Ultima: Kyoryu Teikoku aka Worlds of Ultima: the Savage Empire (Super Famicom)

The last distinct Ultima game I had yet to spend any real time with, in no small part because it only came out in Japan and remained untranslated for nearly thirty years.  The original release of Savage Empire on PC was built on the same engine as Ultima VI, though its SFC does not use the platform's port of that game as a base, but rather the same action-RPG engine used in the SNES port of Ultima VII.  Which means this game has all of SNES Black Gate's problems, further compounded by Savage Empire's sparser design.  The hit detection is awkward and annoyingly inconsistent, and even the most basic snake and spider enemies take several hits to kill while taking off a huge chunk of your health every time they land a hit.  Experience is very sparse, requiring you to fell dozens of enemies to gain just one level and gain more HP.   But even that doesn't help you much; the lack of post-hit invincibility and the fact that enemies swarm you on a frequent basis means your only chance of making any real progress is saving every other minute or so.  There also do not seem to be any beds or even bedrolls, so when night falls you'd best have a light spell handy.  The game does surprisingly retain the small crafting elements of the original, including the ability to construct crude firearms and grenades with Dr. Rafkin's aid, and the overall world map and puzzle design remains largely intact, unlike SNES Black Gate.  That said, it's still a pretty underwhelming remake, and the only people will likely have any sliver of interest in it are weird die-hard completionist Ultima nuts like myself.  For anyone else interested in checking out Ultima's short-lived Worlds spinoff series, just grab the original PC releases instead; they're both much more playable than this, and free downloads on GOG besides.

 

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Pony Canyon
Released: 1995
Platforms: Super Famicom

Ultima: Warriors of Destiny (NES)

Ultima V was a game of considerable prestige in its day, serving as a shining milestone for the genre in terms of design and storytelling, and it still holds up today as one of the finest RPGs ever made. I myself even went so far as to declare it the best RPG of the 1980's and I even ranked it among the top ten of my all-time favorite games - not decisions I made lightly as I've been gaming for well over three decades now.  The NES version of Ultima V, on the other hand, is a downright disgraceful adaptation.  Rather than attempting to replicate the gameplay of the original game while making some accommodations for the hardware and controller (as the Ultima III, IV and VI console ports did, to considerable success), it instead attempted something foolhardy - remaking the game entirely in an NES conversion of their Ultima VI engine as part of a broader effort to recoup said engine's steep development costs.  The NES was clearly not suited to running such an advanced engine whatsoever, as the game is actively miserable to play; the UI is unbearably sluggish with constant dropped inputs, it runs at a blistering 3-6 frames per second at all times (even with only one character onscreen), and every action you take is accompanied by a long delay.  Even walking around the map is excruciatingly slow, to say nothing of managing one's inventory, searching the environment, taking part in combat or even just moving the cursor from space to space. Case in point, using an item from your inventory - something that would take about two seconds in the original versions of U5 - can now take upwards of ten, as you have to open your inventory, move the cursor to the item, put it in one of your character's hands, exit the menu, press the A button, then select the item in your hand to use it.  (And that's assuming you're not trying to cast a spell from your spellbook, which brings up another menu to painstakingly scroll through.)  Owing to space limitations on the cartridge Britannia is much smaller and virtually unrecognizable in design, with greatly simplified dungeons, far fewer NPCs to interact with and only a scant few lines of dialog when you do - a far cry from the original's densely detailed, oppressive world and rich character interactions that immersed you in the experience.  Ultima WoD is passable visually though far from impressive for a 1993 NES game, but the audio design is wretched, with virtually no sound effects and one constantly looping twenty-one second track (recycled from Runes of Virtue on the Game Boy) playing throughout the entire game, ensuring you'll get sick of it very quickly.  Basically, an ill-conceived experiment on every front that is just no fun to play.  The worst part is that I can't even blame this total misfire of design on a third party as Origin themselves developed it - you'd hope they of all people would handle their flagship IP with the care and respect it deserves, but apparently not.  So, do yourself a big favor - play one of the computer versions instead and leave this stinkbomb collecting dust on shelves in secondhand game shops, where it will share company with similarly late-to-the-party, overpriced and terrible NES games like Cliffhanger, Wayne's World, Last Action Hero and Swamp Thing for all time.

Says a lot when the only redeemable element of the entire mess is the pretty cover art

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: FCI
Platform: NES
Released: 1993

Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds

The original Ultima Underworld was a groundbreaking and strongly acclaimed game whose influence is still felt in games today, and it's sequel does its best to carry on that legacy despite a crunch-heavy development cycle.  The concept is a solid one - the Avatar discovers a way to enter various worlds the Guardian has already conquered, attempting to discreetly stir rebellion against him and ultimately undo a powerful spell that has Britannia under siege.  To that end, you travel to numerous distinct locations - some familiar, some very alien (the mechanical world of Talorus being a particularly bizarre one) and witness firsthand the twisted machinations of the Guardian.  The original game had one large dungeon with eight labyrinthine floors, so having more variety is a nice change of pace, even if these new worlds are usually much smaller in scale (Mostly between 2-5 floors, and not nearly as densely designed). The downside to this is that Ultima Underworld II's progression is considerably more linear than the first - while you do occasionally have to revisit worlds to complete tasks started in others, each world is for the most part a self-contained story that you see nearly all of your first time through. The same skill system and stats return from the first too, with surprisingly few changes save for a handful of new spells to cast (and some older redundant ones removed).  Unfortunately, this also means that most of the skills that were largely useless the first time around still are - some even moreso with the advent of spells like Open (which completely removes the need for the Picklock skill) and Mending (ditto for Repair).  It doesn't break much new ground in terms of design, but UU2's brilliant writing, creative puzzles and challenging-but-never-unfair gameplay still shine through, creating another memorable, deep and immersive adventure that's well worth undertaking. 

Developer: Looking Glass Studios
Publisher: Origin Systems, Electronic Arts
Released: 1993
Platforms: PC

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

Runes of Virtue wasn't a particularly popular game even in its time, but being portable lent it a certain appeal; even if Game Boy/Game Gear games weren't so good, you could at least play them without being tethered to a TV.  So of course it sold well enough to warrant a sequel, released two years later on the Game Boy and with a SNES version following a year after that.  The SNES version had much-improved graphics and sound design (no surprise owing to the much stronger hardware) but was pretty much identical to its portable counterpart in terms of gameplay.  It is a marginally more polished experience than the first with larger, fully-detailed towns, more items and NPCs to interact with, something resembling an overarching plot (albeit a simple and silly one) and substantially refined gameplay, with tighter movement and collision detection in general.  Still, this game ended up looking pretty dated by 1993, particularly as the Game Boy had an amazing Zelda title released the same year (Link's Awakening), to say nothing of Link to the Past on SNES and two of the best Ultima games of all time on the PC in Ultima VII and Serpent Isle.  Runes of Virtue II is mediocre compared to its contemporaries, but it's short enough to not wear out its welcome and even has some clever nods to the series proper that I like, so it's one I didn't mind playing through once (only once, though).  Oh, and I recommend you play the SNES version - it looks and sounds much better and is generally less stiff, buggy and frustrating.  It's also a quarter the asking price  of the Game Boy version nowadays, which certainly doesn't hurt its case.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Fujisankei Communications International
Released: 1993, 1994
Platforms: Game Boy, SNES

