Infinitely Inscrutable? Let's Play Legacy of the Wizard!

Legacy of the Wizard was one of the games that stood out most to me in my childhood. For some inexplicable reason, most of my friends owned a copy, and I would borrow it for long stretches. I never got very far, even when using a Game Genie, but I always loved it. When emulators started becoming commonly available, I had the opportunity to come back to the game.

For those whom have never played the title, it’s a “Metroidvania” taking place within a gigantic dungeon. The game was ahead of its time in its efforts to make different areas stand out.

Of course, it certainly has its flaws. I’ll examine them in excruciating detail throughout the LP, but I’ll mention right now that your character moves as though they were trying to walk on the bottom of a swimming pool. At one point, I considered adding video portions of the game, but decided to have mercy on the tyrants, and not force anyone to watch this slog.

Enough with the introduction, and let things commence!



This game contains five playable characters, each with their own items and abilities. You can play as the father (Xemn), the mother (Maia), the son (Roas), the daughter (Lyll), or the “dog” (Pochi). While there will be limited democracy in this thread, I’ll try my best to do what the peanut gallery would ask me to do. In this case, it shall be to play as the most awkward character available. This is of course, Roas, the son.

I hope you enjoy this experience, because you won’t be seeing him in the foreseeable future.



If I had items, I would make a decision here.



This castle impresses me. Unfortunately, we won't be able to visit it. Luckily...



Someone seems to have placed as castle underground too.

In theses boxes, there are items to help you on your way. This chest contains a special magic jar to refill my mana. Note that chests with food or magic jars will respawn each time you visit the dungeon, while all other chests vanish after you open them.

In true Mega Man tradition, jars and food from chest will use whatever palette your character does. Apparently, they ran out of memory for colors.



The spikes in this section of the dungeon are purely decorative.



This chest contains money, and will stay unopened for now. I don't have any immediate financial needs, and taking it now would prevent me from picking up monster drops as I worm my way through the dungeon.

One design element that gets repeated over and over again are “ladders to nowhere”. They’ll take you to a walled off portion of some other part of the dungeon. The gameplay purpose is to allow you to reset block puzzles when necessary, but I’ve always loved getting a preview of places I’ll return to later.

I have no idea why the ladder is blue.



One of the less forgivable design elements of this game are fake blocks. Even more egregious than their Metroid sisters, the greater part of your progress through the dungeon consists of touching each block in turn in hopes to find the “fake” one. There are no visual indicators that the block is fake, nor do they occur in suspicious places. Many hours have been spent carefully backtracking throughout the dungeon, groping the dungeon to trying hopelessly to discover which are fake.

On a more pleasant note, the white thing with a hat is awesome.



Note the portrait of the woman near the top. In my youth, I spent over an hour trying to get these pictures to do something. They’re scattered throughout the dungeon in odd places. Never do we find out who the woman is, or why she is the subject of such art.

The discolored treasure chest is, of course, a mimic. In great roleplaying tradition, mimics are far more powerful than nearly anything else in the dungeon. The treasure chest behind it, of course, contains nothing worth the effort.

The fact that this mimic has a visual cue is a terrible violation of the overriding design philosophy of this game. This mistake is not repeated.

Going down the ladder, I get a chance to grab the glove. I also get a second chance to preview the section of the dungeon showcased by the blue ladder to nowhere. Having found what I came for, my prince heads home. He, of course, cannot use the glove, but do not despair. You will see a lot more of it soon.



Each “zone” of the dungeon can have a shop in it. This one contains energy tanks for life and mana. I rarely bothered with these items (there are easier ways to do this, and it fills up your inventory). Moreover, this particular shop has some of the highest prices in the game.



On my way back, an enemy dropped a scroll. These items will increase your speed and range by 100% for a short time, and they can be stacked. Emulator assisted speedruns of this game will manipulate the RNG so as to always retain the maximum number of scrolls on the character, making them race through the dungeon uncontrollably. This is one of the few ways to make this game tolerable to watch. Otherwise, the snails pace of the character will inexorably lead to madness.

While you can go back the way you came, it involves making a very difficult jump (for my poor, useless Roas) from the ladder to the floating rock on the right. Eventually, I gave in. The fact that I needed the magic jar in the beginning of the dungeon was a direct result of trying to make this jump.



