Ultima VI

[Alinestra Covelia]

So I'm playing this game again. It's awesome - it sustained me through high school and it's exactly the sort of social commentary style game I grew to love.

A few things:

You can't sleep anywhere inside a town. Not even your own bed! In order to make time pass quickly, you have to either lean on the Space Bar or go miles out of town and camp in the woods. Annoying.

After recruiting Leonna and Leodon, the Lesbian Pirate Captains, I had to kick out Julia the Irritating Scot Mott Totty and Jaana the Naked Tree Hugging Druid.

When I kicked out Jaana, she turned my character into a Pushme Pullyou! The moral of this story is to never piss off naked druids.

[Alinestra Covelia]

It is possible to read every single book in the game at once by piling them all onto the same square tile and then "Look"ing at that.

This can take a while. After I looted the Library at the Lycaeum, I did this and it took me about several minutes of keypresses just to scroll through the whole thing.

[El_Cid]

I had a poster on my wall of this game, but i never got around to playing it due to being in papua new guinea at the time:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/ultima-vi-the-false-prophet

I have only played I+II of the ultima series(and a bit of underworld later on), but i think this is one of the classics in the series, whats it like playing it again? and would you recomend it as a jumping in point to a new player? or is it best to start at ultima I finish that and move on through the series that way?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Just finished it today. Heard the ending music for the first time. Seriously awesome. I won't spoil it for you, but the ending music is very symbolic (even moreso than the rest of the game in general).

To El_Cid: I'd say jump in and play it. The Ultimas I through III are just standard "whack the villain" style games, it's not till you get to Ultima IV onwards that the game gets really mature and philosophical. There is a slight in-game mechanic bonus if you play U4 and U5 first, because you can port over your character into U6 and that makes him/her a lot more powerful to start. But the plot is explained to you in U6 anew, and in fact makes use of several retcons (postfacto alterations of prior plot for continuity purposes). You won't miss too much if you skip the prior two games.

The story is amazing. The political and philosophical insights with the game are waaaay ahead of its time. (It was released in 1991, nearly 20 years ago.) However, you'll need to have some dedicated software to get the game running on a modern rig. I got mine running through DOSBox with no problems, but even so, the game is not for the faint-hearted. There's a LOT of dungeon crawling, and because the game predates any auto map-making, you'll have to make your own maps.

I have some (very large) jpgs of the world maps if you get stuck. The game does require you to trawl through a load of dungeons to retrieve key items, and in my opinion it's the weakest part of the game because the timesaving technology we now take for granted didn't exist in games back then. (Automap, Quick-travel etc.)


However, I stuck through the game and finished it in about 19 days, real-time, with maybe four days spent playing it obsessively. The "clash of civilizations" political message is a very powerful one and I think very few other games have ever done this quite as skillfully as this one. If I remember correctly, the makers of the game were reflecting on the Iran-Iraq war when they made this game, but it is still equally as relevant today, especially given the post-9/11 world we live in now.

Bottom line: Plot is still very mature and deep for today's standards. Symbolism is likewise very well-done. You'll need to suffer through an unfriendly interface though (including an action display box that's tiny compared to today's games). Well worth it, and I hope it gets a remake or update someday.

[Alinestra Covelia]

For the record: I've completed U3, U4, and U6. They're all interesting games, but the 4-6 trilogy were what really evolved the game away from "steal stuff and kill people". Richard Garriott basically invented an entire in-game philosophy from scratch and your task as the player is to abide by that conduct.

U4 sets out the tenets of the philosophy, and your entire quest is to master the virtues, principles, and then retrieve a Codex to enlighten the people.

U5 demonstrates how even a benign religion, once it becomes organized and people get to work on it, can turn malignant. You have to overthrow a usurper who is perverting the message of the virtues and using them to oppress the land.

U6 demonstrates what happens when a culture meets a seemingly implacable threat, and asks the question of whether a middle ground can be found between the parties.

Be warned, if you play a more recent game and then go back to its predecessor, the retroshock is pretty severe. For that reason alone you may want to get U4 through U6 and play them in that order. (Bear in mind that this trilogy of games are designed to take a very long time to complete if you play them "blind". It took me about two years real-time, aged 11 to 13, to complete U4. I completed Ultima 3 in a long afternoon, by contrast.)

