Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress

 Ultima's second entry takes the weirdness of the first even further, largely taking place on an Earth overrun by evil monsters and letting the player travel between several time periods, each with their own world map layout and secrets to find.  Once one finds a spaceship, they can even explore nine other planets within the solar system (the tenth being "Planet X"), each of which has some unique and strange sights of their own.  However, nearly all of this side content - and indeed, every dungeon in the game - is completely optional, with only a small handful of areas actually being required to visit for game completion.  Much of the game's focus is on bare grinding - defeating particular types of enemies to earn experience, which in turn causes stronger enemies to spawn.  Defeating certain types will drop items, allowing the player to breach new boundaries (for example, one requires a Blue Tassel to sail a pirate ship, which requires defeating pirates in battle.  Pirates and ships only begin to spawn at level 5 or higher).  One must also grind a lot of cash to purchase equipment, items and food, as well as visit the Hotel California and pay money to raise their stats - randomly, I should note.  This, paired with the minimal plot, makes this feel much closer to a utilitarian monster bash-fest than any other Ultima game in the series.  It's still worth a look for the creativity of its setting and design, but owing to its primitive gameplay it's not an Ultima game I revisit very often.

Developer: Richard Garriott
Publisher: Sierra On-Line, Origin Systems
Released: 1982
Platforms: Apple II, Atari 800, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, Macintosh, MSX2, NEC PC-9801, FM-7

Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness

The first game to bear the Ultima name, and while it is a more technologically impressive game than Akalabeth, the gameplay remains essentially the same at its core - talk to a king, get a quest (usually to kill a monster or find a specific place in the world), then return for a reward. Some new elements make their way into the mix, though - the dungeons remain in a first-person perspective, but the game features an overworld map with four distinct worlds to navigate (some of which would be revisited in later Ultimas). Shops are now a prevalent part of the game too, with the player able to buy and sell equipment, food, HP and even vehicles to aid in their quest (and even resell older gear for a bit of extra cash). Things later take a turn for the downright surreal when one goes from a fairly average Tolkien-inspired fantasy world to something distinctly more science fiction - aircars, spaceships, laser guns and powered armor begin to appear in the later stages, as does a segment where one must shoot down twenty spaceships (resembling Star Wars' famous TIE Fighters) in order to complete a particular quest. The game is relatively simple at its core, but the lack of grinding compared to its followup games, as well as its uniquely strange atmosphere, make it hold up the best of the original Ultima trilogy.

Developer: Richard Garriott, Origin Systems
Publisher: California Pacific Computer Company, Origin, Sierra On-line, Electronic Arts, Pony Canyon, Fujitsu, Vietesse Inc.
Released: 1981
Platforms: Apple II, Atari 8-Bit, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX2, FM Towns, Apple IIGS

Akalabeth: World of Doom!

The first major success for legendary developer Richard Garriott and a pioneer of the CRPG genre.  But is this dungeon-crawling adventure worth undertaking today, or is it just too dated to provide a compelling experience?

The Ultima series needs no introduction among RPG fans; it's a legendary franchise responsible for pioneering countless trends that helped to shape the genre into what it is today, and remains a unique and influential one to this day, serving as a prime inspiration for games like the Elder Scrolls series and Dragon Quest (which went on to inspire basically the entire JRPG genre).

Before the name "Ultima" became a part of the public consciousness, though, Garriott's first breakout success saw a release.  First surfacing as a self-published game sold in a small computer shop in Texas, a copy eventually made its way to California Pacific Computer Company, who brokered a publishing deal to give it a wider release.

That game was Akalabeth: World of Doom, a dungeon crawler inspired by the likes of Dungeons and Dragons and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.  While a relatively simple game even for its era, it did bring a few innovations to the table.  The player was given a choice of two classes to enter the game with - either a Fighter (who can utilize any weapon but gets entirely random effects from Magic Amulets) or a Mage (who has more limited weapon choices but can control the effects Magical Amulets grant).  It was also the first game of its kind to utilize a first-person viewpoint whilst in dungeons, displaying walls and enemies in a simplistic wireframe style.  A few other elements would go on to become mainstays of the Ultima franchise, such as the use of command hotkeys and requiring the player to constantly replenish their supply of food to survive, with the game ending immediately once the total hits zero.

Of course, being inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and early PC titles as a whole, Akalabeth also has a large amount of randomness in its design.  The player's starting stats are determined by virtual dice rolls, and the quests they are given are somewhat randomized as well, though the last two will remain constant in each game (slaying a daemon and a Balrog).  The game's world and dungeons are also generated based on a player-provided seed, which gives numerous possibilities for playthroughs and allows the player to revisit a particular generated world as many times as they wish.  The Magic Amulet also has a random element associated with it; while Fighters get entirely random effects when using one, the Mage can control what spells it casts.  However, one spell available, titled "Bad??", has three randomly-chosen effects - turning the player into a frog (reducing all of their stats to 3), backfiring (halving their HP) or turning them into a "lizard man" and multiplying all of their stats by 1.5.  This can single-handedly make or break a playthrough of the game, as just one or two castings of Lizardman can make the player into a near-unstoppable force while a single casting of Frog can make the player weak and ineffective, unable to defeat even basic enemies anymore.

Being from 1979 and sold on a low-capacity floppy disk, one would expect Akalabeth to offer very little in the way of storyline.  One would be correct in that assumption - while some elements of the Ultima franchise are already in place here (there is mention of the evil wizard Mondain in the game's manual, and one is given quests by Lord British), there is only the barest of player motivation on display in Akalabeth.  Simply put, the player is tasked to eliminate increasingly dangerous monsters by Lord British, and once they succeed in entering the tenth (or lower) floor of a dungeon and slaying the Balrog, they are made into a knight, given a pat on the back and presented with the option to continue playing.  There is no proper final boss or even a real ending to the game; it's just a simple dungeon-crawling experience meant to test one's luck and skill.  However, the choice of two classes does give the game a bit of replayability, as does the choice of nine difficulty levels (with slightly different ending text for beating it on the highest setting).

When all is said and done, Akalabeth is what it is - a product of its era that, while it kicked off a legendary franchise and brought some innovations to the genre as many Richard Garriott games would, ultimately doesn't stand the test of time particularly well.  Fans of Ultima will probably be interested in it as the origin point of the franchise, but those looking for a meatier dungeon crawling experience or something a bit more story-driven would probably be best served elsewhere.

Developer: Richard Garriott
Publisher: California Pacific Computer Co.
Platform: Apple II, MS-DOS
Released: 1979, 1980
Recommended version: The widely-available DOS and Apple II releases are relatively similar, though the former is an unofficial fan release.  There is also an enhanced DOS version packaged with the Ultima Collection that adds in CGA graphics, MIDI music and the ability to save the game, which brings the experience a bit closer to modern standards.  It requires some tinkering to run in DOSBox, however.