Wizardry 2: Knight of Diamonds

Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds is the second part of the legendary role-playing series.

The game begins shortly after the events of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord - the sorcerer Werdna is defeated and the powerful amulet is returned to Crazy Lord Trebor. As promised, the brave detachment of adventurers, who triumphantly returned from the labyrinth of Verdna, was fully included in the personal guard of Trebor. Alas, our heroes did not stay in the new honorary position for very long - the madness from owning an amulet and the fear of Verdna's return led the crazy ruler to suicide.

Both the evil sorcerer and the tyrant-ruler are dead ... now, it would seem, everything had to be adjusted in the kingdom of Llylgamyn. Unfortunately, this lull was very short - in addition to Verdna, there was another bad guy in Lilgamine with a funny name Davalpus, who decided that since Verdna was dead, it was time to enslave the world. The traitor stormed the castle, killed almost the entire royal family, and declared himself a life-long supreme dictator.

But don’t worry, you don’t have to fight with Davalpus - this is already done for you. The Crown Prince defeated the dictator, using the power of the legendary Staff of Gnilda and the armor of the Diamond Knight (Knight of Diamonds). Alas, the god Gnilda was very annoyed by all this squabble among mortals and took the staff back, placing it deep in the bowels of the well-guarded six-level temple. But since the power of the Staff protected the kingdom from the invasion of hostile aliens, someone needs to get inside the temple and return it from there - along with the blessing of the god Gnilda. As usual, this someone is you.

The only hope to return the staff is to collect the legendary mythical armor in pieces and become the Diamond Knight. Only then will your adventurers reach their destination. But be careful - not a single piece of armor will come to you easily.

In terms of gameplay, Knight of Diamonds has not changed much compared to the first part of the series - the same classic turn-based “dungeon crawl”, where you control a squad (up to six characters), making your way down the dungeons. You are given the choice of the same set of races and classes as in Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. In the original version of the game you need to go through the first part of the series to play the sequel - there was no opportunity to create a new game, you could only import it from the previous part. In reprints you have this opportunity (you can also choose a ready-made part).

The complexity of the game has increased significantly, since it was originally assumed that fairly experienced players who passed the Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord would play the sequel. Therefore, parties below level 12-13 will have a very difficult time. The game still does not forgive mistakes and requires careful attention to the development of characters and battle tactics. True, starting from this part you can save the game in the dungeon (in the first part for this you had to go to the surface).

As a result, we get a fascinating, complex, truly “hardcore” classic RPG, which - as you can clearly see - did not become less attractive than 27 years ago, when the first squads of brave men descended into the dark labyrinths of the temple...