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Yeah, I hate this type of party combat. Tbh, I hate RtwP but at least you can pause. No! I want full tactical combat with many options in the interactive battlefield. I want to grab a rat dipped in explosive powder and shove it down an orcs throat and detonate it. I want to point blank a magic missile through a goblins skull and watch it pop. Mostly, I want to sit back and contemplate the battle at leisure. Toss in a Quick combat like goldbox or even a battle fast solution like wizard's crown if I really don't care to fight trash mobs.
And yeah, don't over complicate storage too damn much and have hot keys and shortcuts and macros available.
I'm glad there are projects still being done for the ultimas but I hope they pot in some QOL and maybe construction sets.
IIRC there's an egg (the games equivalent to a trigger) at the door where the murder scene is and if anyone goes over it before the Avatar, the murder scene will not trigger. Exult fixes this though.
As the most interesting things about the game were related to the writing, I only marked deep endgame things as spoilers.
The game was made on the same engine as The Black Gate - as expected, the inventory is similarly frustrating, the combat didn't get better, and generally the same things as before are permitted (except for exploration), while adding some curious mechanics (like extreme temperatures and some techniques of coping with them).
Completely unlike The Black Gate and earlier Ultimas, linearity in this game was so aggressive I expected it to beat me up. For example:
-> To get to the goblin lair, I need to discover a traitor first and get the key from his dead body.
-> The entire Moonshade plot revolves around waiting for things to happen - first a banquet, then kidnapping, then the interaction with Erstam, then getting the spellbook, then the fiery romance, then getting sent to the Mountains of Freedom. Maybe the worst part was Pothos' secret - I couldn't ask him about the Mad Mage until I learned from some lady that he bears a resemblance to him - even though
, and I knew he needed Blood Moss badly. Moreover, some parts of the critical path already seemed to be bugged there - I could not report to Gustacio about storms (something he asked me about); I had to move the plot forward by talking with someone else, seemingly skipping some part of the plot.
-> The most maddening example for me is the Hound of Doskar. It's aim? To give away someone's location. But if you won't use it for finding Cantra, the door to the keep she lies in will be blocked indefinitely. Fair enough, I was told to use it anyway. But, moving further, I needed to summon Hound to search for Batlin. To unlock some doors? No, to unlock the dialogue option with Gwani allowing me to pass through the mountain AFTER I did a job for them, already knowing where Batlin is (he told me, so did Harnna).
-> Even though almost every old mage was supposed to keep a tooth from the jawbone (I can use them for teleportation, not them), they were only made available after the encounter at the Wall of Lights by the end of the game (in the most explicit way possible - placing
in their apartments). It's nonsense. I have Columna's Comb, the centerpiece of her very existence, allowing her to look youthful. I know
. Why can't I ask her about a swap? One can say - oh, her reputation was already tarnished - but not even her sister acknowledged the change.
Interestingly, the game opened up after a certain point, roughly at the start of the last third of the game - I could go anywhere, I had no explicitly specified aim, and my game got
Apparently, I was expected to restore the Serpent of Chaos - but I didn't do it, and no one mentioned it besides the ghost in the burning building somewhere
. The game overflowed with oddities (like guards telling me not to incite trouble at the entrance to a dead city or generally people not acknowledging bloodbath around them) and bewildering bugs (Ducio could not give me an appropriate gem - unless I talked to him while he was standing to the right of a firepit; when I went to the Gwani village after Hazards' visit, certain Gwani woman was talking as if nothing happened; when I left her and came back, she was dead - and theoretically she died in the attack).
Gameplay reinforced the linearity - interesting doors were usually impossible to pick or bomb. Oftentimes, doors were opened not by a key but by plot progress (like Frigidazzi's or Hazard's), which isn't fun if I already sought that key for some time. Some means of transportation (Mark & Recall, carpet, proper ship) were removed.
