Ah, I really need to spend a week and finish the last few games up so I can start a new blog. It's pretty fun to recall my experiences with the Ultima games and comment on them, but it's hard to do it very frequently because it requires a degree of inspiration!
First I want to make some notes. One of the amusing things about blogging is that other people sometimes post comments about your blog, so I can go search for "blogging ultima" on Google and find that people are talking about me. Ah, the rush of Internet pride! Anyway, I wanted to address two comments I ran into on bulletin boards:
#1
Someone commented, "You know, in reading through the "My trip through Ultima" blog and the blog for "Blogging Ultima", what struck me is that both chroniclers resorted to cheats at various points to get through the games."
I did? Well, I guess it depends on what he means. If save states are cheating, than I cheated all day in U1-3, especially 3 because its natural savegame system is so punitive. If that doesn't count then I don't think I did. I never even used a hex editor to change double-capital letters in my character's name in Underworld II (ZAchary)! I did consult walkthroughs on a number of occasions, when I was hopelessly stuck (usually it turned out I failed to set some game flag somewhere). Maybe I did do some other cheating somewhere along the line, but I don't recall it.
#2
Someone else said, "Heh... when Ophidian Dragon gets to it, he'll probably complain at first. Then after he finishes 9, I bet he says "You know, in retrospect, Ultima 8 was actually pretty decent." We'll see if I'm right, eh?"
For what it's worth, I think I complained about both Ultima VIII and IX (and all the rest...it's easier to complain than praise) but in the end I believe I had a much more positive attitude towards IX than VIII. I am unsure if that is reflected in the blog.
PS: If you wrote those comments...I apologize for my failure to give you attribution!
Anyway, now it's time to talk about Savage Empire and Martian Dreams! Because these are fairly peripheral, I expect my discussions to be pretty short.
Savage Empire is most notable for incorporating more "adventure" elements. These come in a few specific ways--the puzzles that require specific, non-obvious solutions (such as tossing a bomb to knock a tree over a chasm), the comedic elements (the Three Stooges tribe), and the brevity of the game overall. I really liked the more realistic scale of the game; you are in a very tiny part of the forest rather than supposedly wandering across an entire planet. I also enjoyed the emphasis on ancient cultures, even though it was sort of confusing to have such a mix of times and places in one spot. On the other hand, the combat was pretty rough, or rather, it was too frequent and that prevented me from wanting to do much exploration outside the roads, and I missed a lot of interesting features as a result. It was also disappointing to see so many "generics" wandering around, all saying the same thing. Overall, I also found the end of the game, specifically wandering through the underground city and then enterying the Myrmidex caves, to be frustrating, mostly because both feel like a "whole lot of nothing," e.g., gigantic maps with little of interest to see or do. I guess the underground city did have some cool elements, but I had to make extensive maps, which didn't seem to jibe with the otherwise-simplified structure of the rest of the game. Except for those extended sections, I thought it all tied together well, and some of the world interaction, such as mixing chemicals to create gunpowder, was impressive. I found it a light diversion, for the most part, with an inventive back story. I guess there weren't any particularly striking moments. Perhaps when you shut off the power to the underground city and your golden robot friend expires? That was pretty cool.
Martian Dreams is similar in a lot of ways. It features some of the same characters, has the random appearance of guys that look and act like Iolo, Shamino and Dupre, and it has a strong science-fiction background. I thought the diverse elements of 19th century characters, H.G. Wells-style fancy and alien life on Mars were brought together extremely well in this game. If someone were to tell me, "Hey, I've got this game where you save Mark Twain from his own nightmares on Mars" I would have thought it absurd, but the way the game is presented it actually makes sense. Kudos to the storyline team! I also thought the music in this game was spectacular, especially the character creation sequence and some of the outdoor music; far superior to the Savage Empire music which I barely even remember. This one was also a bit combat-heavy, and I got really sick of those damned jumping beans! Finally, I was especially impressed by the dream sequences; they were well-attuned to the characters involved and I particularly loved the Shadowlord sequence. The Avatar's conversation with Astaroth, the Shadowlord of Hatred, is particularly memorable. I even got a bit of a tear in my eye as the game ended and all the characters were lined up in a row to wish me well (or to tell me to hurry up...). A very vivid game! It actually bothers me some, too--one of the things Lord British always did with each new game was to recreate the engine from scratch. But Martian Dreams and Underworld II were both, in my opinion, both much better constructed in terms of story and its relationship to the engine than the games from which their engine derives. The same could be said of Serpent Isle (if you imagine it in its completed state). So does one of the most fun aspects of the Ultima series, being surprised by a brand new presentation of (usually) the same world, detract from the quality of the game? I think it probably does.
Well, those are my late-night comments for these two games. It's harder to scrounge up enough interesting thoughts with the spinoffs, I'm afraid! I should have better luck with the Underworlds, though, since I was very fond of both of them. Do not expect insightful essays when I discuss the Runes of Virtue games, however...
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Saturday, December 6, 2008
6!
Well, I didn't post anything over my vacation, but I don't suppose anyone actually believed me when I said I would, so perhaps it's all good. Tonight I'll talk about Ultima VI! I'm lucky to have extremely vivid memories of this game, not the least because I played it many, many times before my blogged experience of it. Let's talk about the more technical stuff first--this is a beautiful game on many levels. This was the first Ultima game to focus on its PC incarnation, and consequently there's a massive change in the look of the game. All previous games were limited in their pallete and the proximity of colors due to the limitations of the Apple II; in VGA mode, Ultima VI looks more vibrant and alive than any of the previous games. I think this creates a different mood--in the old games, there was this almost constant black background no matter where you were, whereas in Ultima VI the grasslands seem lush; I especially loved the animated flowing rivers when I first played the game! The perspective is also somewhat more logical--walls have a slanted appearance (though this is misleading since you can't walk under walls that are in perspective as in Ultima VII) instead of a square appearance, and other people are not always facing you as if they are lying on the ground. In short, the more realistic graphics really helped bring the game to life for me when I was first introduced to it.
Of particular note is the conversation system, which is made much more enjoyable by the large and attractive character portraits given to every person in the game. This is the first Ultima where I find it easy to attach personalities to particular characters, just because I can remember the face of, say, the dishonest ruffian who accosts you outside Lord British's castle, or the dog with a dish in his mouth, or the horse-seller south of Trinsic that inexplicably says "Later!" if you mention sex to her...
I didn't say anything about the music of Ultima V, which was foolish since that was certainly one of my most favorite aspects; that game had some great tunes, especially the Grayson's Theme and the outdoors theme. Ultima VI has some good ones--I especially like the combination of Gargoyle Theme and "Rule, Britannia!"--but in general, the score is not memorable because much music is straight out of Ultima V, and also particular pieces are usually not tied to specific locales. Hence, few stick out.
I think the game is most famous for its level of interaction and the wide array of objects which can be collected and use, and the seamless world which presents the cities and outdoors at the same scale, albeit shrunk compared to the (apparent) long distances of previous games. Of course, Ultima VII took the interaction to almost absurd heights, so I guess I don't need to dwell on it here.
