The Wizardry series is one of the longest-running franchises in gaming. Originally developed by now-defunct American company Sir-Tech, it gained enormous popularity in Japan despite low-quality translations causing many of the game's popular culture references and parodies to be misinterpreted or missed altogether. As a result, it was taken far more seriously by Japanese gamers and developers than originally intended -- but it did form part of the inspiration for the Dragon Quest series, so perhaps that's not a bad thing.
Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, one of the latest entries in the series, was originally released on PSN in 2009 in Japan and made it to North America in June of this year to somewhat mixed receptions -- we quite liked it. Now, it's coming to iOS devices too, starting from November 3.
The game goes back to the Wizardry series' roots with first-person turn-based dungeon crawling, albeit with considerably better graphics than the Apple II original. Players can take on the role of one of ten adventurers, build an unstoppable party and descend into two dungeons to deal with whatever great evil is threatening the land this time.
Following a growing trend among App Store titles, the game will be downloadable for free in a limited form, allowing players to level up to 5 and explore the first floor of the Dungeon of Trials for no cost. Players who want to continue their journey past this point will have to hand over $9.99 via in-app purchase for the full game.
"It is an honor to bring such a respected and long-lived RPG franchise to mobile devices for the first time in history," said Richie Casper, creative director at Japanese independent developer Acquire, perhaps best known for PS1 ninj 'em up Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. "We worked hard to ensure that Wizardry: Labyrinth of Souls for iOS stays completely true to the series' roots while also providing players with the same high quality graphics and challenging gameplay they've come to expect from the console version."
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