Was the plot worth all that hassle with gating the world? It did give more insight on companions; it showed people who exiled themselves from Britannia seemingly escaping from Lord British's tyrannical rule, really not being able to live up to his principles (like Moonshadian mages striving for truth, where using blood spawn was considered problematic, yet half of mages had ritual bloodletting devices; Monitorian pikemen indulding in generalized skullduggery between clans; or the vanity of Fawn citizens). But even at the start, there were some hiccups - for example, every dialogue, essentially everything that happened in Fawn was fundamentally meaningless - in the end, you go to a trial, you find the levers and kill a guy pulling the levers, and that's all there is to a city with tons of dialogues that ultimately turned out to be pretty much meaningless. And why create a game focused on the plot if you can't deliver the ending? Everything after the Gorlab Swamp seemed unfinished. While the idea of apocalypse was unorthodox and somewhat interesting (and was not idiotic, since there was not much of a connection between the Avatar and the environment - he was merely a guest), the writing became a comedy by the end. Take
At some point of the game, Xenka tells the player (out of nowhere) that the imbalance grows stronger and sacrifice will be needed:
Five minutes later, Dupre inflames his heart - and lungs, and liver, and so on.
The unceremonious character of this conversation, leading to the death of a companion from five games only for Xenka to give me a sword to kill the main protagonist and finish the game, is insane (although apparently I should have used his ashes to restore the Serpent of Chaos - but no one told me during the game).
for example.
Despite that, I enjoyed a lot of things related to the mixed bag of the story - for example, Mountains of Freedom - why did Avatar manage to escape the dungeon unlike anyone else? Well, it was inevitable since he was effectively immortal. I exploited this fact by getting into a fight with an automaton, dying repeatedly only to be resurrected again until the poor robot fell (I could use the ring of invisibility and escape instead, but my way was funnier and probably more immersive anyway). The reverse item search (having someone's item already and wanting to get your own as a reward) was a nice idea, and it would be nicer if it would work - I could never exchange ice wine, for example, and the breastplate dialogue with Kylista only worked if I didn't ask the innkeeper about this cuirass before. It was somewhat romantic to see a dying race pondering its downfall (Gwani).
This time around, the game featured far more dungeon crawling than before. The puzzles within dungeons were mostly mechanical - find a key, find a button, find a lever, hug a wall, double click on a wall, or place an item on the altar. This time, however, there was much more of it. I detest this type of puzzles - what's the fun in applying the same technique to each place? It wouldn't be such a problem if the game was a tad shorter, or the respawns were nonexistent (it's not that they are hard; it's that they slow down movement even when ignoring them), or if it allowed me to solve problems in multiple ways - which it usually didn't. Seemingly most interesting spells for penetrating such places either had some limitations (Fetch was unable to pick items like skeletons, for instance) or weren't usable often (Serpent's Bond was useful only in a few places). Only Dispel Field allowed me to circumvent stuff in a few places.
One of the things I hated the most were dungeons (or, more generally, constrained locations) not telegraphing explicitly that I needed an item from somewhere else. Two examples were:
1) Dream in Gorlab's Swamp - how to know whether artifacts are a puzzle within the dream or artifacts from the external world?
2) Isle of Crypts and the Blackrock Serpent of Balance - What do those
indicate? When should I stop trying to find an appropriate tool in the dungeon and seek ?something? somewhere else? Was I supposed to guess that I need a particular item here (already knowing I'll need it in the later area, the Temple of Balance)?
I don't think they would be so infuriating if not for how painstakingly slow the dungeon exploration was once I hit an obstacle.
The economy got broken even quicker than in The Black Gate (an impressive feat given linearity of the game) with not many things to buy (mainly spells and reagents - but you could get them by theft or exploration), thanks to the value of gems (in Moonshade, the first city I thoroughly explored), along with their popularity (most trolls seemed to carry 4). It got so bad I avoided collecting gold since around midgame.
I liked the items added in the expansion. The mystic technology of keyrings dissipated the dread of getting keys from an NPC, while the Ring of Shal removed the reagent constraints from casting spells - something I wanted to see at some point in Ultima games since earlier I only cast spells when in dire need. Three of the Silver Seed's dungeons could be far better without the aforementioned mechanics of the game making them more cumbersome than they should be, I believe.
