Still engages the same mechanics, still possible to be punished by bad decisions -- just far more generous with damage values.

This (Casual) is the second easiest difficulty setting (easier than "Normal", and harder than "Relaxed") (All three options are easier than Vanilla).

Because the game is otherwise mostly the same, it still allows players of lower skill levels to engage with the game in a more authentic manner, or even allow for a more relaxed experience to veterans. You can change the difficulty at any grace, so you're not locked in forever.

Also highlighting the fact that you can attack / guard counter with a left-hand armament, even a shield.

Shields do great poise damage, so it's a good way to stagger enemies and provides more value to your weapon setup. Gives more reason to level shields too. It can be toggled at any grace.

One of the things not easily shown in the video is that while FP regens passively in battle, some spells have been turned into "generator spells" that exist primarily to generate FP instead of do damage -- so you are less reliant on cerulean flasks as a mage just to keep the fight going.

It's still, thankfully, pretty authentic to vanilla. But it has some extra tools in the moveset, like being able to use more attacks via your left hand weapon, as well as duck and slide to dodge.

Not even the fanciest basic moves the mod offers.

Beating the first floor's boss rewarded me with a whole bunch of adventurer's bones (which turn into characters of a preset class) - so it felt like a massive reward after all that genuine work.

I almost kinda preferred having an incomplete party just because that was a really novel experience.

Assuming this was a developer-intended experience, even as just a potential option, it's an interesting way of transferring the franchise's sense of tension into a format like this -- while also encouraging & rewarding smart decision-making even without a full party.

It's a game about risk assessment & management, so it was interesting to play with tension in a setting like this - and it made each new character I acquired feel like an incredible boon to my party.

I feel like that experience would have been lost had I just pulled a full party from the start.

Wizardry is a dungeon crawling RPG known for its difficulty. This game gives you 3 units when you start exploring, and I avoided using the free resources to pull for more. Instead, I only acquired new characters from adventurer's bones found inside the dungeon, exploring with an incomplete party.