While it has its roots in Wizardry, the Daphne variant has a distinctly different style.

Wizardry: Proving Grounds, released in 1981, was the first team-based CRPG, and was a hit in the West and Japan, where it even had its own anime (which we have embedded below). The series it inspired has recently been revived, with mixed results at best. There’s a credible remake of the original, no doubt, but in the meantime it’s also delved into blockchain, which is best forgotten (with Minecraft-looking characters who are also NFTs…).

Oh, and there’s a Gacha game. Originally released for iOS and Android, Wizardry Variants Daphne looks like a classic dungeon crawler at first glance. It plays in a first-person perspective, has a grid-based movement system, and your whole team is in a blob as you explore dungeons full of hobgoblins and, of course, search for treasure chests to grab as many items as possible. There are also the bones of lost adventurers. These can be revived and come from a random selection of rare levels. Along with these, you can add about a dozen currencies and season passes.

The dungeon crawler part is perfect. The characters have voices, including Geralt from The Witcher (Doug Cockle). The story is about a missing king and the Lord of the Abyss. You can see our team members attacking (e.g. with a spell called Masoloto), and after each victory, they flip their hair in a post-victory stroll… And it reminds us a lot of the older Genshin Impact. There’s an energy mechanic called Stamina; if you try to resurrect someone with less than 50 Stamina twice, chances are they’ll die. Let’s just say it’s better than the original (dead characters could turn to ash after an unsuccessful resurrection, and it automatically overwrote our saves…).

Wizardry Variants Daphne has been available as a free-to-play title on Steam since March 6th. Drecom has customized the Wizardry IP a bit…

Source: PCGamer