Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

[KeighnMcDeath]

Sadly, it seems no one did recordings that i can find. And you can't rip it from youtube gameplay because sound effects
https://minirevver.weebly.com/fm-towns-cd-music.html





Some fun stuff

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Aha! Some youtuber called SolidSnack has some extensively long vids on the fm-towns trilogy anc even sits long enough to maybe get full tracks of the songs.

 

[Ladonna]

Eldiron still developing

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Another project I just noticed linked on the Ultimacodex is Penult for the atrai2600. I love this when people challenge the limits of a system to put say an RPG on that system. I still await someone to break into the colecovisions Gateway to apshai and add up/down ladders, remove timer, add the key, add the gateway, add an ending, and maybe a few QOL features to it. Anyway, there aren't many videos of Penult but you can order to play the demo. This should probably be in a thread titled Ultima-knock offs or something.

I got my Penult yesterday (roughly one and a half year after preordering it) and gave it a first try today on the Atari 2600 I exclusively purchased on eBay to be able to play this marvel of programming.
Gameplay is rather basic, but quite enjoyable, you don't lead a party, only your character (who is able to do combat or magic) plus a dragon companion which can breath fire and bite and tear enemies into a bloody pulp, which is pretty awesome. It feels like an early Ultima in every aspect, yet it's more forgiving. Thanks to the AtarVox device you can save your game.
The game comes with a lovely box, nice manual, poster and a really stunning, Ultima-like cloth map of very high quality. Definitely a collector's item for my shelve, sight beside Realms of Antiquity, Nox Archaist and the original Ultima games. For anyone who still owns an Atari and is into RPGs it's mandatory to get this little gem.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Dunno why but I thought of the AppleIIgs. That organ music in the dungeons...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I rather hated the art style on the box and in-game tbh. The music was atrocious and the game was gender locked. Now, the famicom booklet had additional story and art and I think they did sone comics on the and a few manga that paint EXODUS really fucking creepy. Pix has these I believe. There are some patches to the game rom and there is that Ultima 1 project going on using this version as a base and I want to see what they've done. Ultima 2 needs to be done imho. It kind of makes me wonder why FCI didn't start with Akalabeth and proceed onward. Maybe the japs weren't fans (shrug).

What game engine would you want try on the series? Grimlock? Baldur's Gate, Fallout? Bard's Tale (fuk you fargo not adding a construction set), FRUA, ACS (ha! Yeah, that'd take a lot of modules go with ACKS), other?

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Next in Majuular's series.

 

[Baron Dupek]

It's all downhill from there..

Spoiler

BETRAY

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I have been playing Ultima 6 and I have a few observations:
Combat is somehow worse despite there being less encounters overall. In Ultima 4 I could hardly take a step without entering combat. This was improved in Ultima 5 by moving most monster spawns to night and by adding the ability to attack diagonally with ranged weapons. Somehow Ultima 6 went further by reducing the amount of monster spawns all together. Where are all the bandits and other monsters spawning at night? I have so far liberated two shrines and have had three encounters with one of those being insects engaging the gargoyles at the shrine of honor.
Moving to a continuous overworld instead of segmented areas makes Britannia feel smaller. Why not opt to keep a separate overworld and make the locales bigger? In Ultima 6 the world feels like a small county instead of a continent like it did in the prior games.
I am sick and tired of listening to Rule Britannia when traversing the world.

 

[Jadeite]

Odd Ultima 8 not-remake: https://oceancucumber.itch.io/a-tribute-to-ultima-8

A Tribute to Ultima 8​

This is currently in very early stages of development.
When I was a kid I played the Ultima series a lot. Since then, I have thought quite a bit about what Ultima 8 should actually have been like. I recently got inspired to make a game to do just that. This is not a recreation of Ultima 8 at all. It's very different in almost every way, but fans will be able to see the heavy inspiration.

What the hell is this thing? Looks even worse than NWN. Ultima VIII was an overall rather weak entry in the series and had its obvious faults but graphics weren't among them.

It's the remaster and thou shalt buy it.

 

[Jadeite]

<-- 1 of only 2 people tht voted ultima 1

 

[Jadeite]

Dat's 1 weird GaMe

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I think Worlds of Ultima : Savage Empire is better than Ultima 1-5

Not a fan of Martian Dreams though.

 

[behold_a_man]

Somehow Ultima 6 went further by reducing the amount of monster spawns all together. Where are all the bandits and other monsters spawning at night?

In the dungeons, respawning in plain sight all the time.

 

[Supermedo]

never played a single Ultima game but I have warm memories regarding it, watching the Spoony Experiments retrospective on his website, I probably won't play first 3 ultima games but the 7th is in my backlog and plan to play it soon.

 

[Sceptic]

I think Worlds of Ultima : Savage Empire is better than Ultima 1-5

Not a fan of Martian Dreams though.