Where the game doesn't work so well is in the plot department. The idea is very attractive--The gargoyles thought the Codex was theres and you just destroyed the Underworld--but it's pretty hard to fit the gargoyle realm of Ultima VI as the other side of a flat planet with the Underworld, which was obviously an underground realm on a round (actually toroidal...sorry for preventing a nitpick, nerds) planet in Ultima V. That confusion aside, pretty much no one in Britannia seems to care much about the gargoyle threat except Lord British and some groaning dudes in Cove (Why can't someone just cast heal on these guys, anyway?) The music hall director in Minoc even demands you go build some panpipes and play a tune before he lets you have the rune required to save the world! In another odd game design decision, you are given instant access to almost everywhere on the planet with the Orb of the Moons in the very beginning of the game, obviating the need for a huge bulk of the plot (namely the map pieces quest to get the pointless silver tablet). As a result, Ultima VI can probably be finished without cheating in perhaps under and hour! It also had the amusing effect, the first time I played, of confusing me when I teleported to the Gargoyle world, killed everyone, and didn't understand why the game hadn't ended. In any event, the game may be a bit too easy and I sometimes wonder if it was intentional or an error.
Among the more interesting and memorable events in the game are your interactions with the ghost of Quenton, which remains unresolved in this game, your submission to Lord Draxinosom (accompanied by a question, "Why?" whose answer took me absolutely forever to figure out the first time), and, most curiously, your strange, ambiguous interaction with the disembodied spirits of Mondain, Minax and Exodus, who speak of their atrocities in a bizarre, detached manner. I would say that was my favorite, and the most surprising, aspect of the game.
Overall, Ultima VI has a special place in my heart as the first game in the series that I played. It was a big step forward in a lot of ways, and I can't help but like the abandonment of the tiresome combat from earlier in the series, though I know a lot of people who were upset by some of the changes. Still, it remains a favorite, though it's not in as high esteem as it might have been before I went and played through the series over again...I think it would come in slightly ahead of Ultima Underworld I were I to rank my favorites, but behind VII, Underworld II, and Serpent Isle. However, I'm not sure, and those are all extremely stiff competition anyway, so the A+ I give to Ultima VI might be slightly below the A+ I'd give to the others, lol.
Up next are the spin-offs, Savage Empire and Martian Dreams. The former is so short I may combine the two into one entry. Soon I will also need to come up with something to say about the Runes of Virtue series, but that's going to be tough...
Of particular note is the conversation system, which is made much more enjoyable by the large and attractive character portraits given to every person in the game. This is the first Ultima where I find it easy to attach personalities to particular characters, just because I can remember the face of, say, the dishonest ruffian who accosts you outside Lord British's castle, or the dog with a dish in his mouth, or the horse-seller south of Trinsic that inexplicably says "Later!" if you mention sex to her...
I didn't say anything about the music of Ultima V, which was foolish since that was certainly one of my most favorite aspects; that game had some great tunes, especially the Grayson's Theme and the outdoors theme. Ultima VI has some good ones--I especially like the combination of Gargoyle Theme and "Rule, Britannia!"--but in general, the score is not memorable because much music is straight out of Ultima V, and also particular pieces are usually not tied to specific locales. Hence, few stick out.
I think the game is most famous for its level of interaction and the wide array of objects which can be collected and use, and the seamless world which presents the cities and outdoors at the same scale, albeit shrunk compared to the (apparent) long distances of previous games. Of course, Ultima VII took the interaction to almost absurd heights, so I guess I don't need to dwell on it here.
Where the game doesn't work so well is in the plot department. The idea is very attractive--The gargoyles thought the Codex was theres and you just destroyed the Underworld--but it's pretty hard to fit the gargoyle realm of Ultima VI as the other side of a flat planet with the Underworld, which was obviously an underground realm on a round (actually toroidal...sorry for preventing a nitpick, nerds) planet in Ultima V. That confusion aside, pretty much no one in Britannia seems to care much about the gargoyle threat except Lord British and some groaning dudes in Cove (Why can't someone just cast heal on these guys, anyway?) The music hall director in Minoc even demands you go build some panpipes and play a tune before he lets you have the rune required to save the world! In another odd game design decision, you are given instant access to almost everywhere on the planet with the Orb of the Moons in the very beginning of the game, obviating the need for a huge bulk of the plot (namely the map pieces quest to get the pointless silver tablet). As a result, Ultima VI can probably be finished without cheating in perhaps under and hour! It also had the amusing effect, the first time I played, of confusing me when I teleported to the Gargoyle world, killed everyone, and didn't understand why the game hadn't ended. In any event, the game may be a bit too easy and I sometimes wonder if it was intentional or an error.
Among the more interesting and memorable events in the game are your interactions with the ghost of Quenton, which remains unresolved in this game, your submission to Lord Draxinosom (accompanied by a question, "Why?" whose answer took me absolutely forever to figure out the first time), and, most curiously, your strange, ambiguous interaction with the disembodied spirits of Mondain, Minax and Exodus, who speak of their atrocities in a bizarre, detached manner. I would say that was my favorite, and the most surprising, aspect of the game.
Overall, Ultima VI has a special place in my heart as the first game in the series that I played. It was a big step forward in a lot of ways, and I can't help but like the abandonment of the tiresome combat from earlier in the series, though I know a lot of people who were upset by some of the changes. Still, it remains a favorite, though it's not in as high esteem as it might have been before I went and played through the series over again...I think it would come in slightly ahead of Ultima Underworld I were I to rank my favorites, but behind VII, Underworld II, and Serpent Isle. However, I'm not sure, and those are all extremely stiff competition anyway, so the A+ I give to Ultima VI might be slightly below the A+ I'd give to the others, lol.
Up next are the spin-offs, Savage Empire and Martian Dreams. The former is so short I may combine the two into one entry. Soon I will also need to come up with something to say about the Runes of Virtue series, but that's going to be tough...
Sunday, November 23, 2008
In Which I Say Nice Things About Ultima V
Well, reading my comments indicates i totally failed to address one aspect of Ultima V that made it vastly superior to all the previous games--namely, the storyline. Ultima 1-3 had stories, but the events and impact of them were contained almost entirely within the documentation. Ultima IV was strangely plotless--it was a quest of self-improvement, but there wasn't really any compelling need for the world to have you as Avatar. I would summarize the back story of that game as, "Everything's going OK I suppose. Let's find someone to be the Avatar!"
In Ultima V, by contrast, the first thing that happens (granted, in a cutscene) is that you get attacked by a Shadowlord. They also take over towns, and Blackthron harasses you on a regular basis; guards demand bribes, and so on. Unlike the previous games, there's the sense of impending disaster and the well-being of the world hanging in the balance. The illusion breaks at points (like any game), but it's there for the first time. Ultima VI's major failure is in this regard; I still can't get over the moron that makes you build and play some panpipes before letting you save the world; moreover, hardly anyone cares about the Gargoyle threat in general. At least in Ultima IX, Katrina apologizes for wasting your time!