[Senethro]

One problem I had with U5 was how SLOW it was. I played the (don't laugh) Sega Master System version of U4 where you could you could hold a direction and your character buzzed that way at about 10tiles/second and all actions were available from a drop down menu, instead of 1 action per letter key. I was even prepared to forgive the entering of words through an onscreen keyboard for the ability to zoom about and explore the world map with ease. I completed U4 (after writing about 6 pages of notes and diagrams) but haven't manage to get into U5 because it takes so long to do anything.

Retroshock indeed.

[El_Cid]

...............
To El_Cid: I'd say jump in and play it. The Ultimas I through III are just standard "whack the villain" style games, it's not till you get to Ultima IV onwards that the game gets really mature and philosophical. There is a slight in-game mechanic bonus if you play U4 and U5 first, because you can port over your character into U6 and that makes him/her a lot more powerful to start. But the plot is explained to you in U6 anew, and in fact makes use of several retcons (postfacto alterations of prior plot for continuity purposes). You won't miss too much if you skip the prior two games.

The story is amazing. The political and philosophical insights with the game are waaaay ahead of its time. (It was released in 1991, nearly 20 years ago.) However, you'll need to have some dedicated software to get the game running on a modern rig. I got mine running through DOSBox with no problems, but even so, the game is not for the faint-hearted. There's a LOT of dungeon crawling, and because the game predates any auto map-making, you'll have to make your own maps.

I have some (very large) jpgs of the world maps if you get stuck. The game does require you to trawl through a load of dungeons to retrieve key items, and in my opinion it's the weakest part of the game because the timesaving technology we now take for granted didn't exist in games back then. (Automap, Quick-travel etc.)

....................


It sounds quite a bit more sophisticated than the early parts of the series. Actually i'm not agreat fan of what i call the 'fast food generation' of gaming(not picking on people who love McD's+coke etc - just childhood victims of advertising that's all ;) ) - I actualy miss not making my own maps in rpgs. As an ex-adventurer/world traveller myself it just doesn't feel like an adventure unless i'm taking some notes with a pencil+paper.

I think i'll look up on 4 and start from there, if this is where the series sparks into life i'm quite happy going retro(i mostly retro game anyway) and looking forward to 3 decent crpgs, now lets see what amazon/ebay has on offer.

Added to my list :)

[Mr. Scruffy]

Let me just say, that i started all three of the second trilogy and never completed one - and i liked them all. Epic is the word.

If you start with IV, i suggest to not use the c64 version attainable over the nets, since i think it is broken (at least one version around). It started to crash on me in the dungeons - and that´s usually already a bit into the game.

My favorite of the series is V i think. It still uses the same engine as IV, but is a bit bigger even, and also a bit smoothed out. With VI things started to get cluttery for me. A big minus for me (that was regarded as a big plus by reviewers back in the day) is that the entire landscape is on the same zoom-level. This makes it rather small and feel a lot less epic. Before, you´d think britannia is maybe around as big as, well, Britain is, but in VI it shrinks to the size of a county maybe.

Just about a year ago i tried IX. The graphics were quite impressive for its age. The game was not. It felt quite linear. Still i had the impression it was a road-paver for morrowind and the likes. But i quit it rather quickly (when i was in the gargoyle tower). It was simply ahead of its time technically, i´d say, and things like Lord British standing on his throne show this. I liked the cutscenes, though they allowed you for seeing things, that you were not really supposed to see at times.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The Ultima franchise was actually geared as a coherent whole from IV onwards. I ~ III were just whack the badguy types, but if some design house could rewrite them, that could be a fine trilogy of combat games right there.

I ~ III was the Age of Darkness, where the Stranger came to the fantasy land and destroyed the evil badguy. I and II were very basic and didn't really cohere as a game style. III was actually pretty good - the entire game had a consistent medieval fantasy style (as opposed to I and II, where you could fly spaceships and wield laser pistols), and almost all the locations in the game actually meant something. (In II, the dungeons were completely extraneous and there was no reason whatsoever to explore them.)