The ladder takes me to this next section (which always reminded me of a ship). I collect a crystal, which allows me to return to the house instantly (but consumes the item). Alternatively, you can simply kill your character off, and be whisked away home, losing only your keys.



One ladder trip later, and my character is home!

I was thinking of putting the idea of what character to use next to the vote. However, the Suidoken LP has soured me forever on the ideals of democracy. I don’t want to need a symbol font for my next posts, and I certainly don’t want to use this character again.

Next -- the awesome power glove.

You are a very brave man, and a very sexy man.

Aww yeah, this is the jam. I love watching other people playing this game, as it is completely inscrutable to me.

I used to own this game, but I was never able to make any progress, since the game is freakin' DENSE man!

This from the guy who managed to beat Hydlide.

This game is hot. I still play it like all the time. And yes, TAS videos of it are completely mind-bogglingly insane.

I've never tried speed running it because I can never find a route that is agreeable to me without much randomness involved. Either I've got to go way out of my way for some item, or I buy that item at a shop and hope enough gold drops to still afford my Shield before the bosses start getting too hard.

Ahhh Legacy of the Wizard. I owned this one as a kid. It holds the distinction of being the NES I was never able to make ANY progress in. Seriously, after playing it for hours, I was literally at square 1 with no fucking clue about how to proceed.

You said not to, but I really want you to play as the dog, the entire game! Also his name should be meatbag... Very lame they don't allow you to name characters.

On a completely different note, I've never heard of this game until just now. It looks interesting... Sort of reminds me of the dungeon stages of Kid Icarus for some reason (I hate those stages by the way)...

Is there a story to the game or is the family just a family of dungeon crawlers?

This game is so frustrating, I had to give up on it. And that's saying something for someone who has beaten NES games like TMNT, Battletoads, and the Ninja Gaidens.

Seriously. You're insane for doing this. I hope you don't go mad in the process.

As I recall, the story is:

DRAGON IS BAD! KILL ITS FACE OFF!

'twas known as "Dragon Slayer" acorss the pond, you see, so they had to work some dragon slaying into it somehow.

I'll see your Battletoads and raise you Solomon's Key.

See, I figure if could finish Solomon's Key, you could probably finish Legacy of the Wizard. Legacy of the Wizard, isn't difficult, just incredibly tedious. And making one mistake in a long room often means you need to start the entire thing over again. It's not the type of difficulty I enjoy.

My mom and I wanted to love this game so much. It was about a family going on an adventure together! Pity they decided to make beating the game an accomplishment on the level of punching out Thor. the rocker, not the comic character

Strangely enough, that's how I feel about Battletoads!

Let nobody say I am not eager to please. By popular demand, the next segment will feature the family pet Pochi. Pochi, of course, is the name of every dog in Japan ever. Like many others that share its name, Pochi is actually a giant spiny pink fish.

Pochi is very much like Roas, our prince from earlier. His attacks are a bit stronger, but the range of the bubbles he shoots is about one body length in front of him. Furthermore, as one would expect from such stubby legs, he can’t jump very far (paradoxically, this actually makes certain jumps significantly easier).



This time, I climb down the ladder at the beginning of the game to reach the ground level of the castle. Note the decorative ladder in the lower left-hand corner.



We pass through the castle. Note the two treasure chests sitting in plain sight but in utterly inaccessible locations. You will want to remember the one on the left – knowing the exact position of that ladder is significant later on (this is called foreshadowing).

I’d like to draw your attention to the Christmas Tree Monster to your right.



So, if Pochi is an even shorter range version of Roas, why was I down on the prince earlier?

The difference is, of course, that Pochi is awesome. As the manual explains, because he’s an animal, monsters like him. So he takes no damage from any normal enemy, and in fact, will ride them like a pony. That cleverly disguised mimic he’s sitting on? It would execute any other member of the family.

Plunging downward, we visit a cotton mountain.



Many of the puzzles in Pochi’s quest revolve around taking full advantage of his unique ability. In this case, he uses the enemies as a platform to reach higher places. Then he finds out that the hidden shop is of no use to him, because he can’t move blocks.

In Legacy of the Wizard, when you stand upon flying enemies, they’ll often freeze in place, making the jumps a bit easier. Of course, catching the enemy in mid-air is often maddeningly frustrating.

We take another plunge.



