WiZmans World Re;Try is an adventure JRPG developed by City Connection and published by Clear River Games. This title was originally released in 2009 by Jaleco for portable consoles and now it’s been remastered for the Nintendo Switch.
The player character is Claus, a young man who was found wandering the forest as a young child. A mage named Giselle takes him in and raises him as her son and teaches him how to be a mage. Many years later, Giselle has disappeared in an attempt to explore the forest and has yet to return. Claus begins his journey to investigate the forest and the other areas known as dungeons to solve this mystery once and for all.
In WiZmans World Re;Try, everyone is trapped in the city of Wizarest. They have no contact or connections with the outside world and they’re losing their memories, even of each other. The areas surrounding the city are called dungeons because no one can find their way out. The dungeons are basically mazes and collapse from time to time. So, as soon as they get close to finding an exit, the dungeon collapses and the layout is completely different.
Every dungeon is riddled with monsters wandering about. But don’t worry; Claus isn’t fighting alone. He comes across three homunculi (who look an awful lot like fairies) in his first adventure. Giselle had created these beings and they were told to find and aid Claus.
The story is, of course, the driving force of these characters and why the game exists. However, the battle system is its heart and soul and, while the story isn’t bad, I feel like it takes a backseat to everything else. In between exploration and battling, there are a lot of cutscenes that progress the story, but there were a few times it felt like filler just to get the player to move forward to the next section of the game.
For example, the first ten minutes of the game was cutscenes and backstory. I like a strong story for my games, but that’s a lot of information right from the get-go.
Story progression and the primary gameplay of WiZmans World Re;Try is exploring the dungeons, battling monsters, leveling up and increasing your stats to ultimately defeating the boss at the end before moving onto the next dungeon. Sounds like your typical RPG, yes?
This game gives you plenty of battles, but despite that it comes with a lot of grinding. I spent about five hours getting through the first dungeon of the game. I don’t mind my RPGs being lengthy, but five hours is a long time to grind especially at the beginning of the game.
The dungeons themselves are pretty to look at and the monster designs are especially cool. However, the dungeons are bare. You can find treasure chests, but they’re few and far between. The longer I spent in a dungeon, the more I wanted to get out of there and probably missed an item or two.
The dungeons have checkpoints that, even after the collapse and you lose your way, allow you to teleport to a checkpoint and start there instead of the beginning. However, upon finding a checkpoint you have to activate it with a certain item you find somewhere in the dungeon. The dungeons are vast, mostly empty, with a few chests hiding in corners or dead-ends. I completely missed where the activation item was in the second dungeon, so I was pretty disappointed when I came across the first checkpoint knowing I’d have to backtrack at some point.
Getting through the dungeons isn’t a quick task, either. Not only do you need to find your way around the labyrinth, but monsters spawn frequently. Some you can sneak past, others will chase you. Considering the little amount of experience points you’ll earn (especially as you get stronger than the monsters) and how tough the mini bosses and main bosses are, you’ll want to battle all the monsters. Then backtrack to fight them again.
The battle system in WiZmans World Re;Try is excellent. Monsters are categorized by four elements: water, fire, wind, and earth. Claus has physical attacks and magic where he can learn spells from all elements. Basically, he’s a jack of all trades and master of none. Once you have the homunculi–Aen, Doe, and Toori, respectively–in your party, they can fuse with a monster’s soul (which is received after defeating them) and take on their own elemental power. I made it so Aen fused with an earth monster, Doe was my wind monster, and Toori was my water monster. Claus was the backup to any of these elements and also had fire spells.
The homunculi can fuse with the monsters in Claus’s house. They’ll take on the stats of these monsters, increasing their HP, attack, special attack, defense, special defeat, speed, etc. As you progress further, you’ll also have the ability to add catalysts (more items earned by defeating monsters) that can increase certain stats even further or grant protection from a status ailment, such as poison or paralysis.
When entering a dungeon, you can head in at the beginning or teleport to a checkpoint as long as it’s activated. Likewise, you can “return” home at any point in a dungeon. So, you can make your homunculi stronger whenever you want, or challenge yourself to only add to their fuse in between dungeons.
Fusing will also teach the homunculi different spells from the monsters, allowing them more attacks in battle. The battles themselves are turn-based with a little bit of strategy involved. The turn order is listed at the top of the screen, so I often tried to attack whichever enemy was due to go next. If I could defeat them and get them out of the rotation before their turn, it saved my team some damage.
In addition, having your characters move one right after the other adds to your chain of attacks. For example, if Claus attacks and Doe goes right after him, that’s a chain of two and Doe’s damage will increase by one level. If Toori goes next, that’s a chain of three and her damage will go up to level two. It’s rewarding to strategize your team’s attack order as best you can.
One of the best ways to get an easy chain in WiZmans World Re;Try is getting a preemptive strike. In the dungeons, if you sneak up behind a monster, your party members will each get a chance to attack first before the turn order actually begins. Likewise, if a monster gets you from behind, it’s called an ambush and the enemies will each get a turn first before the turn order officially starts.
Despite the strategy, battles are also relatively straight forward. The magic system is not complex. Water beats fire, fire beats wind, wind beats earth, and earth beats water. If you forget, you can check at any point in mid-battle. There’s no guessing what element an enemy is, either. The symbol will be above their head when checking the info. If you’re up against a water enemy, then it’ll be weak to an earth spell, resist a fire spell, and take neutral damage from water and wind attacks.
Now there’s a lot that goes into battling these monsters and increasing the strength of your party. The battle mechanic is a lot of fun, and it does a great job for what it is especially for an adventure JRPG. That said, I found the battles to get monotonous after a while.
The gameplay is repetitive: explore a mostly empty dungeon, fight all the monsters, return home every now and then for a fusion, head back into the dungeon, fight more monsters, defeat the boss. You’re rewarded with a cutscene and a new mission to do the exact same thing in a new dungeon. Personally, I felt there could have been more substance outside the battles.
The pixel graphics are top-notch and the soundtrack is a bop. Despite the repetitiveness of the gameplay, WiZmans World Re;Try is a good adventure RPG with a unique battle system that’s not too complex, but still requires a decent amount of strategy. If you’re looking for a new RPG to sink hours into, give this title a go.