Ultima: Runes of Virtue

 A spinoff of the legendary CRPG Ultima series developed in-house by Origin themselves.  Of course, being released on the lowly Game Boy meant that this wouldn't be the usual brand of adventure in a dense, well-realized fantasy world.  In fact, there's only the barest minimum in terms of plot or characters and the gameplay is changed up to be something more akin to Chip's Challenge by way of Zelda, putting heavy emphasis on traversing traps, solving puzzles and fighting monsters.  In that regard, the game is decent, but definitely not on level with the Zelda games - combat in the game is clunky at best, with the player only able to fire one projectile at a time and enemies attacking relentlessly, draining the player's health in moments (and crowding into doorways and teleport landing points, ensuring that you have to take several hits to get through).  You're frequently forced to take damage to progress and puzzles often boil down to tedious trial-and-error, with one mistake usually forcing you to either reset the system or exit the dungeon completely in order to try again - not a good thing when each one has multiple floors and several puzzles to complete.  It is at least notable for being the first Ultima game to feature multiplayer gameplay (via the system's Link Cable), but I doubt too many people have ever done that.  Runes of Virtue is a decent little crawl for the year and platform it came out on, but it's only worth a look for die-hard Ultima fans today.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Fujisankei Communications International
Released: 1991
Platforms: Game Boy

Ultima: Escape From Mt. Drash

An extremely rare title released exclusively on the VIC-20 computer system in its twilight days.  Despite the name, though, it doesn't resemble Ultima whatsoever in terms of design, instead being more of a simple dungeon crawler - each floor gives you 99 seconds to navigate a simple 8x8 maze and reach the end.  Combat is a strange affair, putting the player in a side-view and having them position their character and try to hit a specific point on the enemy's body with a timed button press before they approach too closely and take one of their few "lives".  The problem, though, is that the game isn't particularly fun; the mazes themselves have no interesting gimmicks, and though the combat seems simple, landing hits is irritatingly precise, making getting through the game a source of extremely tedious trial-and-error and luck rather than a test of skill.  Because of this, as well as being released well after the Commodore 64 launched, the game has since become extremely scarce, with only around thirteen copies known to still exist and selling for thousands of dollars during their rare appearances on eBay. A complete copy of the tape has never been made available online to deter counterfeiting, making it difficult to even emulate.  It may be worth trying out the fan remake for PC platforms briefly as an odd curiosity, but if you've got the money to burn, I can safely say that this one simply is not worth the asking price.  Proof positive that just because something is rare and expensive doesn't mean it's any fun to play.

Developer: Keith Zabalaoui
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Released: 1983
Platforms: Commodore VIC-20

Ultima: The Black Gate (SNES)

How do you take a sprawling, expansive and massively interactive open world game like Ultima VII and port it to a console?  Well, you can't, really; you'd either need to invest in a massive amount of ROM space for your cartridges (which would probably be passed on to customers, resulting in low sales) or you need to basically make an entirely new game that only faintly resembles the original.  The Black Gate is a case of the latter, reimagining the experience as a top-down dungeon crawler slightly reminiscent of the Zelda titles.  The problem, though, is that it lacks any of the polish that make both Zelda and Ultima such brilliant franchises; dungeons are extremely samey and tedious, movement is stiff, hit detection is shoddy, and combat is nothing short of a chore.  The plot has been trimmed down to bare basics, there are no other party members to recruit or play as, and, owing to Nintendo's content policies of the time, violent and sexual content is scrubbed; enemies simply vanish when killed, and the murders that drove the plot are changed to "kidnappings".   Grinding is a huge part of the gameplay too; everything you need costs hundreds or even thousands of gold and enemies rarely drop more than one or two coins, so you spend the overwhelming majority of your time searching for items to steal and pawn off at the shops for pennies toward your next purchase; at least until their inventory inevitably fills up and you can't anymore, then it's back to farming for pennies in dungeons and endless monster brawls.  The world design doesn't have any logical sense to it, either - you can easily step into an innocuous basement in a village and meet gremlins who drop exploding powder kegs at your feet, killing you instantly.  They arbitrarily introduce elemental-themed weapons too, though there's no real point in using them as it just ensures that some enemies will be completely immune to your attacks and get free hits on you while you figure this out; something non-elemental weapons don't have any issue with.  Basically, it's a mostly linear action game with only light RPG elements now, and not even a particularly good one, especially when compared to Link to the Past or the Quintet offerings on the same platform.  The only passable carryovers from the PC version are the graphics and music, which made the transition across the hardware gap quite well and still effectively carry a somber mood.  Other than that, SNES Black Gate is a bastardization of an immortal classic that's only worth a look as a morbid curiosity.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: FCI/Pony Canyon, Electronic Arts
Released: 1994
Platforms: SNES, PSP (As part of the EA Replay compilation)

Ultima III: Exodus

 A year after Ultima II, the third game was released, upping the ante even further for both the series and the genre.  Featuring animated player sprites (a rarity at the time) and a party system that allowed up to four characters to venture across the land together at once, Exodus upped the stakes in other ways too.  One can now interact with the world and characters in surprisingly clever ways - bribing guards to leave their posts, pickpocketing people to earn extra money, and buying horses to traverse the landscape quicker, avoiding enemies and consuming less food as one travels just to name a few.  As per the previous game, there are plenty of secrets to find, but grinding experience and cash is still a big part of the experience - leveling up boosts one's maximum HP, while finding money is required to purchase equipment and food.  Dungeons are required once again, containing important clues as well as four "Marks" which grant the player new abilities necessary to finish the game.  There is a lot to do in Ultima III, and it all feels well-integrated and significantly less grindy than the second, making this a simple but enjoyable early CRPG adventure.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Released: 1983
Platforms: Amiga, Apple II, Atari 800, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, FM-7, Macintosh, MSX2, NES, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-9801, Sharp X1

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

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss

A hugely influential game in its time, showing an unprecedented level of realism and detail in every element of its design and even serving as direct inspiration for many other games that would become legendary in their own right like Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex and Half-Life 2.  But is Ultima Underworld still a fun game to play today, or is this one groundbreaker that gets buried beneath those that it inspired?

Ultima Underworld is perhaps one of the most influential games ever made, and that's no small claim given the breadth and depth of the medium.  Conceived by Paul Neurath, who would go on to found Blue Sky Productions (later known as PC gaming darling Looking Glass Studios), it was created from the outset to be worlds beyond anything that had come before in terms of realism and overall design - not just a dungeon crawler, but a full-blown immersive simulation.  An endeavor that would lead to the game's development costs exploding to over $400,000 and taking nearly two years to complete - pretty astronomical for the early '90s.

