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Wizardry 1st Trilogy SNES

Wizardry 1st Trilogy: Story of Llylgamyn for SNES— Downloads

Download the Wizardry 1st Trilogy SNES— Rebalancing mod

Purpose

This mod aims to enhance the gameplay of all three games in Wizardry's first trilogy. They were already hard enough, and required quite a bit of dedication to get anywhere. On top of that, they seemed to have a couple of rules that seemed arbitrarily handicapping to the player. In creating this mod I hope I have smoothed out some of the rough edges of this game, in order to make it more accessible.

Credits

Major props to Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis Translations. It was his pioneering hacking efforts in translating this previously Japanese-only ROM that made this project worthwhile for me to undertake.

ZIP file contents

Your Rebalancing mod download for Wizardry 1st Trilogy should contain these four files:

  • Aeon-Genesis-Wizardry-translation-patch-v1.0.ips— Aeon Genesis' Japanese-to-English Translation patch, version 1.0. It was originally downloaded from Aeon Genesis' site.
  • Aeon-Genesis-translation-readme.txt— Readme for Aeon Genesis' translation patch.
  • Wizardry-Story-of-Llylgamyn-Rebalanced-v1.0.ips— Patch to convert an Aeon Genesis English translated ROM to Ludmeister's Rebalancing Mod v1.0.
  • Ludmeister-Rebalancing-mod-readme.txt— Description of the Rebalancing mod

Version 1.0 Changelog

May 18th, 2012 (revision 6)

  • Fixed a bug with the 1st level Priest spell Bless, which when cast would levy a penalty of 14 to the party's armor class (ouch!). It now grants a bonus of 1, as it should.
  • At level up, characters should experience much more randomness in the attributes they might receive.
  • When changing classes, a character's attributes used to reset to their racial minimums. This penalty is softened, and each attribute is reduced by 3.

April 28th, 2012 (revision 5)

  • For all scenarios, the maximum attribute score any character can attain is 16 greater than their minimum score in that attribute. This is changed from 18 (Wizardry 1 and 2), and 10 greater than minimum (Wizardry 3).

April 13th, 2012 (revision 4)

  • Fixed a few minor data issues concerning items while updating the new item listing data for posting on the site.

March 30th, 2012 (revision 3)

  • Fixed a problem with the Mage's experience curve where at level 11 or 12, they would immediately gain a level.
  • Wizardry 2's Epee of Dueling now improves the wielder's AC by 1.

March 26th, 2012 (revision 2)

  • Fixed a couple of bugs with Wizardry 3 spell bindings. They should go to the correct spell levels, and do what is expected now.
  • In my haste, I made the Wizardry 2 Wakizashi a Lord/Ninja weapon. Oops. This is now fixed.

March 23rd, 2012 (revision 1)

  • I noticed that when I removed the aging penalty for changing classes, I unwittingly made it so new characters start out at the ripe old age of 9. New characters now begin their career at 16.
  • Ninjas now do not lose their unarmored bonus to AC when using a weapon, but the weapon's AC bonus will not improve their Ninja AC (it would if they were using armor).
  • In Wizardry 2, I replaced the Hand Axe with the Samurai/Ninja weapon Wakizashi.

March 21st, 2012 (initial release)

All three games in the trilogy have been modified thoroughly in the following ways:

