssey🌲 Yes really! store.steampowered.com/app/3016480/...
neutral · AI labelView post →Everyone knows Deus Ex is one of the most important games ever, so I'll use its 25th anniversary to highlight another game: CyberMage: Darklight Awakening. It's a 1995 immersive sim led by David Bradley (Wizardry V-VII), Warren Spector & Harvey Smith - a forgotten stepping stone towards Deus Ex!
neutral · AI labelView post →more indie game devs should make dungeon crawlers like Wizardry 8 and Ultima Underworld It's a fantastic business idea, and it would make me, personally, very happy You'd sell tens of copies!
positive · AI labelView post →If you're after a Wizardry fix, this is a good source for that. However, the biggest issue of this particular game is its selling point: The English Translation. Their update logs are in perfect English but the in-game English looks like it was quickly converted using a 10 years out-of-date google translate. There's constant grammatical errors, things sometimes become cryptic due to making no sense, and the worst offender is no one who translated has noticed they use duplicate words for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A UI mockup in #Godot for a #Wizardry Style game. #Gamedev #indiedev
neutral · AI labelView post →Playing through Wizardry 8, released in 2001, forget that it had a system where the actions you take improve your skills, and as I was grinding up my Earth skill, remembered a certain other game that had that great and forward-thinking RPG mechanic you don't see a lot of...yep... QUEST 64 !
positive · AI labelView post →Got a fancy new computer and a million cool games to play, but I've just been enjoying the new mobile Wizardry game lol They did a great job. This is true Wizardry - mazes, deadly battles, status effects, traps, etc... plus a storyline that adds events to dungeons, like rocklides trapping you in...
positive · AI labelView post →From what little I played, this is a like opening a time capsule and experiencing the same unforgiving yet compelling gameplay as in the original Wizardry entries. Everyithing apart the (rare) text messages is translated in the original scenarios, and for those who do not speak japanese, it is easily resolved by playing in windowed mode and using a program like Screen Translator or another OCR. I've google translated the negative japanese reviews, and it is basically whining about the UI…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like if you only understand SMT as a brand owned by Atlus, then how can you begin to untangle the way that Wizardry influenced game developers all over the world for decades
neutral · AI labelView post →The game is classic, dungeon crawling that usually focuses on the experience of exploring dungeons, mapping (on graph paper, if you're going full old-school!), and gathering loot and getting stronger. Though the included Five Ordeals are not at all well suited for novice adventurers, there is a lot of additional content, some official and some fan-created, that can be accessed and enjoyed even if you aren't highly familiar with the series. It, to a fault, sticks very closely to the gameplay…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bsky.app/profile/fish... Wizardry deciding you should immediately lose the game for no reason:
neutral · AI labelView post →very glad the word of Dungeon Encounters is spreading. The game made for Wizardry perverts
neutral · AI labelView post →i don’t really have much interest in gamedev but i think if i’d been around in the early 80s i’d have made millions of dollars making some bullshit spreadsheet game called Illuminar’s Returne which would nonetheless be scoffed at in computer magazines as “Wizardry for repressed homosexuals”
neutral · AI labelView post →So I booted up Wizardry Gaiden 4 tonight because it's the last SNES entry and this game looks like a response to Japan not being huge on 6-8 but still wanting the new races and classes So they give you all the races and classes from 6 in Gaiden and then have game use Wizardry V mechanics
neutral · AI labelView post →You just go back to like every half-interesting franchise and it's just the game designer's thought bubble like "damn, Wizardry is sooooo cool"
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is essentially endless Wizardry. Extremely niche. Those of you who know and love Wizardry 1-3+5, you know who you are, and you know what a treat this is. Big fans of Wizardry 5 may dislike the lack of NPC interaction. There are NPCs but you can't mess with them as you could in 5 has been my experience so far. The store page currently indicates "English language not supported". I'm enjoying this game and I know zero Japanese. There are a horde of user-made scenarios, and many…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →not a whole lot of talk these days about how Wizardry is like top 5 greatest video game logo ever. mysterious
neutral · AI labelView post →Wizardry Variants Daphne's PC Steam version will include landscape mode, controller support, and account linking with the mobile release. You can now wishlist the game on Steam as well: www.rpgsite.net/news/16843-w...