That certainly shows through in the final game, too.  This is one of the very first 3D first-person action RPGs, even introducing some rudimentary features like being able to look up and down as well as jump.  Many simulation elements were introduced, too - differing light levels based on whether you're using a spell, candle, torch or lantern, having to eat and sleep to maintain one's health, being able to barter with various NPCs to attain useful items, simulated gravity and breakable objects - not just weapons and armor which degrade with use, but you can smash glass bottles on dungeon walls and hold corn over a fire to create popcorn.  There is even a stealth system implemented, which, unless I'm much mistaken, was the first of its kind.  There are also no real set "solutions" to many obstacles one encounters, allowing you to approach it any number of ways (fighting, stealth, breaking down a door, or just casting a spell to fly over/teleport past an obstacle, to name a few).

Befitting that, there is much more of an emphasis on stats than most Ultima games.  Your three base stats (Intelligence, Dexterity and Strength) are fixed, but skills can be powered up by gaining levels, visiting a shrine and reciting a specific mantra to gain a semi-random number of points.  Mantras are learned throughout the dungeon, usually written on scrolls or engraved on walls, and each does different things - raising combat skills, supportive skills like the ability to barter, or boosting your Mana and Spellcasting stats to give you more MP for that purpose to name a few, letting you shape your character's growth however you wish within the confines of your stats.  This emphasis would also prove to be a prominent element of Elder Scrolls, as well as several later games Warren Spector would have a hand in like Deus Ex.

Spellcasting is relatively unique in this game too.  Rather than relying on reagants per series norm, one now collects rune stones (stored in a special "rune bag" once found) and combines up to three of them together to create spell effects.  This, paired with limits imposed by their starting stats (low Mana and Casting skills) restricts the player to only a handful of low-tier spells at first, but as their skills increase and they add to their collection of stones, more gradually become available.  The usual complement of attacking, healing and defensive RPG spells appear, though many are more utilitarian as well.  Some examples of this are Telekinesis, which allows the player to grab and move items at long range and avoid some dangers they would otherwise have to deal with; Slow Fall, which can let the player jump from a great height and land without harming themselves; and Speed, which makes the player move much faster than his enemies for a short period, allowing them to run past deadly foes or escape from a bad situation.  Some forward planning is needed, though, as one can only have one spell prepared to cast at a time, and fumbling with one's inventory in the midst of danger is generally ill-advised.  Most spells are listed in the manual, though there are a handful that are undocumented and must be discovered over the course of the game (and may have extremely powerful or dangerous effects).

Another relatively fresh element of the game was the fact that Ultima Underworld's dungeon was not meant to be completed in a linear fashion.  There are several solutions to most problems one encounters, and all are equally valid.  For example, one can reach through the bars of a portcullis with a pole to activate a switch on the other side, or just use a flight spell/potion to bypass it entirely.  Locked doors can be opened with a key, lock picked, by an Open spell, or, if you have sufficient strength and a spare weapon or two, with brute force. 

Coming up with solutions to problems on your own is a big part of things too.  You also should not feel like you have to complete tasks in linear fashion - often it's far more practical to come back later, with better equipment and more levels, to overcome a strong enemy or bypass a tough obstacle rather than trying to brute-force your way through (particularly as attacking foes with a weak weapon, or one you lack sufficient skill in, will often cause them to decay or break rather than dealing damage). In fact, many enemies one encounters, even in the early parts of the game, cannot be defeated until one has gained several levels and some significantly stronger equipment that is not available until much later (one good example being the Headless enemies on level 2). Several items one finds also do not have any readily-apparent purpose until one travels further and uncovers more clues, so careful note-taking and backtracking is a significant part of the experience. You will basically have to comb over every inch of the dungeon to learn everything you need to know too, so it's a game you'll be spending a lot of time with.

Being one of the very first of its kind, the game's physics and controls are notoriously unwieldy, too.  While the control layout is fine for the most part (being one of the first I know of to use a WAXD layout for player movement), interaction is rather clunky, requiring one to swap between four modes (Speak, Look, Use and Combat) either via HUD icons or F-keys, which can be difficult to adapt to at first.  Spellcasting and using one's tracking skill are handled via more F-keys, while movement is very stiff and awkward - while you can turn 360 degrees, your movement is still essentially grid-bound, meaning that you can be walking straight ahead, but trying to jump may inexplicably cause you to curve left or right to fit to a 45-degree angle.  That can be very awkward, as can platforming when any contact with a wall causes you to bounce off, usually plunging right into whatever hazard you were trying to leap over.  Even the developers were aware of this, as holding down Shift when pressing a directional movement key will snap you to a 45-degree angle - very much advisable when doing any movement.  But because of this, I felt like I was spending far more time fighting the UI and physics than I ever did fighting any monsters or solving puzzles, and that's a lot more frustrating than fun.

It's little surprise why so many hugely popular games and developers have listed Ultima Underworld as an influence. The open-endedness of its design lends much to player creativity, it possesses a high degree of challenge that never feels "unfair" or "cheap", the amount of innovation and realism within it is simply staggering, and the fact that most of it surprisingly actually works to the game's advantage was breathtaking for 1992.  Many games that came later refined their controls and physics and addressed a lot of UU's very prominent shortcomings and guesswork elements, which can make this one look rather cumbersome in some respects.  Regardless, Ultima Underworld is an incredible achievement for its time, a gold standard for dungeon crawling experiences (to the point where I find most other games of this type blasé by comparison now), and a milestone that's of definite interest for any serious genre fan.

Developer: Blue Sky Productions

Publisher: Origin Systems
Released: 1992, 1993, 1997, 2002
Platform: DOS, FM Towns, PC-98, Playstation 1, Windows Mobile (Pocket PC)
Recommended Version: I've only personally played the DOS version (which is readily available from GOG, bundled with its sequel), but I am aware of the 1997 Playstation version, which featured completely overhauled visuals (most prominently with 3D-modeled enemies instead of sprites) and a CD soundtrack.  That version was only released in Japan, although a fan translation of it now exists.

Ultima VI: The False Prophet

Ultima VI marked a new turn for the series, moving away from the simple visuals and gameplay to a more realistic, immersive world simulation.  But does it prove to be a bold step into a brave new world, or does Ultima VI just stumble over its own ambition?

Two years after Ultima V was released came Ultima VI, and like the two games before it, the ante was upped once more for Ultima VI.  No longer content to settle for simple tile-based sprites and simple PC Speaker music, Ultima VI moved into a bold new era of VGA graphics and MIDI music to provide a colorful, fluidly animated and living world for the player to get immersed in.  The interface underwent a similar upgrade as well, now with a visual interface for character's equipment as well as icons for most everything - characters potions, reagents, equipment, and just about anything else the player can pick up and use all have unique inventory sprites, giving them a much more personal feel than simple text on a menu.  Each is nicely distinct too, allowing the player to quickly identify party members or needed objects with a minimum of fuss.

