Ultima

[cimerians]

Anyone here ever play Ultima, the old computer RPG series? (Apple/C64 and later on for the PC?)

 

If so, what was your favorite?

 

Mine is still Ultima III and IV.

 

Its too bad what happened with this series later on, but I still remember the ungodly amounts of hours I spent playing these games back in the 80's (and early 90's.)

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I love, love, love the Ultima games. II through V rocked. What happened after that...well, it just wasn't Ultima for me. None of it.

[sku_u]

I LOVED every Ultima game through IV. They were way ahead of their time.

[Gabriel]

I've played I, II, III, IV, V, and VI.

 

To me, Ultima VI sucked ass, and it just wasn't Ultima to me anymore.

 

Ultima V was OK, but seemed ridiculously hard from my POV. I never played it to completion because it just wasn't as fun as the others.

 

Ultima I is cool in a minimalist way. It's neat to just mindlessly whomp monsters. I never figured out what to do to beat it. It didn't hold my interest quite that long.

 

Ultima II is the first Ultima I played. I remember thinking it was insanely cool that you could zap demons with Phasors. I played it to conclusion and handed Minax her ass.

 

Ultima III is a distant second best of the series. It was very deep for its time. The final puzzle and ending were very anticlimactic to me though.

 

Ultima IV is the best CRPG of all time. Period. I've played it on C64, Apple II, PC, and NES, and I never get tired of it. The final dungeon and ending are very nice too.

[Albert]

I'm also a huge Ultima fan, and I think I have copies of every game from Ultima through IX, including the various offshoots like the Worlds of Ultima games, the add-on packs for VII and VII part II, Ultima Underworlds, and at least two versions of Ultima Online. As well as many of the compilations, such as the Ultima I - III, Ultima Underworld I and II, and so forth. I also have some of the console ports for the NES and Gameboy. Now I just need a copy of each game for each system it was released on!

 

Below is a picture of one wall of my office when I was at Ion Storm Austin. This shows you how pathetic I am!

 

..Al

[Nukey Shay]

UltimaII was one of the standard games to be played back in '82. The school that I went to was pretty lenient regarding games, and you could always hear at least one AppleII eminating the sounds of Eyyiy-chh eyyiy-chh (or wot-wot-wot wahooo-wot when the player sucked). That was the game that sealed my decision to getting an AppleII UltimaIII was also good (as far as introducing the multi-player combat factor), but it was disappointing at the end...since the final battle wasn't much of a challenge. UltimaIV rocked the house...though I must admit that I was one that learned the hard way that the "kill everybody and take what you want" stratagy wasn't a good idea. UltimaV -really- pissed me off when I discovered that the series finally had "bad guys" that could truely be called evil (poor Iolo)...and damn that sandalwood box!. After finishing that one (a little slower than the others), I picked up The Savage Empire and found myself yearning for the older interface. Never bought UltimaVI or any other of it's successors as a result (though I've played all of them by now). Bring back the old interface.

[AtariDude]

I love Ultima. My first computer RPG was Ultima III. My favorite of the entire series of games was VI. I even have a small section of my web page devoted to Ultima although I have not updated it in years.

[Christophero Sly]

I loved the Ultima series. My fondest memories are of II and III (wasn't it Love, Sol, Moon, and Death?) I played I-VI, but it just wasn't the same after V. I still have IV and V complete for the Apple II and VI for the PC. I'd love to get a copy of Ultima II for the apple II, but...$$$. I do have the two Ultima II disks loose for the Atari 8-bit however, but I don't know if they work(doubtful) as I don't have an Atari to test them.

[Mindfield]

I never really gave any of the Ultimas a chance except for IV, which I completed and thoroughly enjoyed. I spent months on that game (yeah, remember that? When a game took months to complete and actually had substance?) until I finally finished it. Though it's not my favourite game of all time, it's certainly up there in the top few.

[cimerians]

Holy Cripes!

 

I didn't think there were that many oldie computer RPGer's over here!

 

Its good to know people still remember Ultima. I see many websites out there for it but not too many get updated anymore. (Especially since Garriott left and gave it up to Origin years ago....... except for his alter-ego of course )

 

 

III and IV are my favs. (Ultima IV being the best CRPG I've ever played. Timeless for me.)

 

V was great but I agree, it was too damn hard!

II was very good. (man, I haven't played the Apple version in years!!!)

 

Ahhh, memoriesssss

 

(Albert, don't worry, I had the cloth maps hung up on my walls for a while too! )

[sonnenhexer]

My first Ultima was IV on the Atari ST, then I played V and VI.

V got a bug, when you entered a town where the "bad man" (don´t remember his name) was and you left in that second the computer crashed.

After that I got III and I think IV was the best of the "old" Ultima, I didn´t played I or II.

