Off Topic Alert! -- Ultima III Handheld

[retrobits]

Sorry for the off topic post, and the fact that is actually old news now (by 7 years or so!), but I missed this when it came out and just discovered it this weekend.

 

I remember staying up all night in Jr. High playing U3 on my 800 quite a few times. It was the first time I ever encountered an RPG game and I was hooked. I still enjoy playing the first 5 Ultimas occasionally but U3 is my favorite. Now I can play this on a device that fits in the palm of my hand, thanks to the awesome gbc port by Sven Carlberg.

 

gbc U3 port on a gbm with a m3 perfect mini sd card using the goomba color emulator

 

The port is really an outstanding achievement. Sven managed to adapt the game to the gameboy controls and not lose playability. The music is intact as well and was converted from original C64 sid files. He has a really interesting account of the development of the port where he disassembled the IBM-PC binary to port some key algorithms and exchanged emails with Richard Garriott himself.

 

Here is the official website for the port.

Edited April 21, 2008 by retrobits

[Goochman]

I helped with the play testing - very nice port - how did you get a cart version of it? I had to use a GB emu to play. His 'updated' version is very hard unless you understand the math he put into into (forgot exactly what since it was long ago)

 

U3 is a good Ultima to start with

[retrobits]

... how did you get a cart version of it? I had to use a GB emu to play.

 

I'm using a GBA flash cart, the M3 MiniSD. And U3 is running here using the "Goomba Color" GBC emulator for GBA. It runs 100% full speed with sound & music and supports the in-game save as well as sleep mode.

Edited April 22, 2008 by retrobits

[Great Hierophant]

I have a problem with the port, the dungeon music of the C64 was shortened compared with the Apple II original and other ports. I would prefer the original, which should be easy to convert

[Goochman]

Does this work on a Nintendo DS if written to a SLOT-2 cart? Ive tried this and it locks up after the 'Gameboy Advance' screen starts? Id love to be able to play this on the go!

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Any chance the creator also made Seven Cities of Gold running on GBA? That would be awesome!

[Albert]

Holy cow I missed this thread initially! That looks great running on the Gameboy Micro..

 

Man, someone needs to get the Ultima games running on an iPhone!

 

..Al

[Goochman]

I helped out with the testing of this back in '02 I believe. It was alot of fun but I didnt have a way to make my own cart......I thought a SLOT2 card for my DS would allow me to run this but its not working - guess the DS can only run GBA carts and not GB Color ones unless someone knows of an emulator.

 

Its pretty faithful to the original and the source code is avail.

 

The 2nd adventure is a bear and you need to be pretty good at math to figure out where stuff is IIRC.