Ultima VI benefits too from a greatly simplified interface, taking the full-keyboard layout of previous Ultimas and condensing it down to about 8 commands.  For example, climbing ladders, boarding ships, drinking potions and opening doors are now condensed into a generic "Use" command.  In addition to keyboard hotkeys, Ultima VI was the first game in the series to support a mouse - anything that can be done with keys can also be done via point-and-click, with interface icons for things like using, picking up or entering combat mode and interacting with the world - perfect for aiming ranged attacks more quickly than with a keyboard, for example.

Ultima VI as a whole feels much less "video-gamey" than its predecessors, taking great pains to make itself feel more like a fantasy world simulation than a simple game environment.  There is a surprising amount of realism present in almost every detail of its design - doors now lock and unlock with specific keys, instruments can be played, cows can be milked, and even objects like functional sundials and light-casting lanterns and torches are present, giving the game considerably more atmosphere.  The world is much more seamless too, feeling like one large, contiguous map instead of having towns and dungeons feel like entirely separate worlds from the main world.  This also allows for some clever new puzzles; at one point the player must guide Sherry the Mouse through a tiny gap other characters can't enter in order to recover a key item.

There were a few stumbling blocks with this change, though.  As one can see from the screenshots below, the game's HUD is rather large and intrusive, only affording the player a 9x9 view of the world surrounding their character (even less so at night); this can at times prove to be quite the detriment, particularly when you have to reach an obscure area deep in a dungeon or well off the beaten path and have few or no identifiable landmarks to go off of.  While there are spells and items that afford the player a glimpse at the surrounding area, these tend to be costly to cast repeatedly, so they're not the most feasible of options to compensate.  Nor is making paper maps - an elegant solution for the grid-based 3D dungeons of the older games.  The sound design in the game is relatively limited, with very little in the way of sound effects and only a few music tracks that loop quite often, which gets just a touch annoying after one's been playing for a while.  Finally, while the game is much more vibrant and detailed than earlier Ultimas, its low resolution does work against it at times; one particular example in my mind is a rather involved quest at the middle of the game, wherein the player must find a nine-piece treasure map, then follow a route laid out on it to a destination.  A good idea, but a much less well-realized execution, particularly as the assembled map looks like this:

Go to that tiny, nondescript island situated south of two other tiny, nondescript islands.  Got it!

Some rough edges are to be expected with such a large and ambitious engine change, though.  And unlike most franchises that undergo such a thing, Ultima certainly did not lose sight of what it was - a dense, complex and engrossing tale that defied RPG norms of the era.  While it is easy to look at the cover art and think of Ultima 6 as a simple good-versus evil story (and indeed, it even seemingly starts out that way), it quickly proves to be anything but.  I won't give too much away, but suffice to say that Ultima 6 once again effectively turns its initial setup upside-down, and even puts a creative inversion on several founding elements of the entire series, once again crafting a tale that defied RPG norms of the time and even stands out today.  So, while it may not be my favorite Ultima to play, I cannot deny that it is still an excellent RPG and well worth a play in spite of its snags.

Developer: Origin
Publisher: Origin
Platform: MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, SNES, PC-9801, Sharp X68000
Released: 1990, 1993
Recommended Version: I have only personally played the DOS version extensively, but most other versions seem to be comparable (though being such a limited system, the Commodore version requires disk swapping every time one wishes to converse with NPCs or enters a new map area, which can get quite tedious).  The SNES version is a surprisingly faithful conversion, though somewhat scaled down owing to ROM space limitations and censored owing to Nintendo's policies of the time, removing all gore, references to killing, NPC portraits and changing the Gargoyles' appearances to be slightly less "demon-like".  The DOS version of 6 can also now be run in ScummVM with additional tweaks and improvements like a higher resolution and a less cramped UI, so that's the route I'd recommend nowadays.

Ultima VII Part Two: The Serpent Isle

Serpent Isle is a followup to Black Gate, released a year later and running on the same engine (a rarity for the series).  But does it too prove to be another worthy adventure, or is this truly where the series' decline began?

The eighth game in the mainline Ultima series and the twelfth overall counting spinoffs, Serpent Isle was dubbed as such because it reused the engine from the previous game (unprecedented for the mainline series, but not for spinoff games).  Also, despite being billed as "Part Two" of Ultima VII's story, it's actually the third, with Ultima Underworld II serving as an interquel between Black Gate and Serpent Isle and depicting the events that led to the Avatar coming to possess the Blackrock Serpent that proves a central focus of this game's story.

Not to say that Serpent Isle is a lazy game by any means; despite looking and playing much like its predecessor, the game has gotten a significant visual overhaul, with many new NPC sprites, a drastically different looking game environment and high-resolution digitized portraits for not just the Avatar (now with three selectable races), but just about every NPC in the game.  Scripted events are now a part of the game as well, with numerous in-engine cutscenes playing throughout the adventure and even an occasional cutaway to events happening far away from the player's location.  A lot of the sillier bugs from 7 (such as being able to steal by simply drag-dropping straight into one's inventory, or bake bread by throwing flour directly into ovens) have been fixed, making for a more polished game.  Some new hotkeys are added too, such as one that allows the player to instantly feed characters from any food they have in their inventory, saving them some tedious inventory digging and double-clicking.  The expansion, Silver Seed, also adds in a very useful item in the Keyring, which consolidates all keys the player collects into a single object that can be activated via a hotkey; it's honestly criminal this wasn't put into the game from the start.

Some downsides are present too, however.  The full party size is trimmed from eight to five, though as a result of this, the game does run significantly more smoothly than the original Ultima VII.  The world map also doesn't feel quite as well-designed, with large, empty plains dominating large portions of one continent and vast swaths of forest on the other, providing relatively little side-content for the player to see or interact with.  Serpent Isle is also a much more linear experience on the whole, with opportunities to visit side-areas or do quests out of order being relatively rare compared to previous Ultimas.  This is somewhat necessitated by its more tightly-packed environment and the heavily scripted nature of the game, but a bit disappointing compared to the likes of previous Ultima titles.  

These problems only get compounded further in the second half of the game, where there is a noticeable decline in the quality of the in-game dungeons and only a small handful of NPCs to interact with.  However, this was not originally by design - evidence from leftover concepts shows that the game was to be much larger in scale; however, as Electronic Arts had bought out Origin before the game's release and insisted on a strict release deadline, Serpent Isle was unfortunately rushed and a large amount of its content was either stripped out for time or just never implemented.