 

Michael

[Nukey Shay]

IIRC there were only 3 characters that moved from town-to-town in UltimaV (the Shadowlords). The main "bad man" (Blackthorne) was stuck in his castle throughout the game.

 

Oddly, you can murder him in his sleep...but he's instantly resurrected the moment you leave his castle. Dunno about any bug (was this only on the ST?)

[sonnenhexer]

Yeah, I meant the shadowlords, thanks.

 

Dunno, I only played it on the ST.

 

Michael

[Nukey Shay]

Odd that bug wouldn't have been playtested out...since the game warns you when you enter a town where they are "An air of (falsehood/ hatred/ cowardice) doth surround thee"...so that you can escape without challenging them.

[sonnenhexer]

I know, and when you retreated within a few seconds the computer crashed, if you waited some time and stood still and escaped then, all is ok.

 

Michael

[Nukey Shay]

Strange...that's all the time that I'd wait before exiting (unless I needed to do something there...like in Shadowgate). It must be just in the ST version (I've played it on all the other platforms). Perhaps it's a corrupt "soundbyte"...when the eerie whine plays. That passes in a second or two.

[Rhindle The Red]

I've been an Ultima fan since getting Exodus: Ultima III for my Atari 800 waaaaay back when. I played IV (again on my Atari) and then kind of lost touch with the series as I had moved away from video games in general for a number of years.

 

Once I got back in (and started thrifting) I immediately went about restoring my old collection and building on it.

 

Probably for nostalgic reasons, Ultima III remains my favorite. I loved the music the Atari 8-Bit had that the Apple and PC versions were missing.

 

I also played Ultima: Online for almost two years before giving it up only because I couldn't afford it any more.

 

Anyway, here's my Ultima collection:

 

Apple II

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima Trilogy: I * II * III

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

 

Apple Mac

 

Commodore 64

Ultima IV: Questo of the Avatar

 

PC

Ultima VI: False Prophet

Ultima VII: The Black Gate

The Complete Ultima VII

The Ultima Collection

Ultima Online: Renaissance

Ultima - Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire

 

Game Boy

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

 

NES

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima: Warriors of Destiny

 

SNES

Ultima: The Black Gate

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

 

All this stuff and no Atari versions in sight.

 

I'm also looking for Sega Master System Ultima IV.

 

Sometimes those agencies want to have me arrested. But other times there are compensations. Sometimes I even hit a lucky day. But then...then....

[liquid_sky]

Ultima VIII - Pagan is my fave. I like going to the womans house near the library, then going to bed until she is asleep.. then when you wake up she will be asleep, feel free to plunder all of her jewels. Then, go back to sleep until she is awake. You can now sell her gems back to her :wink:

[AtariDude]

I am kind of suprised that you like Ultima VIII - Pagan. Everyone seems to have hated that one because it did not feel like Ultima (the Avatar was doing bad things) and it was difficult to control the character. Also magic was a lot harder than it needed to be.

[sonnenhexer]

Game Boy

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

 

NES

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima: Warriors of Destiny

 

SNES

Ultima: The Black Gate

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

 

I´m jealous,

 

I have only the SNES-false-prophet.

If anyone has any of this games for trade, let me know.

 

Michael

[Albert]

Okay, I guess I didn't spew my favorite Ultimas in my first post, probably too excited by dredging up the picture of the Ultima maps and posters on the wall. I have played nearly every Ultima, but there are a few I have not played or completely finished:

 

Ultima V - not sure why I never played this one! I really should fire it up someday, if I can even get it to run on a modern PC.

 

Ultima VIII - Man what a disaster this game was. I thought it was interesting that they moved to a differnet environment than Britania, but the world was not very big and it was quite drab. If you died, you died for good! No being resurrected by the kindly Lord British. And to make matters worse, there was now Random Death™! You'd be walking along a dungeon passage and suddenly the ground would open up beneath you and you'd be swallowed by fiery lava! Totally moronic game design. And as if that wasn't bad enough, load and save times were abysmal, we're talking minutes here! So this game got shelved pretty quickly.

 

Ultima IX - As if the disaster that was Ultima VIII wasn't bad enough, it took Origin how many years to bring us what was supposed to be the redeeming sequel (and the last game in the Ultima series?!) This game had lots of early promise, but was done in by a poor engine that made the game unbearable for anyone not having a state of the art machine, and even now I bet it still runs like crap on most modern computers. And not only was the engine slow, but the game was Buggy As Hell. So much so, that Origin actually sent out discs containing a new version of the game to everyone who registered!! I remember when Origin closed their online forums because so many people were complaining about this game!

 

Savage Empire - Never really got into this game for some reason. I'll probably go back and play this at a later date. I did play and enjoy Martian Dreams, though.