  • Items are rebalanced for all three games (though each scenario contains certain items unique to each):
    • There are no useless cursed items (at least, none that aren't plot specific)
    • I have included numerous Wizardry and Wizards and Warriors themed items in the various Item lists.
    • Almost all of the weapons that granted extra attacks have been toned down in that regard.
  • Boltac's Trading Post has been given a better inventory, to make gold more useful.
  • Magic is realigned. Spells in lower spell levels is more useful, to keep them from from becoming obsolete as quickly (and because there is a hard limit to the number of times they may be cast, due to AD&D-style magic levels).
  • Magic spells have been renamed to make sense for English speakers, and their in-game descriptions are more accurate than before in some cases.
  • Monsters award EXP in a manner much more commensurate to the threat level that they represent.
  • Many "cowardly" type monsters are no longer cowardly, to make them more of a threat and to give your party a chance at more experience.
  • Party members #4, #5, and #6 may now attack like the first three in battle. I felt this rule was arbitrary and unlike in Wizardry 5, there were no allowances made for extended reach or long range weaponry.
  • The "Return" spell no longer dispossesses the party, or removes their gold.
  • The "Chance" and "Word of Power" spells no longer drain a spell level from the caster (since their effects are commensurate to the spell level they occupy).
  • Removed the aging penalty for changing classes at the Training Grounds. This penalty seemed arbitrary at best and totally incongruous at worst; how can a character train for 5 to 7 years and then rejoin their companions who haven't aged a day?
  • Base stats for each race have been reduced, as shown below. This makes changing classes a bit more painful for characters.
  • Characters are awarded 8 to 15 bonus points normally, with additional +10 bonus(es) for exceptional rolls. This balances out the reduction in racial stats.
  • Much of the character class and racial info that the mod has changed is now shown on the characters page. Briefly, here's what's changed concerning character development:
    • You can create any type of class at character creation now. Stats and stat requirements for classes are aligned to be much more akin to Wizardry 7. Alignment is immaterial for creating characters of any chosen class.
    • Most spellcasters' current Spell Level is determined a bit differently.
    • Certain classes gain more attacks per round quicker, and others take longer. The original game had every character gaining an attack every 5 levels.
    • HP values for the 8 classes has been modified very slightly.
  • Ninjas have better AC when unarmored now. Their AC improves every second level as opposed to every third level.
  • EXP curves are different. Characters need more EXP to raise to levels 3 to 8, levels out about level 9, and after that it becomes easier to increase levels.

Known Issue(s)

  • The Turn Undead and Banish spells only damage undead, and other monsters take zero damage from them. However, if it strikes an non-undead enemy which has been killed during the current battle, these spells will kill those monsters again, granting additional experience.
  • When a character trains, it is potentially possible to reduce some attributes to 0, and perhaps below. This is untested, and may result in an unstable game, or a permanently dead character. Or it might not. Not sure why you'd try to do this, though...

Screenshots

Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3

Installation instructions

Here's how to convert your Wizardry 1st Trilogy: Story of Llylgamyn ROM. The following applies this and all future releases of the Ludmeister's Rebalancing Mod.

  • 0. First of all, you will need to obtain a clean SNES ROM of Wizardry 1st Trilogy: Story of Llylgamyn. You are on your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide ROMs of copyrighted material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though, and you should be able to obtain it.
  • 1. Make a backup of your ROM in case you end up borking it. It's just good practice. Also, when I post updated versions of the mod on jeffludwig.com I will not provide "upgrade patches".
  • 2. If you got a Japanese version of Wizardry 1st Trilogy, continue with the next step. Otherwise, you may have downloaded an pre-Aeon Genesis-patched English ROM; if you have, skip to step #4.
  • 3. Use the IPS patching program of your choice to apply the the "Aeon-Genesis-Wizardry-translation-patch-v1.0.ips" patch to the Japanese version of Wizardry 1st Trilogy. As I use IPS XP to create my patches, I recommend using this program to patch your ROM. This will convert your ROM to an English-playable version.
  • 4. Download the newest version of Ludmeister's Rebalancing Mod.
  • 5. Use the IPS patching program of your choice to apply the mod's .ips patch to the Aeon Genesis translated ROM.

I hope you enjoy playing the mod!

Praise and Feedback for the Wizardry 1st Trilogy Rebalancing mod

Hey great work balancing these games. I Have an CF card PowerPak for SNES only and love every time a SNES game gets some new stuff. I thought Wizardry was so very hard already and look forward to "testing" your MOD on the trilogy soon for balancing.

— Dennis Fosburgh

Copyright notice

The content in this portion of the website pertains to "software" known as "Wizardry 1st Trilogy: Story of Llylgamyn", which was developed and published by Sir-Tech Software Inc., and licensed by Sir-Tech to ASCII Corporation. Game Studio is responsible for the Japanese translation of the game, which was reprogrammed by Gung-Ho (Marigul) for distribution on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Wizardry is a registered trademark of 1259190 Ontario, Inc.

This software was subsequently translated into English by Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis Translations. Both my Rebalancing mod and the Japanese to English translation are completely unofficial, and both were amateur fan-driven projects. As a modder I respect the intellectual property of Sir-Tech, ASCII Corporation, Game Studio, Gung-Ho and Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis Translations, and under no circumstances will I distribute the ROMs for the SNES versions of Wizardry 1st Trilogy. The Rebalancing Mod patch available for download is a derivative work and is completely my own. It is offered totally free of charge. If Aeon Genesis Translations objects to my offering their Japanese to English patch here, I will promptly remove it from the mod download.