The people weren't acting like material beings generally act, probably so as not to break the game - some NPCs won't move to their house (unlocking the door); they'll just stand there until they're out of sight, then teleport to where they're supposed to be. If the monks are not in a chapel, leave and enter again, and they'll probably be there en masse. My favourite instance of this problem was Beryl - once I asked her about something and went to the mines, she nagged me about certain plant - and, since she spawned close to me every time she got out of the field of view, she asked this question constantly, every 5 seconds, no matter how quickly I moved through the mine (on a side note, she was one silly lady - at some point, she asked me to use arrows from her room if I don't have any - but when I took them, she called me a thief and attacked). It's not a huge issue for me, but it surprises me since they probably aimed at making an immersive game.
There were some other minor things I liked - like people being telling me to bugger off until I became a mage or a pikeman; I saw a person's name when clicking on him, similarly to The False Prophet, unlike The Black Gate. One thing I didn't notice in the earlier game is that going to sleep without companions disallows waking up at a specified time. The lack of proper sidequest made sense given the apocalyptic plot (tying Avatar to these people wouldn't make sense), the usual mundane character progression, and the general lack of interesting rewards (with two exceptions I can think of - the Everlasting Goblet and Magic Harp, technically rewards for activities connected to the main story). I could check the time or access inventory of each character much quicker than before with new keyboard shortcuts. Even though most of the soundtrack was recycled, the new tracks were good.
There were also minor things I disliked - the introduction felt cheap, as if setting me up for a disappointment (given the series' great production values and general quality up until now). A ledger in the monks' chapel described extraordinarily dangerous ruins in the north. The ruins? You guessed it, two skeletons, and that's it. Finding tools for teleportation is generally a nice way in which games reward exploration - but here, they are given in batches, in places tied to the plot, and only in a way so as not to break the precious linearity of the game (that is, I only get teleports to plot-related places or places I should have already been to). The teleporting storms had no unscripted gameplay implications - probably for the better, but still, it gave me a sense of detachment between the world and the gameplay.
And there were yet another exhilarating ?bug? - I tried to talk to a monk, but a lady next to him told me, "He cannot speak!". A moment later, he went to the candle, unlit it, and remarked, "Much better!".
Summarizing, The Serpent Isle went away from the open-world exploration of previous Ultimas in favor of a more focused story. Despite this, the plot wasn't that good, with a game seemingly being slashed at some point and remaining in a mostly unfinished state with bugs going as far as to influence the parts of the plot that are available. Even the finished parts of the story had some hiccups; even the good parts were soured with badly scripted dialogues. There were some neat things in the expansion; outside of that, I didn't have much fun with this mess of a game.
-----
As a side note, the game highlights a few problems with picking dialogue options rather than typing them explicitly - it allows writers to make nonsensical leaps of logic (see: asking Yenani for an entrance to the Skullcrusher after invoking the Hound) and disallows players to infer some things independently of what writers want him to know (see: Pothos' Blood Moss and Mad Mage connection, Columna's Comb). Generalizing, it assumes the playing character knows what the developer wants him to know rather than what the player knows.
The problem wasn't as visible in the Black Gate - quests within microcosms (cities) were optional, only a single questline (Time Lord's) was necessary to properly finish the game, and very few things were gated in some fashion.
If a game still wants to use some scripted interactions, it could highlight the keywords it considers "unlocked" (by other conversations, for example) and allow to unlock other topics by typing them explicitly, which should relax the linearity of the game.
Note that here, limited options during dialogues helped the developers set up this exercise in linearity.
I've finished Black Gate but never managed to force myself through the whole Serpent Isle story. I usually just stop playing after spending a good number of hours with the first three towns and surrounding area. I agree that the new items are a nice addition, and I like the graphic/interface improvements, too. But yes, in the end the linearity will get you, although not before you've gotten up to some trouble and thoroughly enjoyed your stay.
And there were yet another exhilarating ?bug? - I tried to talk to a monk, but a lady next to him told me, "He cannot speak!". A moment later, he went to the candle, unlit it, and remarked, "Much better!".
