Ophidian Dragon blogs his way through the entire Ultima series, from beginning to end.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Ultima IV, Day 8

Today was unusual, in that I played about 3.5 hours, and I was not exactly motivated by the fun of it. Essentially, I spent the day wandering around killing monsters, slowly raising my party members up to 5th level. At this point, the only remaining party member that I do not yet have is Geoffrey, the fighter in Jhelom. Everyone else is nearly prepared for the abyss! The hardest character to raise in level seemed to be the tinker, Julia, for some reason. The ranger, Shamino, was the easiest. At present, everyone is equipped with the best weapons I had on hand for them--magic bows for most of us, except I gave myself a crossbow (which ultimately I will give to Geoffrey as he cannot use magic weapons), and Katrina is stuck with her stupid sling because she is an incompetent loser who can't use any better ranged weapons. Mariah the mage has a magic wand, which to my surprise is an extremely effective weapon. Raising her to level 5 was easy as a result.

In the realm of absurdities, I realized that I had spoken to no one about the word of power needed at the end of the abyss, and I am glad I didn't hit the abyss already. Annoyingly, I had to go back to Cove to do that, which meant I had to navigate with the balloon for awhile.

I also dragged them all to the Abyss for a brief adventure there, and died on the third level (after not bothering to heal or cure after battles). I wanted to get a taste of what I was into.
I noted two things--my good weapons still worked most of the time, and I was not stuck with the damned mystics. I hate non-ranged weapons. I also noted that I got in with only seven characters in my party, but it may be that at the end I will not be able to win without all eight.


What remains? Well, after I raise my fighter to 8th level I will still need to visit some of the dungeons to touch painful orbs and raise stats. Specifically, I think I will spend a lot of time in Wrong, because there I can find dexterity/strength orbs, which are the key needs in the Abyss. Other prep for the final dungeon will include maxing out my heal, cure, and maybe some attack spells, as well as buying lots of torches and gems.



The screenshots are a bit boring today, but I had never seen a ghost with wisps before. It's weird that I played for longer today than usual, considering the tediousness of what I was doing. I guess i went on autopilot in an effort to get it done with.

7 comments:

Paul said...

I seem to remember Katrina being able to use a Magic Axe. If you have enough gold, buy one of those, and a wand too (Buc's Den) - they're killer.

-Corbomite Dragon

Anonymous said...

I seem to remember every one using magic axes

Ultimate Carl said...

I hear you on the autopilot thing. If I'm grinding a few levels and won't get anything out of it (like new spells or particularly awesome stats) for a while, I can go on for quite some time while barely paying attention.

Anonymous said...

Magic axes? I think you are thinking of Ultima V.

Anonymous said...

The thing about Katrina is she's actually incredibly badass if you get her to L8. Usually didn't bother.

Katrina can't use any magical ranged weapons- she and I believe Geoffrey? needed to use Mystic Swords in the Abyss. I think Paladins can't go above Magic Axes, and everyone else can use Wands (which are the best) or Bows (which are second best).

Anonymous said...

Actually the game is less boring in the end, if you start with a level-3-character (paladin for example) and get party members as soon as possible. You collect xp all the time and need not just do xp collecting in the end. You easily get your characters up to 6th level then. Even Katrina.
Go often to Hythloth and raise the stats of all your characters. If you have Katrina with dex and str 50, she's no longer weak, sling or no sling.

Ans yes, the magic axes are Ultima V, although there are magic axes in u4, too.

Anonymous said...

Katrina and Geoffrey are both the best 2nd and 3rd party frontliner slots. Neither can use the two best ranged weapons (Magic Bow/Wand), so they're most effective beside the avatar (or as avatar). Geoffrey can use a plain bow and Katrina can use a sling, but the Mystic swords cause brutal damage by comparison, and they're quite useful in their hands.

The rest should have Magic Bows or Wands. Iolo, Mariah and Jaana can use the wands (which are arguably better than the Mystic Swords because they are close in damage and are ranged), and Shamino, Dupre and Julia can use the Magic Bows (less power than Wands, but the range is extremely useful nonetheless). Obviously, everyone should be using the Mystic Robes.

Note that you can easily get gold once you can get the Mystic stuff, because you can sell it, and as long as you have 0 in inventory (not counting equipped), you can find the Mystic stuff AGAIN. And they sell for a boatload, making it easy to afford weapons and reagents. I usually make it a priority to get maxed virtues in a speedrun, since getting access to the Mystics makes acquiring gold oh-so-easy.