I would also disagree with a commenter who said Ultima V's combat was insufficiently strategic and thy preferred Ultima IV. I thing the opposite; for most battles at the end of IV, I just repeatedly hit the A key and the up arrow because the massive barrage of magic arrows and wand bolts and whatever pretty much cleans the board of all enemies. As for the argument that a Shepherd or a Fighter is the best character class in IV because you can ge them to level 8 more easily, I say there's no particular reason to bother. Even in the abyss, everything was dead before my uber-Shepherd gets in melee range, and besides, touching those orbs is tedious.
I also got some other comments! Someone said that the item in Serpent Isle which trades for the ice wine was "obvious" but can't remember what it was; I say that such an item does not exist. Finally I was attacked for not showing Ultima Underworld sufficient love, but I maintain that I was fairly positive in my comments :-P If I'm overly critical, it's only because criticism is more fun to read than positive comments.
Hope everyone has good holidays, or at least those of us in the United States. I am on vacation so I may publish more this week.
In Ultima V, by contrast, the first thing that happens (granted, in a cutscene) is that you get attacked by a Shadowlord. They also take over towns, and Blackthron harasses you on a regular basis; guards demand bribes, and so on. Unlike the previous games, there's the sense of impending disaster and the well-being of the world hanging in the balance. The illusion breaks at points (like any game), but it's there for the first time. Ultima VI's major failure is in this regard; I still can't get over the moron that makes you build and play some panpipes before letting you save the world; moreover, hardly anyone cares about the Gargoyle threat in general. At least in Ultima IX, Katrina apologizes for wasting your time!
I would also disagree with a commenter who said Ultima V's combat was insufficiently strategic and thy preferred Ultima IV. I thing the opposite; for most battles at the end of IV, I just repeatedly hit the A key and the up arrow because the massive barrage of magic arrows and wand bolts and whatever pretty much cleans the board of all enemies. As for the argument that a Shepherd or a Fighter is the best character class in IV because you can ge them to level 8 more easily, I say there's no particular reason to bother. Even in the abyss, everything was dead before my uber-Shepherd gets in melee range, and besides, touching those orbs is tedious.
I also got some other comments! Someone said that the item in Serpent Isle which trades for the ice wine was "obvious" but can't remember what it was; I say that such an item does not exist. Finally I was attacked for not showing Ultima Underworld sufficient love, but I maintain that I was fairly positive in my comments :-P If I'm overly critical, it's only because criticism is more fun to read than positive comments.
Hope everyone has good holidays, or at least those of us in the United States. I am on vacation so I may publish more this week.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
5!
The time has come at long last to tackle Ultima V. I can probably cut and paste my last intro here--it doesn't feel like it's been long since I wrote the last one, time flies, etc. etc. At this rate I won't be done for another year! Then again, I'm not too concerned about that.
I have a pretty mixed view of Ultima V. When I originally played it, after getting the Ultima Collection back in 1994 or so, I found it extremely painful to play. The combat sequences are pretty long, and you get fewer hit points per level than in IV, and it seems monsters hurt more than in IV. Since generally I find combat to be the least enjoyable part of any of the Ultima games, I gave up pretty quickly. I did eventually see the endgame via cheating, but I think that doesn't count!
Since I'm already enumerating downsides, I'll mention another. I felt like the towns in Ultima V were a lot less distinctive than they were in Ultima IV, though it's hard to explain why. In Ultima IV, when I think of any town I can imagine its map in my head today--and the same is true for Ultima VI and VII--but this is not the case for Ultima V. I think it has to do with the fact that almost all seemed to have walls, which limits the space for character per town. Finally, the Underworld was intensely difficult, especially the section which involved very tedious blink spells to go from one small hole in the mountains to another--mapmaking in other parts of the Underworld was actually fairly entertaining, but here it was simply a chore and I never got distances quite right.
Now I can enumerate some of the points I liked. Dungeons were vastly improved, as was your ability to interact and affect changes in the world otherwise--you can move objects and use things, and monsters leave rational treasure instead of just the gold you found in most earlier games. Of course, I exploited game mechanics heavily! I noticed that invisibility rings have the curious side effect of bringing monsters' hit points to near zero so that one hit kills them. I also noticed that leaving one monster alive in a dungeon room brings them all back to life if you return. Thus, an easy way to amass treasure was to become invisible, kill a bunch of dragons in a room, leave one, then exit and return to the room, over and over again! This probably qualifies as cheating, but the game in its initial stages was difficult enough that I didn't feel bad about it. This was a bit of a side track from my main point, which was that the dungeons were vastly more interesting to explore than they were in Ultima IV, where I largely dashed to the treasure with down and up spells and then immediately exited.
The most impressive change between the games is the improvement in the way the world exists independently of you--there is a day and night sequence, characters have specific schedules, and I am told seasons also occur. There are also astrological phenomenon that cause Shadowlords to invade towns! I mentioned this change in independent existence of the game world as a key theme in how the games developed over the years; the other key theme is how the world treats you as a person, and how your actions have an impact on the world. There's less evidence of this in Ultima V, or at least I didn't notice it, but I did notice glaring problems. For example, a member of the Underground tells me to head to Blackthorn's castle to get Lord British's crown, which I do--and when I return to get a new quest, he doesn't acknowledge the completion of the old one. Similarly, if you give up the names of the Resistance to Blackthorn there's no effect; indeed, you can get trapped by him over and over again and no one seems to care. Most hilariously, you can wander through his throne room and so long as you don't touch anyone, they are oblivious to you. I attribute most of these flaws to the small size of the game, and they certainly exist in every other early RPG, but they are more glaring because the game is so effective in presenting a realistic "breathing" world in so many other ways.
Overall, I would say my memories of Ultima V are weak, even though it took me something like 35 hours to finally finish. It's hard to explain why, because my memories of Ultima IV and Ultima VI are fairly vivid--there's just something about this game that did not sear it into my brain; maybe some of your quests are repetitive (shrine quests *extremely* so), and maybe I didn't find characters as charming or memorable as in the previous game. Maybe the long conversations without portraits made keeping track of who was who a lot more difficult? In short, my impression of Ultima V has never been very high, despite a neat plot and a far more realistic world, yet I don't know quite how to explain why.
On to a few of the most memorable moments of the game! It's easy to start with the very obvious--killing the Shadowlords. Tossing the shards into the flame and yelling a name and they are destroyed; I like imagining how that would play out in some kind of cutscene. I am also quite fond of meeting Captain John in the abyss and learning the origin of the Shadowlords, which I had never understood prior to encountering him in his unexpected fort! Ultima V also contains one of the most bizarre and mysterious sequences in any of the games, too--the strange, backward-colored realm that Lord British is trapped in. Why is he totally lacking power here? Why is it furnished with a bed and clocks and books and all? British proposes it to be an ancient location, and thinking about how it got there and what it was used for is one of the pleasures of finishing the game.
That's all I've got on Ultima V. I'm curious if anyone else feels the way I do about it--On paper everything about the game is good, but the experience never really seemed that great to me.
