Jesus, good game, folks. All over.
Yeah, saw that. I didnt put a bunch in Shrpid, but I put a bunch in Underworld for the same reason. It was magical to me as a young man. I remember in U7, my buddy got the speech pack. Seeing the Guardian come out of the screen and speak was awesome.
So awesome
"AVATAR! KNOW THAT MY FACE IS MOST MUPPET-LIKE!"
I started with U4 on the Apple // but it didn’t capture me at all. I think it was the repetitive quests that puts me off. I gave Ultima another try when U5 came out (also for Apple //) and I was mesmerized! The world felt so alive with U5 and since then, I was a big Ultima fan. I think I spent a couple of years playing and replaying U5. The magic axe was one of my most prized weapon and I love to see it flew to hit a troll and boomerang back to me. U5 still gives me very good memory and nostalgia, even more so than U7.
Yeah I didn’t care for any of the Guadian trilogy. U4 was my first and best Ultima. It was all downhill after that.
I prefer V to IV; it’s easily one of the best CRPGs of all time. I replayed it again last year and had a blast again.
First Ultima for me was III, I was 11 or 12 and remember pedaling with some friends to the independent software store (remember those?!) in a nearby strip mall, Tiger Bend in Baton Rouge. At that age the cover art made quite the impression on me (and made the eventual twist even better). I absolutely loved the game, stealing chests from (I think) Death Gulch or some-such, building roads through the wilderness with walls of chests left unlooted from killing monsters.
I don’t remember an agonizing wait for Ultima IV. I don’t even remember buying it. It wasn’t in my life, then it was – what an impact. Played it for months, taking notes and making maps (I wish I still had those!), and finally beating it. My young self sat on the box (having left it on the chair while I went to the bathroom) but despite that there was no question what box I’d get signed when I eventually met Richard Garriott at DragonCon. Simply stunning cover art. To date I think the manuals of IV are unmatched, particularly the Book of Mystic Wisdom. Spells in IV were done A to Z and each got a full two page spread, Denis Loubet’s gorgeous line art on the left and the spell description on the right. I found the virtues interesting, Truth Love Courage and all that. The lack of a big bad was (and still is!) unheard of. The music was amazing.
I remember an agonizing wait for Ultima V. I was in Greensboro, NC by then and a classmate a year ahead who had an Apple got to play it months ahead of me (it was released there first) and would tell me often of his adventures. He let me borrow the manuals and I devoured them. When it came out, and I’m ashamed to admit this, I bounced off of it pretty hard – mainly because the C=64 version had no music! I’d go over to my friend’s house to play it as he had a C=128. It was glorious! Regardless, I never finished it as a youth. I was in high school, busy with schoolwork and reading Tad Williams’ “Dragonbone Chair”, and the like. I do, however, acknowledge that it was peak Ultima (for me, at least) – great story, even more detailed world than Ultima IV with the expanded tileset as well as some amazing world improvements like NPC schedules and a night/day cycle, and an entire Underworld to explore like Ambrosia from III.
Ultima VI came out when I was in college. I didn’t have a PC at the time (I had an Amiga 1000) and though I believe it did come out for the Amiga I was insanely busy. I also hated the red tint of the tileset. In retrospect, I appreciate the single scale (though it does make the world seem smaller) and the NPC portraits were a nice improvement. Additionally, I love the plot of Ultima VI, and with the trilogy complete I find it to be the most beautiful RPG story of all time. I’d absolutely pay a decent amount of money to see Ultima IV - VI done as a single game in the same engine with the best bits of all of those Ultimas smushed together.
Ultima VII I enjoyed but found the whole baking bread, being able to take any item, building stairs out of hams, etc. a bit unnecessary though I understand to many that is beloved. The plot was OK (though a return to a big baddie was meh) and I found many of the subplots very touching. Combat, never a strong point of Ultima, was particularly bad.
Ultima VIII I tried to enjoy, but it was just so scaled back and I played pre-patch with the terrible, terrible jumping mechanics.
Ultima IX I actually enjoyed, but… it kind of tossed a lot of the lore. By that time I was well into adulthood and had long accepted that Ultima’s best days were in the past.
That was my first Ultima as well, and my favorite videogame full stop.
The music was amazing.
