A truly great experience that RPG fans should try.
The game play style of wizardry 8 is done in a first person perspective. There is quite a large selection of species and classes to choose from which is great since this the greatest enjoyment in the game has to be advancing your characters skills.
The combat system is setup like this. Image a ball (unless you've played the game then you have seen it) divided into four sections. A front, back, left and right side. In the middle of the ball is another ball. What you do is assign your characters to each section of the ball and depending on where the enemy is attacking you from those in that section of the ball can fight back more effectively. This made it simple to use and required some strategy in the assignment you gave to your characters. The combat can also be run in real-time or turn-based depending on your individual likes, but I found it more fulfilling to use turn-based for most battles.
The graphics are actually kind of rough in some areas, but they are so well designed that you can easily discern the different environments becuase of the textures used. The animations are also done very nicely and actually fit in well to the rest of the game.
Now being setup in a first person design means that physical actions are done as a group. Running, jumping or falling basically means everyone is going for the ride. Now if a character has higher agility that others than he might not take any damage or a lot less than others from a fall. Running is controlled by endurance and basically means the one with the highest is how far you can run. The problem is everyone else with a lower endurance passes out as your running and has to regain consciousness by resting for a few seconds. This can mean trouble if you are surrounded by enemies and everyone is still trying to recover.
The musical score is actually prety good and ebbs and flows at all the right moments. Definitely something woth listening too.
Now the story involves you saving the galaxy from the Dark Savant after you crash land on this planet. To add to the intrigue there are two advance races at war with each other and you can either assist one in dominating the other or try and mediate the conflict to get assistance in fighting the Dark Savants army.
By the time I was done playing this game I immediately went back at it for more and used different characters this time to get a feel for all the classes. As a matter of fact and did this at least 5 times in a row, which is how much I enjoyed playing this game.
If this is truly the end to the series then it definitely went out on a very high note in my opinion.