I have a pretty mixed view of Ultima V. When I originally played it, after getting the Ultima Collection back in 1994 or so, I found it extremely painful to play. The combat sequences are pretty long, and you get fewer hit points per level than in IV, and it seems monsters hurt more than in IV. Since generally I find combat to be the least enjoyable part of any of the Ultima games, I gave up pretty quickly. I did eventually see the endgame via cheating, but I think that doesn't count!
Since I'm already enumerating downsides, I'll mention another. I felt like the towns in Ultima V were a lot less distinctive than they were in Ultima IV, though it's hard to explain why. In Ultima IV, when I think of any town I can imagine its map in my head today--and the same is true for Ultima VI and VII--but this is not the case for Ultima V. I think it has to do with the fact that almost all seemed to have walls, which limits the space for character per town. Finally, the Underworld was intensely difficult, especially the section which involved very tedious blink spells to go from one small hole in the mountains to another--mapmaking in other parts of the Underworld was actually fairly entertaining, but here it was simply a chore and I never got distances quite right.
Now I can enumerate some of the points I liked. Dungeons were vastly improved, as was your ability to interact and affect changes in the world otherwise--you can move objects and use things, and monsters leave rational treasure instead of just the gold you found in most earlier games. Of course, I exploited game mechanics heavily! I noticed that invisibility rings have the curious side effect of bringing monsters' hit points to near zero so that one hit kills them. I also noticed that leaving one monster alive in a dungeon room brings them all back to life if you return. Thus, an easy way to amass treasure was to become invisible, kill a bunch of dragons in a room, leave one, then exit and return to the room, over and over again! This probably qualifies as cheating, but the game in its initial stages was difficult enough that I didn't feel bad about it. This was a bit of a side track from my main point, which was that the dungeons were vastly more interesting to explore than they were in Ultima IV, where I largely dashed to the treasure with down and up spells and then immediately exited.
The most impressive change between the games is the improvement in the way the world exists independently of you--there is a day and night sequence, characters have specific schedules, and I am told seasons also occur. There are also astrological phenomenon that cause Shadowlords to invade towns! I mentioned this change in independent existence of the game world as a key theme in how the games developed over the years; the other key theme is how the world treats you as a person, and how your actions have an impact on the world. There's less evidence of this in Ultima V, or at least I didn't notice it, but I did notice glaring problems. For example, a member of the Underground tells me to head to Blackthorn's castle to get Lord British's crown, which I do--and when I return to get a new quest, he doesn't acknowledge the completion of the old one. Similarly, if you give up the names of the Resistance to Blackthorn there's no effect; indeed, you can get trapped by him over and over again and no one seems to care. Most hilariously, you can wander through his throne room and so long as you don't touch anyone, they are oblivious to you. I attribute most of these flaws to the small size of the game, and they certainly exist in every other early RPG, but they are more glaring because the game is so effective in presenting a realistic "breathing" world in so many other ways.
Overall, I would say my memories of Ultima V are weak, even though it took me something like 35 hours to finally finish. It's hard to explain why, because my memories of Ultima IV and Ultima VI are fairly vivid--there's just something about this game that did not sear it into my brain; maybe some of your quests are repetitive (shrine quests *extremely* so), and maybe I didn't find characters as charming or memorable as in the previous game. Maybe the long conversations without portraits made keeping track of who was who a lot more difficult? In short, my impression of Ultima V has never been very high, despite a neat plot and a far more realistic world, yet I don't know quite how to explain why.
On to a few of the most memorable moments of the game! It's easy to start with the very obvious--killing the Shadowlords. Tossing the shards into the flame and yelling a name and they are destroyed; I like imagining how that would play out in some kind of cutscene. I am also quite fond of meeting Captain John in the abyss and learning the origin of the Shadowlords, which I had never understood prior to encountering him in his unexpected fort! Ultima V also contains one of the most bizarre and mysterious sequences in any of the games, too--the strange, backward-colored realm that Lord British is trapped in. Why is he totally lacking power here? Why is it furnished with a bed and clocks and books and all? British proposes it to be an ancient location, and thinking about how it got there and what it was used for is one of the pleasures of finishing the game.
That's all I've got on Ultima V. I'm curious if anyone else feels the way I do about it--On paper everything about the game is good, but the experience never really seemed that great to me.
Friday, September 12, 2008
4!
Holy guacamole, I thought I posted my last one in August sometime, but evidently it was way back in July! Man, time is zipping by. So, I'm going to spontaneously write about Ultima IV without having though about it much in advance. Here we go!
Ultima IV is commonly considered one of, or sometimes the, best RPG video games ever made. The argument usually goes that instead of trying to kill Foozle, you are trying to improve yourself and become something greater. I always found this a little bit misleading. It's true, there's a basic theme to the game of being nice to people and not stealing their gold (a necessary tactic in the previous games!), but in terms of quests, the game is pretty much one long scavenger hunt, and although you don't kill any Foozle, you do kill an enormous quantity of orcs, dragons, ghosts, gremlins, zorns (or is the plural zorn?), brigands and so on. I'd go so far as to say that perhaps as much as 90% of the human population of Britannia consists of brigands, evil wizards, and other bad guy types. So in terms of actual gameplay, I don't think the thematic shift from killing lots of things to becoming a paragon of virtue while killing lots of things is a very big shift.
Instead, what makes the game work are the incremental shifts forward, which continue until Ultima VII, in two areas of immersive gaming experience. First, the sense that the world you are gaming in can exist without you. Second, the sense that your presence in the world has an impact. The first item is brought to mind by some of my favorite features of the game--the moons which, albeit comically fast in changing, guide your travels, and the new conversation system such that most characters spout off several lines, and you are forced to interact with them. For me this is a gigantic difference from Ultima III, where an NPC is just a signpost; here, the options for talk are limited but the fact that I am forced to treat them in a more human-like manner makes the game immersive; I don't particularly enjoy lying to them. In some ways I think the future version of this, where you pick a topic from a list instead of typing it, is an improvement, because I see insulting or cruel responses I COULD make, but which I actually feel kind of crappy making, even though I realize I'm talking to a few blocks of text in a computer program.
As a side note, I am a big fan of the style of conversation in this game. Everything you do in Ultima IV has a sense of importance attached to it, and the sparse, direct dialog add to that. The goofiness is limited to skeletons in the woods and the occasional ghost; everyone else is relentlessly serious.
The virtue system is the primary mechanism for the improvement in the second area of immersion. Although almost none of your actions in the game have a permanent impact (slaughter a town and they're all back when you return) on the game world, they *do* prove to be a significant impediment to your progress in the game. In short, the choices you make in the game, tied to a particular ethical system, matter. I guess in Ultima III, they mattered too--but in a more crass way. In Ultima III, you killed guards to improve your experience score, while in Ultima IV you give to beggars to improve your compassion score. On the surface these are pretty much the same--actions with consequences to your stats. However, I think the former is a huge breach of immersion because you can't take the game seriously when you are hacking guards to death by the hundreds. Giving gold to beggars, though, forces you to treat the in-game characters as more "alive" than those burly guards, and therefore your choices seem to impact them (even if they never cease begging). In the end you can take more pride (ironically, since you are supposed to be humble) in your actions in Ultima IV than in Ultima III, and it makes the game a more memorable and immersing experience.
