No no, not Game of Thrones, Throne of Darkness. The Japanese theme role playing game on PC from 2001. Where you control a Samurai clan seeking revenge, laying waste to rival clans and plenty of denizens of the underworld, like mad monks and angry turtles that don’t actually eat pizza.
And while you’re doing that, you’re also trying your darnedest to keep your idiotic wizard alive. Because before you have a chance to yell ‘Zap that critter Wizboy!’ he’s died again and suddenly you’re finding yourself shifting him back to base HQ where he’s already had more resurrections than Wyle-E-Coyote.
Samurai roles in Thrones of Darkness.
The leader leads, naturally.
The swordsman spins two blades of spinny death.
The archer chills out on the sidelines pouring endless arrows in the melee.
The ninja dashes in when you want him to but also is great at throwing things away from the action.
The brick is your pole swinging tank.
The berserker is the brick’s understudy but sadly there isn’t any way that I know to make him see nothing but red and slay anything and everything including his allies until he calms down and realises his folly.
And the Wizard? He’s the perfect arrow catcher. And fireball absorber. And he’s great at eating blades, ninja stars, lightning bolts and just about everything else thrown in his direction. Boy does he love turning green with poison!
Of course once he does this less than a handful of times, he needs a good lie down (and trip to emergency) because he is utterly terrible with the constitution of a gutted slug.
Oh come on, is the Wizard in Throne of Darkness really that bad?
Like choosing anything primarily magic using in any RPG, you know your character is going to start around ‘feeble’ but slowly and surely over time and levels, grow to spell arsenal ‘firecracker’. In Throne of Darkness the Wizard starts off with ‘Freshly born shaky calf’ stats and then instantly grows to ‘Group liability’ in no time flat.
-He’s got the starting strength of an 80 year old nursing resident which means the best armour he can wear is effectively the obviously arrow defying protection of a bed sheet. Combined with the vitality of me on no sleep going through an asthma attack and suddenly a stiff gust of wind is just about all he needs to die, yet again.
-His magic doesn’t regenerate, no siree. Not unless you give the greedy bastard all the bottles of Ki you find in your travels or you send him off to your Dynamo to recharge. Which means if you leave him to his own devices, he burns through his magic at record pace and then runs in with a terribly ineffective weapon (no strength remember? Here, take this fruit knife!) to get swatted in the same record pace.
-Once safely out of danger his life recharges quickly (because there’s not much there to begin with) but magic recharge takes forever. It’s like Throne of Darkness wants to punish you for relying on magic (which might go some way in explaining why he’s truly terrible to try and use for anything other than picking up dropped items.)
-Giving him a bow instead of anything that he needs to wield up close and personal is a great idea. Until it breaks and suddenly this idiot believes it’s a great idea to wade in and clobber armoured horsemen with just his fists. (Did I mention how he’s not strong enough to lift any decent bow though? So it’s like he’s standing throwing pebbles while everyone else gets their hands dirty.)
-In fact if you don’t control him manually, the wizard in Throne of Darkness will take it upon himself to weasel his way of out anything and everything by dying as fast as wizardly possible. Forget the length of a cup of coffee, the wiz in this game is gone quicker than the first overpriced tequila slammer at your local nightclub.
-He’s amazingly worse than the merchant in Age of Decadence..
But in the ultimate Throne of Darkness challenge, I am trying to keep this idiot alive.
I’m not exactly sure though, maybe I’m a sucker for punishment? Anyway as I revisit this classic from the early 2000s, I am slowly (and painfully) working out what it takes to keep him going (until the next time he takes an arrow to the knee and bows out..)
HOW TO KEEP THE WIZARD IN THRONE OF DARKNESS ALIVE (FOR A BIT LONGER)
-You need to grow his strength stat ASAP so he can wear more than tissue paper as armour. To do that you need to have him kill things for the experience points which is quite the challenge. So manual control, armed with a bow and hurling the occasional energy/fire/water/whatever bolt into the enemy is a solid plan. Just be aware that he will break any bow he gets a lot from overuse so make sure he picks up plenty of coins to become best friends with the blacksmith.
-Give him anything magical you pick up that’s too high a level for anyone to use. No he’s not going to use it, instead donate it to the priest and use the points to boost up the spell chain of your choice. A couple of level 15 items while my crew were all under level five took his pubic hair singeing fireball to something that could take out an enemy with a single cast. Provided he didn’t get shot or killed again first.
-Make sure he runs with three others at all times. The more Samurai you have in play, the less chance he has of being targeted (unless you’re not playing him at the time, in which case he’ll wade right in and die anyway.)
-As soon as he levels up (as long as that takes), rush over to the Blacksmith to see if there’s anything better he can use. And I do mean anything. If you can wedge in any components into the mix, it might make him last a couple more seconds than usual. Hooray!
-Accept the fact that he’ll have more frequent dying points with the priest than anyone else in the game. He’s the worst by a long shot and it’s going to take a very long time to get him from woefully bad to woefully goo- er, average.
Good luck!
If you’re up for some Wizard saving Throne of Darkness torture, it’s always incredibly affordable over at Good Old Games.