Not to say that it's all bad, though, as Serpent Isle maintains the series' exceptionally high standards for narrative-crafting and leading the player on a constantly enthralling adventure.  Characters are all well-written and have a surprising amount of dialog, Serpent Isle is an exceptionally fun place to explore and discover the lore of, and even with all of its cut content, this is a dense game that's roughly twice as long as its predecessor. Optional content, though relatively sparse, provides a few clever moments like a pirate (of the seafaring type) who is running a computer out of a small shack and illegally downloading Origin games (making him a software pirate).  One subtle, but effective example of keeping the player invested comes right at the beginning; while the player comes loaded for bear with plenty of high-end equipment, a spellbook and the mysterious Blackrock Serpent, this all gets taken away quickly by a strange phenomena called a "Teleport Storm" and replaced with a number of odd objects.  However, one quickly discovers that the taken objects were not destroyed outright, but rather teleported elsewhere in the world, and that the items that were left behind have all swapped places with them.  Thus, the player can use said objects as clues to get their old stuff back and become well-armed once again.  It's honestly quite a clever lead-in to the game's major overarching side-quest, as well as a creative way of foreshadowing one of the central focuses of the plot.

Some other irritating elements crop up in the game's design, too.  One prominent example is the emphasis placed on key items, which there are far more of in Serpent Isle than in any previous Ultima.  Worse, losing any of them can potentially put the game in an unwinnable state, as they will come to an event and be unable to continue.  Carefully managing one's inventory, as well as keeping the Avatar's Strength high via training so that he can carry any key items he needs, quickly becomes a key element of the game.  There is no longer a general-purpose Resurrection spell available for the player's use, with the task of reviving allies now falling to a magical hourglass given to the player at the outset.  This is fine for the player themself, as well as their allies, but should a particular required NPC be killed at any point (whether through player action or simply being caught in the crossfire during battle with an enemy), this too can render the game unwinnable.  NPC schedules return too, though unlike the previous game's, NPC's actions throughout the day are scripted to a meticiulous degree - they'll sometimes wander all over town, which can make tracking them down to trigger a plot flag rather tedious.  Not to mention that if one wants to buy equipment or get training, they will have to wait for specific times of day for them to be at their jobs, which can mean a lot of waiting or sleeping to get the in-game time to that point (and even then, they won't always be there, as skipping a lot of hours at once can throw things off).

Still, despite its faults, Serpent Isle is debateably the last great Ultima game; its grandiose narrative, large scale, oppressive atmosphere and thoughtful design make it a downright breathtaking title, particularly for the early 1990s, and even today it's rivaled by few others in the genre.  We may never see it be fully completed as the developers originally intended it to be, but 60-70% of an incredible game is still an experience worthy of your dollar.

Developer: Origin
Publisher: Origin
Platform: MS-DOS
Released: 1993
Recommended Version: N/A

Ultima VII: The Black Gate

Ultima VII was the first game in the Ultima franchise to be a DOS-exclusive release, and the first in the series to be entirely mouse-driven.  But does it take advantage of the industry standard well and live up to its legacy, or is this the beginning of the franchise's downturn?

The box's design was a point of contention with Origin's marketing department.  Richard Garriott had to fight to get them to release a game with a plain black cover!

The year was 1992, the Nintendo VS Sega console war was under way, and it seemed like everyone in the industry was going out of their way to up the ante; technology behind games became just as much of a selling point as the gameplay itself.  Ultima was certainly no stranger to this, even then - starting from 4, it seemed as though every subsequent game required you to upgrade your computer to be able to play it.  But this was perhaps no more evident than with Ultima VII, which abandoned any attempt at being a multi-platform release with development solely focused on MS-DOS.

In this regard, the game certainly succeeds, vastly upping the ante graphically from previous Ultimas with gorgeous, high-resolution VGA art, world design that was no longer bound to a grid and a very minimal user interface.  Rather than having a large, intrusive HUD as in previous Ultimas, the entire screen was now dominated by the playfield, without even a health indicator readily visible on the main screen.  Complementing this, Ultima VII utilizes an entirely mouse-driven UI with only a few keyboard shortcuts for common commands like opening the save menu (S), opening one's inventory (I), opening the spellbook (B) or viewing a character's stat screen (Z).  Music and sound got a similar upgrade, with some surprisingly well-composed, if short, tunes complementing key moments and combat with enemies, and periodic taunting voice clips lending menace to the franchise's newest villain, the Guardian (voiced by Bill Johnson).  While there isn't a lot of either owing to storage limitations (low-density floppy disks still being standard at the time), what is there is used to very good effect.

The mouse interface does lend a simple and intuitive bent to the game, with formerly-complicated tasks like picking up items being greatly reduced in the number of steps required - rather than pressing G and clicking a space on the screen to Get an item, one can now simply drag and drop it onto their character (or their open backpack) to acquire it.  Double-clicking opens doors, activates objects and talks to NPCs, while casting spells is streamlined to simply require the player to click on the entry in their spellbook, with required reagents being automatically deducted from their inventory.  However, the switch from a turn-based game to a real-time one necessitated one significant downgrade, namely in the combat system; rather than being able to individually control your characters and adapt strategies on the fly, combat is now largely automated, with the player simply pressing C (or clicking the icon) to initiate combat and characters largely acting of their own accord.  The player can give them general commands (like attacking from range or going Berserk, which prevents them from fleeing no matter how injured they get), but that's about it.  However, as combat is mostly downplayed in the game in favor of puzzle-solving and storytelling, it's not an enormous loss.

What can be more problematic, though, are some particularly dumb quirks of NPC AI.  Your allies can occasionally hit other NPCs, each other (or even you) with stray attacks, which will cause them to become hostile and fight one another until one dies, which can be irritating, especially in towns where attacking NPCs will often bring the guards and a swift death at their hands.  Worse than that is the fact that critically injured party members will often flee, dropping items from their inventory as they go; especially problematic if they happen to be carrying a key item that you happen to need.  (For this reason, I only allowed the Avatar himself to carry important items).

Expanding on this, the game falls prey to the pitfall of many vast open-world games and has quite a lot of minor bugs and oversights, as well as an engine that struggles against the hardware it's working on.  At the time in particular (but even still in virtual machines), Ultima can be very laggy in some places with lots of objects or even lock up or crash entirely.  While some of these can be amusing (like seeing walls vanish, NPCs get stuck in rooftops or being able to stack objects to climb around on almost anything), there are just as many that lead to frustration, like getting too much money at the casino and causing the game to run out of memory, leading to a crash.  

But of course, with the leap to a new engine and a new generation of gaming, Ultima loses surprisingly little on a storytelling front.  The world is as dense as ever, with tons of hidden secrets and areas to discover, books to read and hundreds of NPCs, each with unique dialog, to interact with as one unravels the main storyline.  There is even a surprising amount of faithfulness to previous games in the series; though the Virtues and Shrines and the three Ages of Darkness play almost no role in this game's story, they are frequently referenced in in-game dialog and lore, and one can even find the runes, visit the shrines and discover a number of artifacts from previous Ultimas throughout the world.  Honestly, half the fun I had with the game was spent just wandering the game world, revisiting memories of my past adventures as I made may way through the newest one; it really is rare to see a franchise with this much respect for its own past, let alone allowing the player to experience it firsthand.  This only becomes more prevalent with the official add-on, Forge of Virtue, which has the player revisiting Exodus's castle from Ultima 3 in order to complete a new quest.