The above paragraph is a bit meandering, mostly becuase the "you have an impact on the game world" only really becomes significant later in the series--Serpent Isle being the best, albeit flawed (and enormously depressing!) example. But...baby steps!
Well, what else can I say about Ultima IV? My favorite version is always the PC version for the improved colorfulness of its graphics (I'm talking the old graphics from the original PC release--same bitmap as the Apple II version, as far as I can tell, but with added colors). I especially like that the background remains black, which is key to the atmosphere of all the original Apple II versions of these games. The music patch also does a pretty good job--I say pretty good because at the time I played the game again, the best version of the music patch is tied to an annoying (to me) graphics upgrade, and I had to revert to an older, slower, slightly glitchy version to avoid the graphics upgrade. So anyway, when anyone plays this game I advise the PC version with music patch, as it gives you the "best of both worlds." I don't understand Garriott's faithfulness to the Apple II platform after Ultima IV...But I guess I still have a 5 1/4 floppy drive on my present PC, so maybe I can't criticize.
I really enjoy the music from Ultima IV, and in fact all the games until Ultima VIII where it mostly became "mood" music that did nothing for me. My favorites from Ultima IV are the castle theme and the outdoor wandering theme.
As always, I've reserved my final thoughts for the most memorable moments of the game, or the most "moving" elements, even if I feel odd using that word in the context of a video game. Probably topping the list is that strange moment just before the end of the game where you meet and slaughter a mirror image of your own party, except of course that the mirror Shamino immediately flees! Of course, the anticlimactic ending is pretty impressive, where you answer questions from a booming voice, see some nice line art, and are tossed back into Earth. I guess most of my favorite moments are centered around the abyss, aren't they? It's understandable...that IS the final quest, after all--and entry into the Abyss also appeals to me; some stolen ritual with the bell, book and candle (where was this from originally?) and tossing the skull of Mondain into the volcano. Wow!
What about some notable scenes outside the abyss? I guess since the game is mostly, as I mentioned, a scavenger hunt, there's not many plot events (or even much of a plot) to take note of. I would mention that speaking to the water in Lord British's castle is kind of surreal, and the grove in Empath Abbey comes to mind. Maybe the Ankh in the midst of the mountains? I remember being rather puzzled the first time I played this game and viewed a gem and saw a strange random dot hidden in the peaks...I'm also fond of the ruins of Magincia and the curious disparity between attitudes of the ghosts--some angry, some sarcastic...and help coming from the oddest places; a daemon and a snake who attacks you after you converse. Strange.
I think that's enough on this game, though I could probably go on (I barely touched on combat and I ignored character creation, which was shockingly different from the usual procedure we'd come to expect). In short, I think Ultima IV deserves its lofty reputation. I think playing it is still quite an experience, even if it's less fun now than it would have been in the past--I think this is because its ideas were expanded upon so much in later games in and out of the series; I see it basically as a gigantic milestone in video game, particularly as a game that can be taken seriously as a creative enterprise (e.g., art) rather than simple entertainment
Ultima IV is commonly considered one of, or sometimes the, best RPG video games ever made. The argument usually goes that instead of trying to kill Foozle, you are trying to improve yourself and become something greater. I always found this a little bit misleading. It's true, there's a basic theme to the game of being nice to people and not stealing their gold (a necessary tactic in the previous games!), but in terms of quests, the game is pretty much one long scavenger hunt, and although you don't kill any Foozle, you do kill an enormous quantity of orcs, dragons, ghosts, gremlins, zorns (or is the plural zorn?), brigands and so on. I'd go so far as to say that perhaps as much as 90% of the human population of Britannia consists of brigands, evil wizards, and other bad guy types. So in terms of actual gameplay, I don't think the thematic shift from killing lots of things to becoming a paragon of virtue while killing lots of things is a very big shift.
Instead, what makes the game work are the incremental shifts forward, which continue until Ultima VII, in two areas of immersive gaming experience. First, the sense that the world you are gaming in can exist without you. Second, the sense that your presence in the world has an impact. The first item is brought to mind by some of my favorite features of the game--the moons which, albeit comically fast in changing, guide your travels, and the new conversation system such that most characters spout off several lines, and you are forced to interact with them. For me this is a gigantic difference from Ultima III, where an NPC is just a signpost; here, the options for talk are limited but the fact that I am forced to treat them in a more human-like manner makes the game immersive; I don't particularly enjoy lying to them. In some ways I think the future version of this, where you pick a topic from a list instead of typing it, is an improvement, because I see insulting or cruel responses I COULD make, but which I actually feel kind of crappy making, even though I realize I'm talking to a few blocks of text in a computer program.
As a side note, I am a big fan of the style of conversation in this game. Everything you do in Ultima IV has a sense of importance attached to it, and the sparse, direct dialog add to that. The goofiness is limited to skeletons in the woods and the occasional ghost; everyone else is relentlessly serious.
The virtue system is the primary mechanism for the improvement in the second area of immersion. Although almost none of your actions in the game have a permanent impact (slaughter a town and they're all back when you return) on the game world, they *do* prove to be a significant impediment to your progress in the game. In short, the choices you make in the game, tied to a particular ethical system, matter. I guess in Ultima III, they mattered too--but in a more crass way. In Ultima III, you killed guards to improve your experience score, while in Ultima IV you give to beggars to improve your compassion score. On the surface these are pretty much the same--actions with consequences to your stats. However, I think the former is a huge breach of immersion because you can't take the game seriously when you are hacking guards to death by the hundreds. Giving gold to beggars, though, forces you to treat the in-game characters as more "alive" than those burly guards, and therefore your choices seem to impact them (even if they never cease begging). In the end you can take more pride (ironically, since you are supposed to be humble) in your actions in Ultima IV than in Ultima III, and it makes the game a more memorable and immersing experience.
The above paragraph is a bit meandering, mostly becuase the "you have an impact on the game world" only really becomes significant later in the series--Serpent Isle being the best, albeit flawed (and enormously depressing!) example. But...baby steps!
Well, what else can I say about Ultima IV? My favorite version is always the PC version for the improved colorfulness of its graphics (I'm talking the old graphics from the original PC release--same bitmap as the Apple II version, as far as I can tell, but with added colors). I especially like that the background remains black, which is key to the atmosphere of all the original Apple II versions of these games. The music patch also does a pretty good job--I say pretty good because at the time I played the game again, the best version of the music patch is tied to an annoying (to me) graphics upgrade, and I had to revert to an older, slower, slightly glitchy version to avoid the graphics upgrade. So anyway, when anyone plays this game I advise the PC version with music patch, as it gives you the "best of both worlds." I don't understand Garriott's faithfulness to the Apple II platform after Ultima IV...But I guess I still have a 5 1/4 floppy drive on my present PC, so maybe I can't criticize.
I really enjoy the music from Ultima IV, and in fact all the games until Ultima VIII where it mostly became "mood" music that did nothing for me. My favorites from Ultima IV are the castle theme and the outdoor wandering theme.
