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Though I have to wonder if we're talking about the same Wizardry game. The one I 'm thinking of [wikipedia.org] came out in 1981, not 1987

The Japanese version is a port of the original version. During the late 80s it was ported to PC98 series (Sorry its Japanese.) by company called ASCII (Which owns Famitsu by the way). It came in 5" floppy and you had to abuse the silver write protect sticker so the characters don't get erased if things went wrong. The ported version had the same line art maze but the graphics for the characters and loot were much improved. They became more intricate and colourful with finer pixels and better fonts. Its style was kinda like a mixture of John Howe and anime. The main maze window was located in the middle of the screen just like the x86 version. The modifications made it much more immersive compared with the x86 version and had a more mature feel to it.

Later on Wizardry was ported to MSX and NES in 1987. I can't really confirm the version for NES as I don't recall it ever being released. The one I played on SNES had beautiful BGM, added castle and town graphics and walls were filled with patters resembling the style of Wizardry 6.

Typically Japanese gamers don't just go for the gameplay. Characters, style, packaging, storyline and anime is important as well as peripheral franchise products such as magazines, novels, comics, figurines etc. Wizardry is no exception. If the Apple ][ version had been ported as it was it wouldn't have so successful in Japan.

One of my all time favouries is Hydlide because this was what started the genre called action RPGs but this is not on the charts. Probably because it was never released for NES or SNES. My next favourite is action RPG called Ys which is at No. 52. I played both books 1 and 2 (PC88 version) when it came out in the late 80s. It made such an impression on me (Just like when Aerith died in FF7.) that it still haunts/curses me to this day.

I don't read the mainstream crap everyone else does, what would be the point of that? I read:
The Art Newspaper
Geijutsu Shincho (a japanese art magazine)
MdN, a graphic design magazine from Japan. Since I can read Japanese, I can steal tips from them and use them for a couple of years before anyone outside Japan discovers them.
For computer geekery, I read MacPower. If you've never read Japanese computer magazines, you're really missing out. They're far more detailed and comprehensive than anything published in the US. Also CGWORLD is another rather good Japanese magazine covering 3D and animation topics.
For English media, I like Computer Arts Magazine, I can't count all the times CA has saved one of my projects by publishing some vital tip that had me stumped. Photoshop User Magazine is consistently useful. EFX Art & Design Magazine is also one of my favorite graphics magazines, oddly it is published in Sweden but in English.

In Japan, *BSD (especially FreeBSD) is very popular.
You can see BSD Magazine and much more

What I did was buy some Japanese computer industry magazines like "Super ASCII", "Unix User" (also published by ASCII), and Nikkei Linux.

When I could read and comprehend most of the articles, I assumed I was ready and moved.
After that, it took me probably a whole year to get settled in and comfortable.

Ok, enough of my fanboy/google ski11z/karma whoring shit already. I don't even play these games anymore. All I want is the next Mario Kart.

I blindly (illiterately) followed some links and found what seem to be some screen shots of zxlinux. It appears to be running kernel 2.3.23 and possibly X (or may be just the zxlinux interface. )