 

Maybe someday I'll attempt to finish VIII and actually try to play IX. I'll wait until I get my GeForce FX before I start out on IX, though.

 

Regarding my favorite Ultimas.. Ultimas I and II were very short and didn't take long to complete at all. Ultima III was quite enjoyable, and IV is among the best, IMHO. However, unlike some others here I also really enjoyed Ultima VI and two of my favorites are VII and VII Part II (Serpent Isle). I really like the uncluttered, full-screen nature of these last two, although at the time you needed a fast machine to play them. I remember playing Ultima VII on a (then fairly new) 386-33DX and while it was slow at times, I was enjoying the game so much I just didn't care!

 

Also, both of the Ultima Underworld games are fantastic. I remember being mesmerized by the first Underworld, and this was back before 3D games were the norm (in fact, Underworld was one of the first, along wiith Castle Wolfenstein 3D).

 

The Ultimas are what inspired me to get into game development, and I always had aspirations to work at Origin Systems. When I finally got to Austin, Texas to work on Junction Point with Warren Spector (who had his hand in many Ultimas), the Ultima games were winding down (IX was in development) and I had generally become disenfranchised with Origin. They are now a shell of the company they once were, and really just an arm of the Borg-like Electronic Arts empire.

 

..Al

[AtariDude]

Luckily the end video for Ultima IX is an mpeg file so that I could see it. I actually tried playing the game and got pretty far but it was so annoying with the bugs and having to apply patches and restart just to get certain puzzles solved.

 

Ultima IX was done by sheer force of will because Electronic Arts did not care for it. They were too busy making money with Ultima Online and Richard Garriott had to literally force the game down their throat before they would allow him to release it. It is a real shame since it could have been a better game (the evil twin was a big time mistake).

 

Anyone here ever play Ultima Underworlds? If so, which one did you think was a better story? 1 or 2?

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

They are now a shell of the company they once were, and really just an arm of the Borg-like Electronic Arts empire.

 

Ironically, this is kind of how I feel about Westwood Studios these days. Remember them?

[Ze_ro]

I guess I missed most of this topic, but I'll chime in anyways....

 

I got into Ultima with Ultima IV on the C64. Ultima III was slightly before my time, so I never really got into it. I and II were interesting, but the game world was too odd for me (What was with the blasters and flying cars in I???). Ultima V looked good, but the enormous difficulty and brutal load times on the C64 put me off of it.

 

I actually quite enjoyed part VI on the PC, and played it all the way through. What was it about VI that people didn't like? My brother complained about the dungeons a lot, although I thought they were okay.

 

VII was pretty fun, but I didn't like the storyline of the first one (I couldn't get into the whole murder-mystery thing in Trinsic). I managed to beat Serpent Isle though.

 

Part VIII was horrible. Bad magic system and jumping puzzles are just NOT Ultima.

 

I still haven't played IX or Ascension yet, since my computer is fairly limited. I think the glory days of Ultima are over though... If I want more Ultima, I'll probably go back and give V a good run.

 

By the way, a little-known fact about Ultima V is that the C64 version plays full music if you play it on a C128! Supposedly, the music is actually VERY good too. My brother thought it was even better than the music in the Amiga version!

 

--Zero

[Albert]

Part VIII was horrible. Bad magic system and jumping puzzles are just NOT Ultima.

 

Oh yeah! I forgot about the wonderful jumping puzzles! At least they fixed that in the patch. At least from what I heard, I've never tried playing it again after I gave up the first time.

 

I still haven't played IX or Ascension yet, since my computer is fairly limited. I think the glory days of Ultima are over though... If I want more Ultima, I'll probably go back and give V a good run.

 

Ultima IX is Ascension. And I agree, the glory days of Ultima are over for. It saddens me to think that the Ultima style of games have really gone out of style and that we may never see them again. There are adventure games (although very few these days) and RPGs, but they are both on extreme ends of the scale. Adventure games are very simple and you generally follow a story without very much interaction or influence in the world, and typical RPGs these days are very complex and allow you to micromanage everything. The Ultimas were a nice mix between the two, allowing for exploration and character development without burdening you too much with 500 pages of AD&D style rules.

 

Ahh well, I also need to go back and play V, since it's one of the few Ultimas I've never even played (actually it's probably the only one I haven't tried playing, all the others I've played to some extent, having finished all but V, VIII, IX and Savage Empire). If you don't see me on the boards for several days, you'll know what happened.

 

By the way, a little-known fact about Ultima V is that the C64 version plays full music if you play it on a C128! Supposedly, the music is actually VERY good too. My brother thought it was even better than the music in the Amiga version!

 

Very cool, I did not know this. I wonder if there are any MP3s of this music on the net somewhere?

 

..Al