I want to be mad at you, but much as I love MD it's not really a CRPG (or I should say, even less so than most Ultimas). And it does have some serious problems with backtracking. I love the writing and setting though, it's just as pulpy as SE but the Victorian sci-fi always appealed to me more.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Nigh gearpunk/steampunk in my mind. You don't see much modding for the Worlds of Ultima. Damn pity we didn't get that Arthurian Legends WOU 3.

 

[Sherry]

Next in Majuular's series.

Hi

WOW! 3 hours. What a game, what a vdieo.

Thanks,
Sherry

 

[Junmarko]

It's all downhill from there..

He's still got Serpent Isle and UU2...then it's downhill yes lol

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

I'd say Serpent Isle was the last great game - yes you notice EA's rot taking hold and slowly drain the series of its greatness, it has some rough ends, but still I find SI as good as BG. It's more focussed, features a more interesting setting and story and while it's nowhere as open world as BG it still gives you more than enough to explore and wander about. And I loved the details in this one (wearing plate armor in the polar region made you suffer from cold and stuff like that). And Fawn ist just a beautiful city unlike anything. For Ultima Underworld II I have to say that I share - for once - Spoony's verdict about this one. For me it's an unfocussed mess, especially compared to UU1, which was a damn masterpiece of storytelling through environment, where everything made sense and had a purpose. UU1 absolutely benefited from the fact that they had to take out all Ultima references - it stands much better as its own setting. It was much more fitting and made more sense to be a nameless unlucky guy been thrown in the Dungeons, an anti-hero with the only goal to survive. The world is the protagonist in UU1 as you slowly descent further down and learn more of it's history, which is basically a multicultural social experiment gone terribly wrong. In UUII on the other hand they tried to stuff as much "Ultima" in as possible - with the result that the end result doesn't make much sense in the narrative departement. And thus whereas UU1 tells a powerful parable of human vanity and megalomania, UU2 tells an all to often told story about a holier-than-thou do-gooder guy visiting wildly different worlds to defeat a one-dimensional bad guy.

 

[Junmarko]

UU2 isn't shooting Rasputin in the face on Mars with an AK-47 level of unfocused though (which was still awesome).

The decline of Ultima started with 8.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Did any of you like the Crusader Series since it and 8 seem like buddies in a way?

 

[AndyS]

Did any of you like the Crusader Series since it and 8 seem like buddies in a way?

I really liked Crusader. I think it uses the same engine as Ultima 8 but outside of some stupid platforming segments (mainly the first game), it seems a bit more focused and aware of the engine's limitations. Feels really cool when you get into a particularly crazy firefight and shit's exploding and shattering all over the place.

 

[Dayyālu]

Did any of you like the Crusader Series since it and 8 seem like buddies in a way?

I love Crusader. I maintain that the only good thing coming out of 8 is the Crusader series. Without going too deep into its own peculiarities (that would deserve a good post) it has several advantages compared to Ultima 8:

- It's a finished game. Not only a finished game, but a finished game with a sequel. Ultima 8 is a mess of cut content and haphazard re-use, and its own expansion pack was nuked. Crusader is complete and functional, and a coherent experience.
- It knows what it is. Crusader is a action shooter (even if a tad slow and methodical compared to others) and its puzzle/teleport/jumping sections are secondary. Ultima 8 suffers a lot from attempts at actionizing too much.
- It's not the sequel to a juggernaut franchise. People aren't going in with expectations and will be pleasantly surprised.
- This is personal, but its graphical and sound landscape is miles above Ultima 8. The music is phenomenal, and the used-corporation-industrial ambience is excellent even if uncreative.

Did I say that the music is exceptional?

 

[Sceptic]

I'd say Serpent Isle was the last great game

Interesting that I agree completely with half your post and vehemently disagree with the other half.

SI has a lot of good going for it, but the entire last third is an unfinished mess. You complain about UW2 being unfocused but later SI is even worse, the whole business with the Hound (twice!) makes absolutely no sense, it and other triggers are there just because they needed something that was already in the game to activate progression so they could save development time. Even had the game been completed properly though it's just way too big and bloated for its own sake, individually all the finished parts are great, the unfinished parts would've been probably just as good if finished, but there's just too damn much of everything.

Spoony is an idiot and his UW2 "review" is conclusive proof. Half of what he complains about is literal RTFM, other stuff (like the headless IIRC) is him whining because the game gives plenty of environmental hints instead of holding him by the hand and tying his shoelaces for him. UW2 has problems for sure; honestly most of them mirror SI's, the reliance on triggers to advance unrelated parts of the plot is really bad (The Listener is the worst, but there's also some stuff with Mors Gotha; actually everything that needs Nystul to advance the plot relies on completely unrelated triggers elsewhere).

Also you got it backwards for UW1. They didn't take anything out, the game for the longest time was completely unrelated to Ultima, they shoehorned in that stuff at the very end. Considering this it fits rather well actually. In general I agree that UW1 is a better or more focused game, and UW2 certainly has its faults, but most of the things people in general and Spoony in particular point to are not it.

Crusader is pretty cool, I have good memories but may need to replay it some day, I don't think I touched it since finishing it right after it came out. Roxor is a huge fan IIRC.