Kenneth Arnold’s compositions for III-V (especially III and IV) are just fabulous. They weren’t chiptuney or arranged for the available “instruments” of the period, but they were beautifully written.
One thing that makes me sad about the CRPG Addict’s blog entries is that he appears almost completely uninterested in game music. He says something about U4’s tunes being repetitive and annoying. Sigh.
Ultima 3 was my first, when my chemistry professor in college saw me playing Zork and gave me some copied floppies, along with the manuals which I photocopied. Circa 1984.
I was honest after that. Found both 4 and 5 in a department store over the next few years and bought them on sight. Before I had my own PC I went into the office on Friday nights after 9 pm and played IV until 6 am. I remember finishing IV when the sun was coming up.
Subsequent years of boot disks and whatnot.
But unlike Desslock, I suspected that Garriott was done when 8 was released, and I knew it for sure with 9. I bought two Voodoo 2 cards for Ultima 9, and they worked perfectly. But the game was just so sad and empty. I figured Garriott was in the right place at the right time with the right skills and vision. Good for him. But after he couldn’t personally write simple games by himself it was over. He coasted on his name for a while (i.e., NCSoft) but got none of my money after U9.
Well…I did play Ultima Online for a while, but my understanding is that he didn’t have much to do with that…and I quit soon because I was on dial-up and pk-ers with cable were wiping me every night.
I tried SotA trial for a while but just couldn’t see where it was going.
I would take issue with this statement a bit.
- I have a hard time describing any Ultima after III as simple, though perhaps you just mean in the sense of “lacking modern 3D graphics etc.”
- From at least V on, there were teams working on Ultimas (with regard to non-Apple II ports and music, there were certainly collaborators earlier than that, to say nothing of the documentation/feelies etc). By Ultima VII I think the team was rather large. Garriott, or someone, was able to keep up the quality for many years after it was just boy-genius coding in his attic.
Time does seem to have passed Garriott by, however. Though his opinions about game design are as interesting and articulate (if somewhat eccentric) as they ever were. When I interviewed him in '14 he wasn’t missing a beat.
I lived in that area for a while. Did you ever get to meet Bill Trotter? I did some gaming with him back then and read some of his books too. Had an epic multi-week game of Empire with him once that ultimately ended in a stand off.
As for Ultima, my first introduction to the series was Exodus. Then I went back before IV was released. Of course, IV was a classic because it was the first RPG I ever heard of that rewarded the player for acting selflessly rather than selfishly. But my favorite is still U7, Part 1. The Guardian coming out of the screen was amazing for its time and the story was tremendous. I felt real anger in chasing down Batlin and his goons. That world was amazing. I still remember the cabin with the wisps where you walked in and, if you did not have the quest and the items, would simply boom out “go away”. Too bad it is from a different era. Players today, me included, would not accept the ugly inventory management, the lack of direction and the very punishing game play (that end dungeon took a guide to get through since all the rooms looked the same).
Sadly I never met Mr. Trotter. I was a lot younger (left when I went off to college) and our paths never crossed.
U5 and U6 were remade in the Dungeon Siege engine about a decade ago, and the U5 one at least is supposed to be rather good.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/39190/Dungeon_Siege/
Played Lazarus on release, was great. Great soundtrack too. Engine-wise, though, I’m waxing nostalgic for something a little more retro, like Ultima V’s. Maaaaybe Ultima VI’s, with the red toned down lots.
I finished the U5 Lazarus remake in the Dungeon Siege engine. It was really good.
Even the dude running Ultima Codex didn’t get his box! He pledged at the $800 level, and paid an extra thirty bucks for international shipping to boot.
I really don’t think they’re crooks. The game didn’t sell well, their business is shutting down, and they’re in way over their heads. What’s sad is it’s screwing over their biggest fans.
Yeah I don’t think they’re crooks either. I think they really tried, and they actually did some cool things. They just couldn’t pull off and are broke.
They definitely tried, I’m just not sure it was at making a game. Even though I pulled my money from the Kickstarter, I watched quite a few of their subsequent fundraising streams. It was hard to shake the feeling they were enjoying the ride and that actually making the game was some minor detail they’d take care of somewhere along the way. Not crooks but I can understand why some people would want to compare them to Star Citizen.