Despite some limitations of this new leap in technology, and a somewhat buggy engine, Ultima VII remains one of the best RPGs ever made on the PC platform, or any other for that matter.  Stepping boldly into a new era of gaming while firmly keeping in mind what made the series a hit to begin with, Black Gate provides a dense world to explore, a great storyline to experience and a tremendous sense of imagination throughout.  The sheer amount of realism and interaction in the game was downright breathtaking for 1992, and it's still rare to see some of the things on display here in gaming today.  Well worth a look for any genre fan.

Developer: Origin
Publisher: Origin
Platform: MS-DOS
Released: 1992
Recommended Version:  While there is a SNES 'port' of Black Gate, I would strongly recommend avoiding that version at all cost; while the overall plot is similar (save for the prominent murders being changed to 'kidnappings'), its gameplay and design are massively stripped down, with nearly all of the dialog removed and the gameplay being changed to a poor man's Zelda with clumsy hit detection, cheap kills aplenty and scarcely a fraction of the features the PC version has to offer.  Stick to the original DOS release.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Ultima returns two years after its groundbreaking fourth entry with a game that puts some interesting moral quandaries into its narrative, polishes up its gameplay and amps up the difficulty.  But does Ultima V once again prove to be a great leap for the series, or were all of these changes just ill-advised ones?

Ultima IV is a tough act to follow; widely regarded as one of the most important RPGs ever made, it was one of the first to contain a fully-featured dialog system that was integral to solving the game's numerous puzzles by cross-referencing NPC dialog to gather clues.  The sheer amount of text in the game could rival a short novel in density while sacrificing surprisingly little in the way of gameplay - Ultima IV was still a very lengthy, involved RPG that could take days, if not weeks, to finish the first time through.  But more than that, it required the player to be a good person - stealing, killing and other evil acts would only lengthen the time required to complete the quest, if not make it outright unwinnable.  All things which, in various ways, made Ultima IV a truly unique and immersive experience.

Ultima V had some big shoes to fill, but Origin proved that they were nothing it not up for a challenge.  The dialog system returns here, though in a somewhat more polished form - NPCs now have more consistent grammar and wording, and there are surprisingly few "generic" NPCs in towns - aside from the respawning guards, virtually every character one speaks to is unique and has their own set of dialog, adding much to the game's atmosphere.

The premise of the game works into this as well, with a much darker tone overall.  Essentially, Britannia's longtime ruler Lord British has disappeared, and in his place the tyrannical Lord Blackthorn has taken the throne, turning the eight virtues into oppressive laws and twisted mockeries of their intended function (for example, the law of Sacrifice reads "Thou shalt give half thy income to charity, or thou shalt have no income" while Compassion reads "Thou shalt help those in need, or thou shalt suffer the same need").  As a result of these, the eight towns - formerly bastions of virtuous people - are now fraught with danger as oppressive guards terrorize the populace and Lord Blackthorn's spies hide among them, making it considerably harder to get clues from townspeople.

Befitting this, Ultima 5 is a much tougher game than its predecessors too.  While the Karma system is somewhat relaxed from Ultima 4 (you'll still get docked for obvious wrongs like stealing and killing, but you are no longer punished for running from battle, for example), it still proves to be important to keep it high - most members of the resistance won't trust you if you have a bad reputation and thus won't give up important clues.  Lost Karma is considerably harder to build back up - though you can free enslaved people or donate money to beggars, these only get you so far as there are a finite number in the game and they won't respawn.  Your absolute last resort is to donate large amounts of gold at the eight shrines to raise your karma back up, which comes at a cost of 100 gold per point.

Combat in the game fits this rule too, with enemies attacking the player in staggeringly large groups, enemy ambushes at camp being more common than in 4, and status-casting enemies becoming much more common.  By far the worst offender are Daemons - they can cast Fear, rendering party members useless, and take tons of damage to bring down - and Dragons, who can charm party members and summon Daemons.  Worse, dying in battle causes party members to lose gained experience points, which, should they drop below a level threshold, they will have to re-level up to get back up to speed - not the easiest task when the level-up event occurs randomly when one rests, which can potentially expose your to even further danger.

Some elements of realism add to the challenge too.  The player must now purchase ammunition for most ranged weapons in the game, which makes relying on them heavily an expensive endeavor.  Mixing spell reagents incorrectly can cause a backfire that damage a single player or even the entire party, and the game now utilizes runic script for various signs and, at one point, even as a copy protection mechanism as necessary passwords are only given in it.  Even towns themselves aren't safe havens as in most RPGs - not only can guards shake you down for money, but the three Shadowlords will frequently visit them, which can cause the townspeople to attack you or refuse to speak to you for any reason until they leave.  The Shadowlords themselves are quite nasty too, being near-indestructible opponents who can only be killed in the course of completing certain puzzles, so it's generally not worth it to even stick around a town if one is present at that time.

A nice addition in this regard is the fact that one can simply purchase ships now instead of having to find ones that randomly spawn (which could take an irritatingly long time in earlier titles).  In addition, two new types of vehicles are added - skiffs, which can sail over shallow waters and up narrow canals (but cause the player to take damage every turn in deep ocean) and the magic carpet, which lets the player float over rivers and rough terrain, but more importantly, lets them move twice as fast as most NPCs, making avoiding guards and such far easier.  The moonstones are now a more useful tool, as the player can now dig them up and bury them somewhere else, causing the moongate to appear at that location instead when it matches the moon phase.  This proves to be quite useful, particularly toward the end of the game where you'll be braving the hazardous underworld beneath Britannia and will frequently have to make trips back and forth to resupply.

In the end, Ultima V is a logical step up from the previous game in many ways, adding more features, realism, challenge and depth while taking the storytelling and atmosphere in a much more dark and moody direction.  While not quite the revolutionary title that Ultima IV was, V upped the ante on an already great game, and it mostly pays off - though the challenging elements can be frustrating to less experienced RPG players, the adventure is once again a very worthwhile one if they are willing to put in the time investment and see it all the way through.  Another highly recommended game in the legendary Ultima series.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Platform: Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64/128, MS-DOS, FM-Towns, NEC PC-9801, Sharp X68000, NES
Released: 1988
Recommended Version: I can't speak for most computer versions, as I'm only really familiar with the DOS port.  However, I can safely say that the NES version should be avoided at all costs; it's a stripped-down, butchered version of the game with a fraction of the dialog in place, a ten second music loop and slow gameplay that is generally unpleasant to endure.

Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams

The second and final entry in the Worlds of Ultima spinoff series once again reuses Ultima 6's engine for a foray into a bizarre, unfamiliar world.  But does Martian Dreams' unique setting give it enough charm to make it worth playing, or is it just dragged down by its attempts at realism?

Ultima 6 marked a more "realistic" turn for the Ultima franchise, attempting to create a convincing world not only through a less video gamey style of world design, but by actually including numerous simulation elements as well.  Bread could be baked, cows could be milked, virtually any object could be moved around and stacked and NPCs all operated on their own time schedules according to the hours of the day in a surprisingly realistic fashion.  This certainly made the game's environment a more realistic one to explore and experience, though it also made it a more difficult and unwieldy game in some respects; in particular, the abolishing of the "world maps" and similar looking terrain made navigation considerably more cumbersome.  Having to manually manage one's inventory proved to be an irritating task at times, especially given the limited number of inventory slots available and the addition of a "carry weight" mechanic that limited how much a character could bring with them at any given time.  The fact that the game also had to keep track of all of these things, as well as a substantial portion of enemies and NPCs with their own AI routines, meant that the engine could become extremely laggy at times, with its framerate dipping into single digits in some areas.  One significant improvement, however, is the game's time cycle, with the day/night cycle progressing at a much slower rate and no longer forcing the player to burn light-generating items or rest every few minutes of gameplay.

Maritan Dreams, utilizing the same engine as Ultima 6, carries on all of these limitations, even going so far as to require the player to use a plethora of tools in given situations (handling radioactive materials with tongs and storing them in a lead box to prevent poisoning, for example).  Mars itself is a low-oxygen environment, requiring the player to seek out supplies of Oxium that steadily deplete over the course of their travels (and which enemies called "Oxygen Leeches" will frequently steal from them wholesale); without it, their characters suffer oxygen deprivation and have substantially lowered stats until they find another supply.  There is also no real "magic" system in the game, instead requiring the player to rely on berries that grant spell-like effects (such as temporary telekinesis and the ability to find "psychic imprints" on inanimate objects to uncover important clues).  The latter do at least continually reappear on trees throughout the game, though the lack of a consistent and reliable Oxium supply is a problem, particularly in the early stages when the player is trying to get their bearings and solve the first few quests to gain access to caches of them.

This is only further exacerbated by the design of Martian Dreams' world as a whole.  Lacking any kind of convenient fast travel system until very late in the game forces the player to traverse Mars on foot.  The similar-looking terrain proves to be the least of one's problems in this regard, taking a backseat to the fact that the game world as a whole is broken up by Mars' rail system.  In short, the world is separated by a series of deep tracks that effectively keep segments of the planet from one another, forcing the player to find bridges to make their way around, or simply discover alternate routes (which can require hours, of in-game time to find).  This, paired with very frequent combat against martian enemies as one makes their way around, makes Martian Dreams a  tedious game to traverse.  Power is eventually restored to the rail system, allowing for much easier travel, but it remains a persistent problem for a majority of the quest.

Despite its frustrating gameplay elements, however, Martian Dreams does continue in the tradition of doing what Ultima does best - presenting a detailed, realistic world full of interesting characters and thought-provoking, puzzle-oriented gameplay rather than wave after wave of braindead combat.  Martian Dreams contains what is easily one of its most imaginative setpieces, taking place during the Victorian era and following the exploits of groups of explorers (many of whom are based on real people) as they lead an expedition to Mars and discover a lost civilization beneath its surface.  This is easily its most intriguing element and, more than anything else, makes it worth enduring all the frustration for.

In a strange way, Martian Dreams encapsulates both the best and worst aspects of Ultima, and in particular the Ultima 6 engine - an incredibly detailed and intricate game world that is a chore to navigate at times, a realistic world and design to the point of being cumbersome to play as a video game, and, should one have the patience to endure all that, a great and imaginative storyline crafted by some of the best and brightest in the industry (Richard Garriott and Warren Spector).  There is a lot to like about Martian Dreams' script and design, but it feels like working a second job at times to get to experience its best elements.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Platform: MS-DOS
Released: 1991
Recommended version: N/A

Download and play the game for free at GOG

Ultima VIII: Pagan

The Ultima franchise takes a leap into isometric gameplay and a more action-driven style of gameplay despite heavy fan protest.  But does this title manage to provide some entertainment in spite of its format change, or is it too ineptly handled to even garner fans on that front?

As with many franchises that came before (and many to follow), Ultima's new life under the Electronic Arts brand was fraught with problems; Serpent Isle was roughly 60% complete at the time of its release (with the latter half of the game feeling extremely rushed and lackluster in comparison to the first), and the infamy of Ultima IX's acting, buggy design an utter disregard of series canon cannot be understated among long-time series fans.  Between those, however, Ultima VIII saw a release in 1994 for MS-DOS, and while it is largely overlooked now due to its low sales at retail, there is much to be said about its shortcomings as well.

The first and most prominent change with Pagan was that, while it somewhat resembles Ultima VII with its open-world design and ability to interact with almost anything the player sees, the gameplay is now heavily reworked, giving the player more direct control over a single character (rather than a party) and putting a much greater emphasis on combat, platforming and evading traps.  The perspective of the game has also been changed to an isometric 3D layout in order to further emphasize the action element and introduce much more platforming to the game.

This might all have been fine had the game's overall design been conductive to this style of gameplay, but due to the game's choice of control scheme, this ends up making the game far more frustrating than fun.  To be precise, the game relies entirely on using a mouse, with every action the player takes mapped two the two buttons that were standard on mice at the time.  Switching in and out of combat mode, blocking, attacking, movement, jumping, and all interaction with the environment are all mapped to various combinations of those two buttons.  This, paired with the rigidly grid-based movement, means that even moving one's character around is a chore, as they must move the cursor sufficiently far from their character to get "walk" speed, angle it in the right direction to move where they want, and then right-click to move in that direction.  To say nothing of trying to conduct combat with nearby enemies, where they must move the cursor and right-click to orient their character, then rapidly move the cursor around to backstep, step forward and time left-clicks to block or attack...

Platforming in the game is equally clumsy, with the player required to click both mouse buttons to leap to a specific platform, and due to the slippery physics in the game, probably end up sliding off and plummeting into water/lava below more than a few times before they find just the right angle/timing for a jump).  This problem only gets worse in the unpatched version of the game, where moving platforms are much more prominent and jumping is not steered by the mouse, making some jumping puzzles all but impossible without inordinate amounts of save-scumming.

