Chances are you've never played Legacy of the Wizard, released for the NES in 1988. If you haven't, I highly reccomend you find a copy of this and play it. It'll change the way you see games.

Those of us who HAVE played it belong to one of two camps. Camp number one is the folks who played it for a little while and gave it up. Maybe you went in far enough to find the glove, maybe you even got as far as buying the mattok before giving up in frustration.

Camp number two is those of us who saw LotW like mountain climbers see Mount Everest - a challenge to be conquered, no matter the cost. Several weeks or months of exploration, death, exploration, more death, and more exploration later, we accomplished what we set out to do - finishing this monster of a game. I don't even remember the ending myself - but the ending is insignifigant. For a true fan, the thrill of seeing the game conclude was nothing compared to the first time. You know what I mean if you've been there: you're walking an area you've been in tons of times before. You've never found anything here before, but somehow, you FEEL you're close. Then, suddenly, you fall or jump through an invisible block and find yourself in a totally new area. You explore the area, feeling yourself getting closer. Then you open a chest and, after tedious hours of scouring every corner of the dungeon and finding nothing, you find your first crown. If there's a player out there who didn't drop their controller and scream for joy when they found their first crown, then trust me, that player ain't human.

Sickosonparade.com is like the "Stupid Pet Tricks" site of the video game world. We do stuff hardly anyone will ever get any use out of just for the sake of doing it. So, in keeping with tradition, I decided to MAP Legacy of the Wizard. Yes, that's right, map out the entire fucking dungeon, screenshot by screenshot. I didn't use any faqs or codes to do this, I did it all the old fashioned way. Hopefully, it will help those who were in Camp #1 to find some of the happy joy we did all those years ago.

The concept for this little section of the site has evolved up from being just a map to including some other things as well. Maybe someone WILL get some use out of it after all.

The Basics
Or: What the hell is this game?

In here, I explain a little bit about the game and what makes it so damn good. This would be a good place to start for the unwashed masses. I warn you now - if you're an average gen-X PSX gamer, you're likely to have your brains get turned to liquid shit if you try this game without proper preperation. They don't make 'em like this anymore, junior.

Maps
Oh yeah.

Essentially, what I've done here is make one huge map of the entire dungeon. There are also some smaller maps that give directions to each of the four crowns. I've included some gameplay tips of my own as well, as I tend not to agree with the strategy of some of the well-written FAQS floating around for this game.

Sprites
Direct from the 'Vermin is Clinically Insane' file

Sprite rips of all the regular enemies in the game. Yep? Yep.

I'm a big fan of the soundtrack to Legacy of the Wizard. It was composed by none other than Yuzo Koshiro, who you may have heard of if you follow video game soundtracks. Included in the following zip file is a .NSF format music file containing the entire soundtrack to LoTW. You'll need a player to listen to it, and I reccomend Meridian Advance. It's very small, has a good interface and plays the soundtrack back flawlessly.

Get Meridian Advance HERE : http://meridian.overclocked.org/oldadvanceweb/

Get the soundtrack HERE : dslayer4.zip