As always, I've reserved my final thoughts for the most memorable moments of the game, or the most "moving" elements, even if I feel odd using that word in the context of a video game. Probably topping the list is that strange moment just before the end of the game where you meet and slaughter a mirror image of your own party, except of course that the mirror Shamino immediately flees! Of course, the anticlimactic ending is pretty impressive, where you answer questions from a booming voice, see some nice line art, and are tossed back into Earth. I guess most of my favorite moments are centered around the abyss, aren't they? It's understandable...that IS the final quest, after all--and entry into the Abyss also appeals to me; some stolen ritual with the bell, book and candle (where was this from originally?) and tossing the skull of Mondain into the volcano. Wow!
What about some notable scenes outside the abyss? I guess since the game is mostly, as I mentioned, a scavenger hunt, there's not many plot events (or even much of a plot) to take note of. I would mention that speaking to the water in Lord British's castle is kind of surreal, and the grove in Empath Abbey comes to mind. Maybe the Ankh in the midst of the mountains? I remember being rather puzzled the first time I played this game and viewed a gem and saw a strange random dot hidden in the peaks...I'm also fond of the ruins of Magincia and the curious disparity between attitudes of the ghosts--some angry, some sarcastic...and help coming from the oddest places; a daemon and a snake who attacks you after you converse. Strange.
I think that's enough on this game, though I could probably go on (I barely touched on combat and I ignored character creation, which was shockingly different from the usual procedure we'd come to expect). In short, I think Ultima IV deserves its lofty reputation. I think playing it is still quite an experience, even if it's less fun now than it would have been in the past--I think this is because its ideas were expanded upon so much in later games in and out of the series; I see it basically as a gigantic milestone in video game, particularly as a game that can be taken seriously as a creative enterprise (e.g., art) rather than simple entertainment
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
3!
So I thought my last post was a lot longer ago than it actually was. Barely a month!? I should wait a longer time before I talk about Ultima IV!
Actually, I've gotten a lot of comments lately. One person called me a retard for thinking "Pagan World" (whatever that is) is not a good game. This buffoonish insult made me almost skip several games and go ahead and talk about Ultima VIII, but it seems to me I can't offer any good reasoning without going through the previous five or six games and show why I think Ultima VIII went totally off the rails in terms of the direction the series had been headed.
Other comments included yet another request to play the remakes, which if I were to do would need to follow my completion of all my per-game discussions, which will take another decade or so. But I won't rule anything out...Finally, someone asked what games to play without having to start at the beginning. To my mind, you should play 4, probably 5, definitely 6 and 7 and Serpent Isle. This assumes you're only interested in the "main series." Ultima III is a fun game, but hard to play today, and unless the situation has changed lately I don't think there are any really good ports. All of the games before VI may be more challenging, or at least more repetitive in their challenges, than any of the later games. A big chunk of my time in Ultima III was spent stealing from the same treasure chests over and over again, for example.
On a total side note, it seems to me that if video games are to be considered as art I think we should abandon the criteria of "fun." There are plenty of works of literature and music and film which are decidedly unpleasant or disturbing to experience, but which are acclaimed. So there's a lot not to enjoy about Ultima III, like many early video games, it can be repetitive and unrewarding, but I don't particularly care.
Oh yeah, I think someone asked about which versions to play. The DOS versions of II and III are trash so forget them. The DOS version of IV has much better (well, more colorful) graphics and there's a patch to add the Mockingboard music from the Apple version--although I would add that you have to go to work to get it because it's currently bundled with a dubious graphics upgrade that I find detracts from the atmosphere. The Apple version of V stinks unless you really get a kick out of disk swaps, and after that there's little choice. Someone said that the Sega Master System of IV was enjoyable, because it gives it 2D dungeons, but IMO you're not even playing the same game anymore after that sort of edit.
Now, let's talk about Ultima III! The most substantial change between II and III is the inescapable sense that Ultima III actually takes itself seriously. You don't have anachronisms like space ships and air cars, and the characters in the game seem for the most part to be in character, insofar as they can be with only one line of text to say. That being said, the world itself is pretty damned loony. Death Gulch is a typical example--It's a ridiculous maze of mountains and trees, and really the only thing worth doing there is looting the armory. This is such an efficient way to gather gold that most likely you'll end up repeating the process over and over again. Most of this gold ends up being spent at shrines in Ambrosia where, oh by the way, you inexplicably find the cards used to destroy Exodus.
Still, the much-decreased amount of silliness in this game is appealing--except for one item, the name ("Exodus") which is totally inapt and nonsensical, almost as if Garriott didn't know the meaning of the word. There are fewer stock characters who have nothing of interest to say, and the dungeons no longer seem quite as randomly constructed as they literally were in Ultima I and seemed to be in Ultima II. Most of the locales in the game also have some value in existing--the dungeons even if they lack marks do have fountains and gold in them, and some of them are themed, such as the "Time" dungeon in which (also rather inexplicably) the Time Lord resides. We also see an increase in the number of puzzles and quests to figure out--there's the hidden city of Dawn, there's the whole continent of ambrosia, and there's hidden commands such as BRIBE and DIG that you only learn about as you progress in the game. In Ultima II, it seemed as if the puzzles were almost undocumented. I don't recall any hint to anyone that you needed to give money to the old man for him to give you the ring to enter Minax's castle, whereas Ultima III is far more effective at providing clues to the solution of the game.
Ultima III also features a boatload of new features, including an extensive character creation system, lots of character classes (some being a bit dubious, like the Barbarian and the Alchemist), and other standard RPG features like the concept of leveling up, restricted armor and weapons, and so on. There's also a fresh new party-based combat system, much of which would persist (with increased complexity) until abandoned in favor of the much-derided real-time combat of Ultima VII. The layout of the screen itself (party on the upper right, commands on the lower right, and a game view on the left) would also survive that long. Finally, I can't write this commentary without praising the music, which give the game a more exciting atmosphere. I much prefer the Ultima 3 through 7 style of specific, non-atmospheric melodies associated with activities and locations; with a few exceptions I don't go around humming the music from Ultima VIII or IX, despite the fact that they get more praise for their scores.
There are also ways in which Ultima III reminds me of its predecessors. First, it's still hard to survive the beginning of the game. You start with few hit points, and though the food situation is not so tight as to DEMAND stealing the way it did in Ultima II, there were still times when I trudged back from some adventure basically starving. On the plus side, magic is actually worth having in this game; in fact, it is utterly essential once poisonous monsters begin showing up. By the final castle I was casting the various mass-death spells with every single combat.