The game's storyline is also heavily based around acquiring the powers of the four Titans and mastering their schools of magic, so one would think they would at least do a good job making the magic system intuitive and easy to use; sadly, that's not the case either.  Rather than having a simple menu to select spells from and having the proper reagents automatically deducted from one's inventory (as in Ultimas 6 and 7), Pagan opts for not one or two, but three separate means of casting spells, all of which require their own separate systems of management.  Theurgy (wind magic) is the least cumbersome of these, requiring the player to craft "Foci" that cast a single spell and can be reused as long as their mana supply holds out, while Sorcery (fire magic) is by far the worst, requiring the player to place reagents and a focus on a pentagram and set black and red candles at the points in very specific locations, ensure only specific ones are lit, and click upon the pentagram to add charges to the focus; if even one element is wrong or a single object out of place by so much as a pixel, the process fails and the player has to try again.  Both times I played through the game, this got on my nerves so quickly that I simply ended up enabling the debug menu so that I wouldn't have to bother with the process at all.  Which isn't really a mark of good design!

But still, in spite of everything, Ultima has always fared well in the story department.  Surely they could get that right and redeem the game on some level, right?  Sadly, even that is not really the case with Pagan.  There was a strong attempt made to create a dark tone at least, as the game effectively portrays a bleak, oppressive setting under the thrall of four demigods and their unscrupulous servants.  The game world emphasizes this well, with numerous ruins found both on the overworld and through the vast cave systems in the game, seemingly destroyed by flooding and constant earthquakes brought on by the titans.   However, the dialog system is vastly stripped down from earlier Ultimas, with relatively few NPCs for the player to interact with and considerably less dialog for those that are.  There is also heavy evidence of numerous quests either being greatly shortened or even cut from the game entirely.  The most famous example of this is probably the Hydros quest, with the player simply being given the plot-crucial item by another character instead of having to go on a quest for it (and no spells from Tempestry being available to the player at all; not even via the cheat menu).  The overall narrative also feels very hastily thrown-together, with subplots like Hydros's attack on Tenebrae being the player's motivation for visting the Sorcerers (but once they arrive at the cabal, there is no dialog to this effect whatsoever) and Lithos in no way acknowledging the theft of an important artifact from his domain.  In fact, there is little depth to any of the characters the player encounters and virtually no motive for much of their own quest, with their goals and rewards being largely arbitrary for much of the adventure.

In the end, Pagan is a letdown for old Ultima fans, and it probably didn't earn the series too many new ones either.  Its attempts to reinvent Ultima's gameplay were uniformly ill-advised and poorly implemented, and the overall rushed design of its narrative and puzzles makes for a very frustrating game that makes the player reluctant to play it rather than getting them immersed in the experience.  Ultima IX may be the series' black sheep for its general bugginess and bad script, but Pagan is a far less satisfying experience than even that in my book.  Because no matter what flaws Ascension had, at least it wasn't a complete chore to play.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC
Released: 1994
Recommended version:  N/A

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire

The first in the short-lived Worlds of Ultima spinoff franchise, which saw little fanfare upon its release.  But is there some merit to this overlooked title, or is it a weak link in the Ultima chain?

Origin Systems had already made a splash with a number of high-profile CRPGs in the '80s, providing players with enormous, sprawling worlds to explore and a surprising density of NPCs and quests within them.  By 1990 technology had begun a rapid evolution, and Origin sought to keep up with Ultima 6, a game which would feature an entirely revamped engine that sought to not only immerse the player in a virtual world and an epic journey, but to give it a simulation-esque feel as well - cows could be milked, objects could be dropped, thrown and equipped to numerous inventory slots, equipment could be scavenged from defeated enemies, and food could be hunted and fished for, among numerous other innovations.

While Ultima 6 largely succeeded in that regard, it's no surprise that its engine was very time-consuming and costly for Origin to develop.  For that reason, they announced a spinoff franchise, Worlds of Ultima, that would allow them to get more mileage from the engine and allow other writers to tell unique stories in worlds based on Ultima lore, but ultimately separate from the main running storyline of Britannia.  However, only two Worlds of Ultima games were released; lack of fan interest and low sales quickly led to the series' cancellation (and a planned third game based on the legend of King Arthur to be scrapped).

The first of these two was Savage Empire, produced by Warren Spector.  The storyline concerns the Avatar and two of his acquaintances (Jimmy Malone and Professor Rafkin) being drawn into a parallel world when an experiment on his Orb of the Moons goes awry.  This world proves to not only be inhabited by dinosaurs, but indigenous tribes from across Earth's history and a species of vicious giant ants named the Myrmidex.  Naturally, the Avatar must reunite with his old companions, solve the mysteries of this strange world and find a way to return home to Earth.

As one might expect from that introduction, Savage Empire is a considerably smaller and shorter game than Ultima 6, with a world a fraction the size and much fewer NPCs to interact with on the whole.  Other aspects of the game, such as the magic system, have also been greatly simplified - one only needs a single totem and a single reagent, and there are only a total of nine spells to cast (and only one character who can cast them).  This does work in the game's favor at times, however - the smaller design of the environment is considerably easier to navigate than Ultima 6's world, and the limited viewpoint the player is afforded (an 11x11 grid) is much less problematic as a result.  This also results in fewer instances of getting lost in mazes of similar-looking scenery, trees and so forth.  However, it is still easy to get boxed in by mountains, cliffs and other terrain due to the limited viewpoint, requiring lengthy searches to find a way around.

True to its more primitive setting, the game also puts more emphasis on scavenging and crafting items - animals can be skinned for a variety of goods, from feathers to furs, and crude weapons can be crafted by collecting a variety of items - one can create a "grenade" by utilizing a crude fuse (cloth dipped in tar), a clay pot and gunpowder (which one must craft with a combination of sulphur and potassium nitrate crystals).  There is also no concept of a "shop" in the game, requiring you to acquire some goods through trading.  This is most prominent among the Nahuatla tribe, who trade emeralds for a variety of goods; emeralds can in turn be acquired by trading parrot feathers.

Despite these elements, though, Savage Empire is very much an Ultima game in design - the player has very few restrictions on where they can roam, and figuring out what they must do to proceed generally involves a lot of dialog with NPCs in order to discern one's current objectives.  One can also easily make the game unwinnable by attacking someone they shouldn't or losing an essential plot item, so discretion (and frequent saving) is heavily advised.

Savage Empire, like Ultima 6 before it, is very emblematic of its period - built on a new engine and clearly eager to show off its features, but also hampered by its somewhat clumsy interface and attempts to be "realistic" at the expense of smooth gameplay.  Still, the game provides enough imagination and charm in its odd setting, story and characters that it proves an enjoyable experience to play in spite of its faults.  Maybe not worth the price of tracking down a boxed copy from some scalper on eBay, but since the game is also available as a free download from GOG (packaged with its sequel, Martian Dreams), it's well worth a look for any fan of classic CRPGs.

Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Platform: PC, SNES
Released: 1990, 1995
Recommended version: The PC version runs in the Ultima 6 engine, and while it's not my favorite of the Ultima engines, it is vastly preferable to the stripped-down one the Super Famicom version of that game (and Savage Empire) run on.  Plus the Super Famicom version is only in Japanese...

Download the game for free at GOG