Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: I had an entire post, I guess I lost it somewhere.

[quote name="Worm"]The dungeons are real crawls so far. There are hidden dungeons you'll never find without a FAQ that are pretty fun. The mission critical ones, not so good. Locked doors are just obnoxious roadblocks even when you blow all the points you can into lockpicking, I gave myself a few Wands of Knock that I still haven't run out of. The Knock spell (I still don't know what circle it is) usually only serves to aid a lock picker making the spell useless out of it's item form. Puzzles really don't seem to be there, I kept on trying to find them but only found two, one was mentioned to me in an FAQ. Your majority of time spent will be outside, that's where you'll do most of your leveling until you can cast teleport, which I still can't. Travelling between the opposite sides of the map often can get frustrating but it's just how the game seems to work. The UHS file can be VERY helpful in minimizing the time you waste. Walk don't run. Running eats your entire party's stamina so if you run into some enemies you're as good as dead, hell even if one of your guys is as good as dead it's frustrating as resurrection items and spells are not available early on. In the very first dungeon you'll be in a cave with some water jump in and walk out and go down a waterfall and grab the resurrection powder on your way out. Some enemies are absurd and inflict various horrible status ailments on you. Plants that put you all to sleep, plants that poison you, plants that drive you insane, and a queen ant that does all three. Most any combat situation can be won by realizing the basic way stats work combined with good support units and a little luck. There's quite a bit that wasn't fully implemented into the game, but full voice acting succeeds as always makes you forget for awhile. The NPC voices you pick are entertaining and include story related dialogue, just so you don't have to hear that insane hobbits response to a trap over and over. You don't have to be the kind of guy who wants to play the game as a <a href="http://dw.com.com/redir?asid=374906&astid=8&siteid=19&edid=107&destCat=22809&destURL=http%3A%2F%2Fdb.gamefaqs.com%2Fcomputer%2Fdoswin%2Ffile%2Fwizardry_viii_fairy_solo.txt">solo fairy</a> to enjoy it. I'd recommend playing it sparingly and not being afraid to drop a little editor intervention or check an FAQ.[/quote]