neutral · AI labelView post →What's the oldest game you ever saw getting a patch? Wizardry I, from 1981, got a fan patch this year! Yes, the original, Apple II release: www.zimlab.com/wizardry/pro... Some gameplay changes / rebalances, but mostly fixing bugs & adding QoL improvements from later versions, like pool/div gold.
neutral · AI labelView post →Honestly, this is why I've enjoyed Dark & Darker than most gritty tactical extraction shooters. Because it's basically a single-character Wizardry game with PvP.
positive · AI labelView post →instead of playing the transphobic wizard game just play Wizardry you knuckleheads
positive · AI labelView post →What if they released a brand-new Wizardry that wasn't particularly good and had zero QoL improvements? And yet somehow they demanded top dollar?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was just informed that there's a Urusei Yatsura Wizardry-style game for the Nintendo Game Boy
neutral · AI labelView post →So glad I could get a physical copy of Freedom Wars Remastered via Play-Asia. And a Wizardry game on PS5? Obviously Yes! 😄
positive · AI labelView post →Oh nice! My crappy old phone can barely run the game. And it honestly seems like a good Wizardry game.
positive · AI labelView post →All the core mechanics of Wizardry with none of the charm. Seriously, why did they even bother? Did they look at Wizardry 7 and say "too much of a living world here, let's cut out everything that makes it interesting and only keep the notoriously frustrating battles."? It's like they combined the worst traits of the Eye of the Beholder series with the worst traits of the Gold Box series, then covered the resulting abomination with Wizardry-flavoured ♥♥♥♥-frosting.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’d like to interact more with other artists here, but I feel that none of the people I follow are active here. - Here a concept sketcn for a Wizardry-like game with my ocs
neutral · AI labelView post →I used to Love all of the Wizardry games but this one is a giant PAIN. First off, rolling decent stats to create a good team (27 or higher points) is extremely rare. Secondly, if your party wipes out, you have to start a party will at least one open slot to go and find where your old party died. The pain here is that you have to have an open party slot for each dead body you want to carry back. Plus it usually takes having a FULL 6 party members to survive the dungeons so going in with the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wizardry Tale of the Forsaken Land was an absolute blast to play through... and even though releasing the video for it took nearly a year, I'm glad I got to cover a game I genuinely think doesn't get enough love. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJYq...
positive · AI labelView post →Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord remake composer Winifred Phillips won the "Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games" Grammy last night. (Read more: Game Developer)
neutral · AI labelView post →Given its prominence in Japanese CRPG otaku circles, it was inevitable that there'd be a Wizardry anime. Shochiku Fuji's Wizardry OVA, based on the first game, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981), arrived a year after Lodoss War's (1990), and was probably seen as riding its coat tails.
neutral · AI labelView post →Interesting to think that 40 years later, Wizardry and Ultima are still drawing inspiration from each other. The latest Wizardry game, Wizardry Variants Daphne features a very Ultima-like personality quiz
neutral · AI labelView post →Played and completed the original Wizardry Games back in the day. They were amazing. 6/7/8 especially. Whilst this is a great reincarnation of those, it's just too hard. No manual saves (it saves after battle automatically irrespective of death or not) and if you die that's it. The end. Start again. Also you have no way to easily return to an inn or leave so that you can rest up and recuperate. If you get down to low HP with your characters and can't remember your way back, tough luck,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Spoilers, but seems like Wizardry Daphne is pulling some interesting narrative twists. Bittersweet that the coolest Wizardry game in ages is stuck being a mobile gacha game...
neutral · AI labelView post →Two years and still no scenario editor. They did however release very expensive DLC scenarios. Edit: The game has risen in price by 10.00, but still no editor. Edit: Developers have confirmed the editor is available. Its not an in game editor. Its a website in Japanese. It is usable and there are switches to change it to English, but they are several steps inward and you'll need a translator. Not what we were promised.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Been obsessed with this idea about a metroidvania inspired by Wizardry, Spelunky, and OSR TTRPGs so I made a fake game screen about it (and like... too many Obsidian notes).