All that aside, the best feature by far of Ultima III is that it's chock full of memorable moments for a game of its age. One of the things I love about playing the early games is that the primitive graphics force a vagueness to the artwork, and the lack of memory prevents the text from explaining things you see except in the vaguest terms. When I play these I feel like I'm experiencing the story through the lens of some old, fragmented text, like reading Sappho, or like deriving a society's mythology through images on potsherds and sculptures. By far the best example of this is the Time Lord, who resides in the cave of Time, shows up as a "?" on the gem-map, and who appears in his stick-man form for a split second to announce in distinctive ALL CAPS the order of the cards to defeat Exodus (with the warning, "ALL ELSE FAILS"), and then vanishes. Even knowing the future of the series and his role in Ultima VII, this was pretty jarring. I've written extensively, previously, about the endgame, the first of a series of fairly anticlimactic endings, but with this made up for by its distinctive mystery--answering the series of questions posed by a booming voice in Ultima IV and drawing a Codex symbol in the process, and the visit to Lord British's distorted underworld "prison" in Ultima V. Ultima III takes the cake though, bringing you face to face with a computer complete with a card-reader defended by the very floor around it. It was a weird twist that was fun even though I already knew about it from long ago, much superior to fighting some random powerful boss.
So in summary, I think Ultima III was the first in the series of five games that really define the Ultima series for me; we get our first look at some of the styles and themes that would develop as the series continued. Its sense of immersion and 'seriousness' set it apart from its predecessors; the charming and mysterious experience of the world of Sosaria make Ultima III a classic.
Actually, I've gotten a lot of comments lately. One person called me a retard for thinking "Pagan World" (whatever that is) is not a good game. This buffoonish insult made me almost skip several games and go ahead and talk about Ultima VIII, but it seems to me I can't offer any good reasoning without going through the previous five or six games and show why I think Ultima VIII went totally off the rails in terms of the direction the series had been headed.
Other comments included yet another request to play the remakes, which if I were to do would need to follow my completion of all my per-game discussions, which will take another decade or so. But I won't rule anything out...Finally, someone asked what games to play without having to start at the beginning. To my mind, you should play 4, probably 5, definitely 6 and 7 and Serpent Isle. This assumes you're only interested in the "main series." Ultima III is a fun game, but hard to play today, and unless the situation has changed lately I don't think there are any really good ports. All of the games before VI may be more challenging, or at least more repetitive in their challenges, than any of the later games. A big chunk of my time in Ultima III was spent stealing from the same treasure chests over and over again, for example.
On a total side note, it seems to me that if video games are to be considered as art I think we should abandon the criteria of "fun." There are plenty of works of literature and music and film which are decidedly unpleasant or disturbing to experience, but which are acclaimed. So there's a lot not to enjoy about Ultima III, like many early video games, it can be repetitive and unrewarding, but I don't particularly care.
Oh yeah, I think someone asked about which versions to play. The DOS versions of II and III are trash so forget them. The DOS version of IV has much better (well, more colorful) graphics and there's a patch to add the Mockingboard music from the Apple version--although I would add that you have to go to work to get it because it's currently bundled with a dubious graphics upgrade that I find detracts from the atmosphere. The Apple version of V stinks unless you really get a kick out of disk swaps, and after that there's little choice. Someone said that the Sega Master System of IV was enjoyable, because it gives it 2D dungeons, but IMO you're not even playing the same game anymore after that sort of edit.
Now, let's talk about Ultima III! The most substantial change between II and III is the inescapable sense that Ultima III actually takes itself seriously. You don't have anachronisms like space ships and air cars, and the characters in the game seem for the most part to be in character, insofar as they can be with only one line of text to say. That being said, the world itself is pretty damned loony. Death Gulch is a typical example--It's a ridiculous maze of mountains and trees, and really the only thing worth doing there is looting the armory. This is such an efficient way to gather gold that most likely you'll end up repeating the process over and over again. Most of this gold ends up being spent at shrines in Ambrosia where, oh by the way, you inexplicably find the cards used to destroy Exodus.
Still, the much-decreased amount of silliness in this game is appealing--except for one item, the name ("Exodus") which is totally inapt and nonsensical, almost as if Garriott didn't know the meaning of the word. There are fewer stock characters who have nothing of interest to say, and the dungeons no longer seem quite as randomly constructed as they literally were in Ultima I and seemed to be in Ultima II. Most of the locales in the game also have some value in existing--the dungeons even if they lack marks do have fountains and gold in them, and some of them are themed, such as the "Time" dungeon in which (also rather inexplicably) the Time Lord resides. We also see an increase in the number of puzzles and quests to figure out--there's the hidden city of Dawn, there's the whole continent of ambrosia, and there's hidden commands such as BRIBE and DIG that you only learn about as you progress in the game. In Ultima II, it seemed as if the puzzles were almost undocumented. I don't recall any hint to anyone that you needed to give money to the old man for him to give you the ring to enter Minax's castle, whereas Ultima III is far more effective at providing clues to the solution of the game.
Ultima III also features a boatload of new features, including an extensive character creation system, lots of character classes (some being a bit dubious, like the Barbarian and the Alchemist), and other standard RPG features like the concept of leveling up, restricted armor and weapons, and so on. There's also a fresh new party-based combat system, much of which would persist (with increased complexity) until abandoned in favor of the much-derided real-time combat of Ultima VII. The layout of the screen itself (party on the upper right, commands on the lower right, and a game view on the left) would also survive that long. Finally, I can't write this commentary without praising the music, which give the game a more exciting atmosphere. I much prefer the Ultima 3 through 7 style of specific, non-atmospheric melodies associated with activities and locations; with a few exceptions I don't go around humming the music from Ultima VIII or IX, despite the fact that they get more praise for their scores.
There are also ways in which Ultima III reminds me of its predecessors. First, it's still hard to survive the beginning of the game. You start with few hit points, and though the food situation is not so tight as to DEMAND stealing the way it did in Ultima II, there were still times when I trudged back from some adventure basically starving. On the plus side, magic is actually worth having in this game; in fact, it is utterly essential once poisonous monsters begin showing up. By the final castle I was casting the various mass-death spells with every single combat.
All that aside, the best feature by far of Ultima III is that it's chock full of memorable moments for a game of its age. One of the things I love about playing the early games is that the primitive graphics force a vagueness to the artwork, and the lack of memory prevents the text from explaining things you see except in the vaguest terms. When I play these I feel like I'm experiencing the story through the lens of some old, fragmented text, like reading Sappho, or like deriving a society's mythology through images on potsherds and sculptures. By far the best example of this is the Time Lord, who resides in the cave of Time, shows up as a "?" on the gem-map, and who appears in his stick-man form for a split second to announce in distinctive ALL CAPS the order of the cards to defeat Exodus (with the warning, "ALL ELSE FAILS"), and then vanishes. Even knowing the future of the series and his role in Ultima VII, this was pretty jarring. I've written extensively, previously, about the endgame, the first of a series of fairly anticlimactic endings, but with this made up for by its distinctive mystery--answering the series of questions posed by a booming voice in Ultima IV and drawing a Codex symbol in the process, and the visit to Lord British's distorted underworld "prison" in Ultima V. Ultima III takes the cake though, bringing you face to face with a computer complete with a card-reader defended by the very floor around it. It was a weird twist that was fun even though I already knew about it from long ago, much superior to fighting some random powerful boss.