This room, which imprisons the inanimate dragon with his minions, is the most important location in the dungeon. The room leads to four discrete sections of the dungeon. Each section centers around a single family member and their abilities (except for Roas, whom has no abilities). The role this room plays with regards to the dungeon layout is crucial to understanding this game, which is why the only indication of this is the fact that each dungeon section has its own soundtrack.

For some of the sections, you can use characters besides the canonical one to complete the part. Most speedruns will take this approach. My intent is to play the game at least once “as it was meant to”, and I want to use the opportunity to show off the unique features of each character.



The left half of the room is walled off by blocks, so we start at the right. Let’s take the upper right-hand ladder first. (The large ladder leads back to where you came).

The game subtly indicates that this was the wrong choice by forcing me to reset the game. My poor character cannot jump high enough to escape this pit, and monsters will not wander in to provide a lift.

Let’s try the other ladder this time.



Better.



Full Size

There are many ladders in this room. In some games, this might be an indication of a branching path. Let’s try them!

In an attempt to outwit the game designers by doing the least enjoyable rout, I’ll try the one littered with switchbacks. (The chest contained food, which is inconsequential at this point. Pochi hasn’t had to take much damage).

By the way, if you’re playing this game on an emulator, speedup is a life-saver in Pochi’s section. Falcom loves to throw these long sections of shuffling left and right to proceed at you. As Pochi is immune to damage, there’s no risk involved. I can’t imagine that the fact you can do this indicates any problems with the overall game design.

So what’s my reward for enduring this?

Not pictured is my futile attempt to carefully check each tile for breakability.

Let’s try another!



If this were a gameshow, I would have a heard of goats and not much else. The correct ladder was actually the one closest to the entrance!



This passage had to be opened through the fake blocks. Pochi can’t make that jump on his own – what you want to do is wait for a friendly enemy to come by to use as a platform. Or jump down into some more fake blocks from the top platform.

Some of the spikes in this picture are decorative.

Spoiler – some are not!

This section of the dungeon has some wonderfully abstract enemies.



The treasure chest contains a jar to refill my life on demand, which is a good find. This shop contains the same merchandise as the one I visited yesterday, but the prices have been slashed to less than half.

I double back to the left, and scurry down the ladder.



Oh this looks fun.

I agree with you about Solomon's Key -- I actually find it harder than Legacy of the Wizard.

If you're interested in the comic version of this story, you can visit http://www.uranus.dti.ne.jp/~sho-dsl/SDSLds4p1.html (I use this web page for a great deal of my information).

Legacy of the Wizard is one of my favorite games of all time, so it's already too late. I'm also lucky that it's a reasonably short game in comparison to the mega-RPGs so popular on these forums, so my endurance shouldn't wane too far.

To me, the closest resemblance is probably Metroid. The puzzles and dungeon layout bear close similarities. In fact, Legacy of the Wizard defines the genre for me more than Metroid does, because that's what I grew up with.

Without RNG manipulation, this is a miserable game to speedrun. The control isn't tight enough, and the monster drops are far too random. If you can manage it, I salute you.

Oh man, this game.

My friend had this game and we never got anywhere in it. We would pick the "dog" and just have fun not getting killed until we got stuck.

I really like the idea of this game. It kind of feels like Super Mario 2 meets Metroid. It would be pretty awesome if someone could make a coherent game with those elements of metroidvania and character switching. Does any other such game exist? Did LotW have any siblings we didn't get here?

Man, you're gonna love this.

You mean, were there any other siblings in the Japanese version? There weren't.

EDIT: Dammit!

Oh, man, I've even looked at that before and forgot about it. Okay, so if I wanted to, which one of those should I attempt to play?

Faxanadu.


Seriously? Judging by the article, neither of them, but if thou must *g*, you should probably try Sorcerian. I haven't tried it myself, as the only experience I have with this series is the topic-giver itself, which was a remarkably short experience (because after wandering the dungeon for half an hour, I turned the game off instead of dying of boredom).

Sorcerian garnered decent reviews in the internet and is one game which burned itself in my mind from reading about it in a game magazine when I was 12. Yeah, purely subjective recommendation.

EDIT: Oh, I just saw that Faxanadu is indeed mentioned in the article. Well, then scratch Sorcerian and play Faxanadu. It's bliss.

I second the motion. I'm going to go into more detail later on in the thread, but suffice to say, this is not a series that has aged well. Sorcerian is notable for being an RPG platformer where your party members follow behind you like synchronized swimmers, and behave like the shadows in Ninja Gaiden.