| Crusaders Of The Dark Savant |
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Crusaders of the Dark Savant was the 7th title in the Wizardry series of Computer Role Playing Games by Sir-Tech . It is also the 2nd in the 'Dark Savant trilogy'. It was published in 1992 by Sir-tech Software, Inc. It was originally developed for DOS . In 1996 it was remade into Wizardry Gold, designed to work on Windows 95 , and distributed by Interplay . CRUSADERS OF THE DARK SAVANT VS WIZARDRY GOLD The first main difference between the original Crusaders of the Dark Savant and Wizardry Gold is that they are designed for different computer platforms. While you can play Crusaders of the Dark Savant (original version) on Windows 95 computers (and beyond), Wizardry Gold will not work on DOS. Wizardry Gold introduced Diplomacy to the game to a much larger extent, with a whole level of programming added purely to deal with the diplomatic element. Whilst diplomacy technically existed in Crusaders of the Dark Savant, it only did minor things such as changing prices, and also deciding which alliance you were with and hence which quests you were on. The Wizardry Gold version made diplomatic relations much more complicated. Another major development in the Wizardry Gold version was the introduction of speech. This was primarily in the form of a Narrator who tells you what is happening at each stage. In the Crusaders of the Dark Savant version, this is merely text that can easily be skipped through. Finally, Wizardry Gold introduced a simple version of 3D action. Whilst they were essentially 2 dimensional characters that played out set moves, this differed in that the characters that were fought actually changed. Wizardry Gold was included as part of Interplay's Ultimate RPG Archives , that was released in 1998 and it's also availabe in the ''Ultimate Wizardry Archives'' that contains all Wizardry parts from 1 to 7. PLOT Crusaders of the Dark Savant is set in the world of Lost Guardia, a world that holds many ancient artifacts and is ruled by the Hellazoids, a , either with the Umpani, T'Rang or Dark Savant areas. For new players, there is a 4th location, which is shipwrecked in the middle of a jungle. The aim of Crusaders of the Dark Savant is ultimately to find the Astral Dominae and defeat the Dark Savant. There are many clues which you must gather along the way to find where it is, and who to talk to. Main races in Crusaders of the Dark Savant are the T'Rang and Umpani, and as with Wizardry 6 and 8, you can choose either to ally with one, the other, or neither. There are also local Lost Guardia races, the Munk, Dane, Gorn, Rattkin and Hellazoid. In addition, new player races have been added, including Felpurr (cat people), Rawulf (dog people) and Mook (monkey people). The Munk and Dane are at war with each other, so you can only ally with one of them (or neither). You have little choice but to ally with the Gorn. Rattkin will not ally with you. Helazoids are kind of like the guardians of the planet and hence not allying with them can make it extremely difficult (but not impossible) to win the game. GAME PLAY New players start at level 1 with all characters, and hence have lower level creatures designed to raise their experience up to a level that would be equal to that of parties who were imported from Wizardry 6. An automap is discovered in a treasure chest close to the starting point, and from there a practise dungeon can be ventured in to in order to get a feel for the game and to get up to level 5 or 6, which is sufficient to get in to the main area. The game is difficult to play, especially if starting afresh, as the automap is in a locked chest and you probably can't pick the lock very easily - it is also trapped and the trap can kill everyone! Even the so-called practise dungeon is very difficult at the end with a major fight, and similarly when entering the town there is an ambush. The difficulty of the game continues throughout, and it makes it next to impossible to make it even beyond 1 fight without regular saves. When creating characters, to have a character that can survive through the game, you need to reroll about 300 times per character just to get a decent amount of points to spend. (The amount of points you are able to spend varies with each roll, you shouldn't start the game with a character that has less than 15 extra points unless you are not afraid of restoring your game very VERY very often.) Powerful weapons are expensive and not easy to find, and never in the game you will have a time when your party is strong enough to just walk around and kill enemies easily. Fights remain challenging until the very end and if your party is killed way too often you could try the Wizardry 7 Editor . Compared to its already difficult predecessor Bane Of The Cosmic Forge the riddles and fights are much harder. Thankfully the Wizardry Gold version comes complete with a help guide that tells you how to do everything (on top of walkthroughs that exist on the web). It is still incredibly difficult to get through it and you will spend at least 3 months if you play every day. The game is perhaps the most in-depth roleplaying adventure ever created, with more quests, side quests and a very complicated storyline which can be vastly different each time that you play, depending on diplomatic choices. Additionally, if you are too slow in getting different parts of the main quest(s), then other people get there before you, which means that you have to fight the other party to get a certain item, and it affects how things happen. You also age. One of the main quirks of Crusaders of the Dark Savant is that characters can change class whenever they reach statistics that are the minimum for a different class (they gain a random number of stat points, randomly distributed, with every level increase). This can mean that each character can have skills and spells from all 14 classes by the end of the game. Unlike Wizardry 8 , however, when changing classes you can go quickly to high levels in the new class, as your experience resets back to 0 each time. Crusaders of the Dark Savant differentiates between males and females by giving females 2 points less of strength (out of a maximum of 18) yet they get 2 points higher in personality and karma. Personality and Karma are unusual statistics that are rarely seen in games of this nature. Both statistics relate to your diplomatic dealings with NPCs within the game. The closer a character's karma score is to an NPC's, the better they get along. In comparison to earlier Wizardry titles, Wizardry 7 is far more in-depth with its plot and difficulty, with hundreds more hours of game play (for the first time through), and a far less linear plot. Wizardry 8, for example, did not go close to matching Wizardry 7 for the depth of the plot, nor for the non-linear element of it. |
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