Wizardry 8 - Running the Gauntlet

Jay Barnson has kicked up the second part of a Wizardry 8 playthrough (not really a retrospective, not having played it before).  Here's a snip:

Scorpia refers to Arnika Road in Wizardry 8 as the "Terrible Road," and I now understand what she was talking about.

The previous location, the monastery. had a lot going for it. It was full of interesting features (including computers and an elevator), clues as to the "big picture" of what was going on and as to the history - ancient and recent - of the order that dwelt there and the world itself. While it had its share of empty tunnels (I guess the contractors thought they could ad lib a bit and get paid extra for making long corridors that didn't really go anywhere), it was worthy of exploration. And while it had a couple of challenging encounters, it had nothing truly punishing. It was a solid, exciting intro dungeon with lots of promise for the rest of the game.

Arnika Road was something of a let-down after that. And not just because I had my kiester stomped on the second encounter. And the third. And the fourth. More on that in a minute. For now, let's talk about the kiester-stompage. That pretty much defined my experience on Arnika Road, and that part isn't all bad. It's just unfortunate that it was pretty much the most interesting part of the journey.

A link to the first part is in the article.