IV~VI was the Age of Enlightenment. This is when Garriott sat down and invented the religion/philosophy out of thin air. Eight virtues, eight towns, eight runes, eight stones, eight mantras, eight dungeons based on the anti-virtues. Three principles, which combine to form the eight virtues. One universal axiom to bind them all. It still holds up really well today. The amount of thought, planning, and artistic talent that went into this are amazing. Plotwise, the "evil wizards" have been killed but you need to provide a moral compass for the newly liberated lands by living the religion well. The series also matured in this stage. Ultima V asked the question of what happens when an Evil Inquisitor gets his hands on the religion and decides to abuse it. Ultima VI asked the question of morality during a religious crusade and how you can find a middle ground with another culture.

Then finally VII~IX were planned as the Age of Armageddon, when the society starts to decay. It's ultimately a pessimistic worldview. Ironically, at this time Origin Studios lost their economic battle against Electronic Arts, and the studio was bought by EA. Ultima VII and its add-on (which was virtually an entire game unto itself) were critically praised, but that was the end of the good games in the series. Ultima VIII was experimental and alienated fans of the old style of games, and Ultima IX sat in development hell for a long time and then EA set an early deadline for a skeleton team to finish. The decay of Britannia's fortunes mirrored Origin's, which was entirely dissolved after the buggy and highly-abbreviated IX came out, to critical derision.

[Harovan]

I've never finished U6, but U7 (both parts) several times and love it. In fact, I'm playing it right now in DOSBOX (last run through was in Exult), without hurrying, once every couple of weeks.

I personally don't like U8 and never found it very Avataresque to destroy their world just to save them from the Guardian. U9 is mkay if you can stomach the abysimal controls (which I can't) and accept, that (like in U8) you don't have a party. Ah, and the shattering of the Britannian mainland into some kind of archipelago sucks too.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Something really weird happened with Shamino. He's carrying way more than he should be allowed to. In fact, the weight was so great that it couldn't fit in the usual field!

[Alinestra Covelia]

I will soon have a copy of Dungeon Siege. This is important because there are fanmade conversions of Ultima V and Ultima VI that will run on that engine. I'm looking forward to finally finishing U5, albeit in a conversion state.

[El_Cid]

And Dungeon Seige by itself is a fun game also.....or am i thinking of Dungeon Keeper maybe?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dungeon-keeper

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dungeon-siege

Ah yes i was, but they are both ok games as is, but neither new or hardware pushing now ;)

[Alinestra Covelia]

You'd be surprised. Fully 3/4s of my games currently installed on my new computer are really old ones.

I'm currently playing Far Cry 2, which is the only modern game I'm playing. My other dedicated games are: Aliens vs. Predator, Thief III Deadly Shadows, and Rise of Nations (as always).


Yesterday I loaded up an old save game in Deus Ex, and fought my way out of the Ton Hotel raid from Paul's apartment. I got all the way to Manderley and then tried to outrun his gun.

He killed me. :(

[El_Cid]

I know many Theif fans bemoaned Thief III, but i played it first on xbox and it was, for a console game, pretty sweet - i still have it as a keeper for that system. I then played Theif 1+2 and while the extra depth of play style(re better aiming, better lock-picking etc) maybe makes me prefer them, i thought Thief III was ok, a decent game for the series. It certainly didnt feel as out of place as say 'Dues Ex: invisible war' did in comparison to the previous epic title. Or even Fallout Tactics to Fallout and Fallout2(not played 3 yet).

Yeah i got time for Thief III - the consoles need more games like it(in terms of quality and depth of play).

I still havent got around to playing these newer Ultima's mind you.......one day :)

[Alinestra Covelia]

I finally have Dungeon Siege. This game has a "Lazarus" fan mod for it that allows Ultima V to be played. I will do so now.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Dungeon Siege works fine. The Lazarus fan mod does not. I will need to investigate this further.

[Grey Fox]

Leodon sounds like a male name.

[Alinestra Covelia]

...and what does that tell you about her? Eh? Eh? Eh???

Her ship was "damaged" and so while it's in "the dock" for "repairs", she's "signed on" with the other lady captain... a likely story! :)