So in summary, I think Ultima III was the first in the series of five games that really define the Ultima series for me; we get our first look at some of the styles and themes that would develop as the series continued. Its sense of immersion and 'seriousness' set it apart from its predecessors; the charming and mysterious experience of the world of Sosaria make Ultima III a classic.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
2!
So in response to the anonymous comment, no, it's not over. Or yes, it is. It depends on your perspective. I will not be posting much, but I do want to finish my slow review of all the games at some point. Most likely I'll post a new one whenever someone adds a comment saying, "Hey, where'd you go!?"
So with that in mind, a few words about Ultima II. To my mind, of the official, canonical games, this one is clearly the worst. I explained a lot of reasons back when I wrote the original blogs about the game, but in summary I think it's just the unused potential. The game world in Ultima II is much bigger than Ultima I, at least in terms of what I would call "density of interest," eg, how much stuff on the map is interesting to see and how much is filler. In Ultima I, the towns, for example, are largely clones of one another, whereas here they are distinct, often have special features, and contain at least a few distinctive characters. However, many of the towns are nonetheless superfluous to the game, as is the entire exterior solar system, which was one of the game's more interesting features!
It's probably necessary to draw a distinction between the wide array of irrelevent side plots in, say, Ultima VII and the towns and planets of Ultima II which are simply devoid of interest. Since Ultima II does not take itself seriously, most of the excess towns are devoted to some pretty silly gags--whether it's the town of Le Jester, where you find it hard to get in and out because jesters crowd you to the point of being unable to move, or the town of Computer Camp, which is one big 1982 joke. I spent a couple of hours exploring all those places, but gained nothing of value from it--no special weapon or item or even any plot hints, as I recall. The dungeons were equally useless, and since magic was only used in dungeons, the whole magic system disappears from view! I'm not sure I even entered a dungeon. I know you could get fuel for your ship there, but why, just to visit the superfluous planets in the solar system?
Another issue which isn't the game's fault is that Ultima I got remade sometime in the latter 80's, and it looks and plays like a vastly superior game as a result. So today, most people who play these games at all will end up playing the remake of Ultima I, and then move to Ultima II and wonder, "what the hell happened!?" because, as you would expect, the remake is so much more playable than Ultima II. But just to blast those illusions away, I will say that after struggling through hacking the code to play Ultima I, Ultima II is a dream! Some additonal changes--Ultima I had only one or two monster types (although the get various names), whereas II has something like eight; Ultima II's dungeons are not just clones of those of Akalabeth; Ultima II has bigger towns, distinctive conversations, some animated graphics, and other advantages over the first game in its original form.
With Ultima I I talked about how the final fight with Mondain is a distinctive "moment" in the game, one which I found very interesting because all the hype is built up, but then we see an all-black room and a little man with his little gem causing all the world's havoc. Neat. In Ultima II, I think the only similar moment is when you arrive on Planet X and talk to Father Antos, and get his blessing; there is the sense that he's the only real character in the game, sticking out like a sore thumb from the insanity surrounding him out in space. Then there's that old man under the tree who gives (well, sells) you a ring. Pretty much inexplicable. I suppose I am projecting excessive significance on these figures, but I have to choose something! I also like the violent and abrupt endgame; "ALL HER WORKS SHALL DIE!"
What else needs to be said?
I can throw in a comment or two concerning Escape From Mount Drash, though it's not really worth the effort. It's just a bad, amateur maze game, almost unplayable, especially in the latter stages where you're not even allowed to see in front of you the keys you are looking for to escape the maze. Because of the time limit and the seemingly random nature of the combat, the game is just an exercise in repetition, hoping that with the next iteration chance will go you're way and you will succeed. It's worse than Akalabeth, because you can take advantage of that games silliness, whereas here, it just gets in the way and makes playing tedious.
That's all I have to say. I'll talk about III and why I enjoy it in a few weeks or months or years! :-D
So with that in mind, a few words about Ultima II. To my mind, of the official, canonical games, this one is clearly the worst. I explained a lot of reasons back when I wrote the original blogs about the game, but in summary I think it's just the unused potential. The game world in Ultima II is much bigger than Ultima I, at least in terms of what I would call "density of interest," eg, how much stuff on the map is interesting to see and how much is filler. In Ultima I, the towns, for example, are largely clones of one another, whereas here they are distinct, often have special features, and contain at least a few distinctive characters. However, many of the towns are nonetheless superfluous to the game, as is the entire exterior solar system, which was one of the game's more interesting features!
It's probably necessary to draw a distinction between the wide array of irrelevent side plots in, say, Ultima VII and the towns and planets of Ultima II which are simply devoid of interest. Since Ultima II does not take itself seriously, most of the excess towns are devoted to some pretty silly gags--whether it's the town of Le Jester, where you find it hard to get in and out because jesters crowd you to the point of being unable to move, or the town of Computer Camp, which is one big 1982 joke. I spent a couple of hours exploring all those places, but gained nothing of value from it--no special weapon or item or even any plot hints, as I recall. The dungeons were equally useless, and since magic was only used in dungeons, the whole magic system disappears from view! I'm not sure I even entered a dungeon. I know you could get fuel for your ship there, but why, just to visit the superfluous planets in the solar system?
Another issue which isn't the game's fault is that Ultima I got remade sometime in the latter 80's, and it looks and plays like a vastly superior game as a result. So today, most people who play these games at all will end up playing the remake of Ultima I, and then move to Ultima II and wonder, "what the hell happened!?" because, as you would expect, the remake is so much more playable than Ultima II. But just to blast those illusions away, I will say that after struggling through hacking the code to play Ultima I, Ultima II is a dream! Some additonal changes--Ultima I had only one or two monster types (although the get various names), whereas II has something like eight; Ultima II's dungeons are not just clones of those of Akalabeth; Ultima II has bigger towns, distinctive conversations, some animated graphics, and other advantages over the first game in its original form.
With Ultima I I talked about how the final fight with Mondain is a distinctive "moment" in the game, one which I found very interesting because all the hype is built up, but then we see an all-black room and a little man with his little gem causing all the world's havoc. Neat. In Ultima II, I think the only similar moment is when you arrive on Planet X and talk to Father Antos, and get his blessing; there is the sense that he's the only real character in the game, sticking out like a sore thumb from the insanity surrounding him out in space. Then there's that old man under the tree who gives (well, sells) you a ring. Pretty much inexplicable. I suppose I am projecting excessive significance on these figures, but I have to choose something! I also like the violent and abrupt endgame; "ALL HER WORKS SHALL DIE!"
What else needs to be said?
I can throw in a comment or two concerning Escape From Mount Drash, though it's not really worth the effort. It's just a bad, amateur maze game, almost unplayable, especially in the latter stages where you're not even allowed to see in front of you the keys you are looking for to escape the maze. Because of the time limit and the seemingly random nature of the combat, the game is just an exercise in repetition, hoping that with the next iteration chance will go you're way and you will succeed. It's worse than Akalabeth, because you can take advantage of that games silliness, whereas here, it just gets in the way and makes playing tedious.
That's all I have to say. I'll talk about III and why I enjoy it in a few weeks or months or years! :-D
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