neutral · AI labelView post →Variants Daphne confirms that every Wizardry game and spin-off takes place in the same universe
neutral · AI labelView post →For Random Game Saturday, I have Wizardry Gaiden II, the middle entry of the original Wizardry games made for the original Game Boy. It has the subtitle Curse of the Ancient Emperor and moves the action to an Arabian Nights inspired setting.
neutral · AI labelView post →Impartially old-school, aggravating to some, delightfully difficult to others. If the prospect of having to assemble a party and send it down a dungeon merely to heal it up by casting limited spells, then sending back the healer in town to restore those spells, and repeat the process multiple times, simply to cheap out on staying a night at the inn sounds charming to you, join us!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →**Edited my review to better reflect the difficulty of Traveler's Property vs. The Price of Deception** I had never played any Wizardry game before. It popped up from time to time throughout my life, but I thought it to be some vestige of the past, an archaic game missing quality of life features that I've come to rely upon. The first installment is four years older than I am. I never paid it much mind. Somehow this game showed up in my recommendations. I saw it was relatively recent. I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A fierce dragon seal borne by this Japanese ad from early 2000 heralds Wizardry: Dimguil, an RPG for the Sony PlayStation by ASCII The fifth entry of ASCII's long running "Wizardry Gaiden" series delivered 11 races and 14 professions to craft a party with and face roughly 300 types of monsters!
neutral · AI labelView post →I love old school RPG's. I grew up with the Bard's Tails and games of the sort. i'm used to grinding for hours on end for exp. and gold and mapping out on graph paper floor after floor of dungeons but this game is ridiculous, its not a matter of fair or not fair this game is a waste of time. I play video games to enjoy them, all this game is about is frustration. I have a life, to though's of you that want to grind this out go right ahead. The straw that broke the camels back for me is after 40…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don’t care if this gacha game has hot furries, I’m not play— what? It’s the Wizardry gacha game? 🫦 um…
positive · AI labelView post →The game Dungeon Antiqua asks the necessary question "what if Wizardry had the presentation of FF3" It rules
neutral · AI labelView post →Fun if you started with Wizardry 1 on an Apple II e,
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm a day late but I helped make Whimsical Wizardry, a free (w/ no microtransactions, completely free) multiplayer party game! The team is ~15% trans, including me ^-^ store.steampowered.com/app/2910500/...
neutral · AI labelView post →Wizardry Variants: Daphne. Yes, the gacha mobile Wizardry game. The one where you can have characters permanently die. The one that, especially if you're playing free, is a surprisingly hardcore and authentic Wizardry experience. And was Yoko Taro's GOTY. store.steampowered.com/app/2379740/...
positive · AI labelView post →The game is old school RPG as the original wizardry games but it's also quite crude by that standard. There is no plot, description of what you're doing or why, no feedback, they dont bother to describe items etc. All those small (and big) things that make a game come alive are just not there. And as others have mentioned, translation is crappy to an extent where it becomes a problem. Finally, 25 eur is WAY overpriced for this. Even 5 is pushing it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Capcom Armored Warriors Fordy has very cool mecha wheel feet that's also in the shin or ankle area. Also playfully turn into saws. Darkstalkers Anakaris feels like a fantasy Wizardry giant mummy version of all the mecha in this game.
neutral · AI labelView post →I love this version of Wizardry. Out of all of the current options available - I like this one the best. Here are some things I like: - Five full scenarios (games) included in the base package. The DLC adds two levels that are remakes of previous Wizardry games (Playstation 2 - Prisoners of Battle & The Absence of Misericordia ). Add to this all of the user created scenarios and you have unlimited Wizardry. - The game is *fully playable* with only the keyboard and it feels very response,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You cannot create your own party. You are given a party and I do not like not having the option of creating your own party. Other Wizardry game you could chose. So unless I am missing something I do not recommend this game to anyone that likes to have some control in the party makeup.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When's the last time you played a Wizardry game? We're diving into @digitaleclipse.bsky.social's 3D Remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. 🧙 link.atari.com/watchonTwitch
neutral · AI labelView post →
Posts are quoted from public profiles with links to the original. Want yours removed? Contact us.