Ultima VII: The Black Gate

[Calis]

This is the comments thread for <A HREF="/gamedetails.php?id=157">Ultima VII: The Black Gate</A>

Ultima VII is widely seen as the pinnacle of the Ultima series. Its most intriguing feature was that all NPCs had schedules--they'd wake up, go about their buisness and go to bed at night. Projects like ExUlt allow modern gamers to enjoy Ultima VII on today's machines.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

zomg best game ever

 

[dipdipdip]

I've only played entirely through Ultimas I - IV.

I started, but never finished V & VII.

HOW DUMB AM I, MR. COW?

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Beyond comprehension, my good sir.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

Comment number 4 says:
One of the best cRPGs ever made every cRPG lover should play (use Exult).

 

[LlamaGod]

Dont forget Ultima VI, jerks.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Ultima VI was good, but it had some nagging issues. Namely, the shitty keyword system and the interface. The game world also felt kind of...cramped and not wide and open like in Ultima VII.

 

[crufty]

Whatever happened to the 3d Ultima VII.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Ultima VII was the best, but Ultima VI was pretty damn fun, too. IV and V were classics. I must have spent 200 hours in grade school playing Ultima IV. I liked how in Ultima V you didn't have to attack in straight lines. I remember Ultima III being pretty good as well. I miss games like that.

 

[Rulion]

I'm about to say something that's going to make your brain explode, Lunch. I...I...I've never played any Ultima, ever

What's Ultima VII about, and can I understand it without having played the previous ones?

Lastly, how many Hail Mary's must I recite tonight? : \

 

[theverybigslayer]

zomg best game ever

How can it be the best game ever if it has a real-time combat system?

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Because...um the rest of the game made up for it? The combat wasn't that bad either, and the addition of a pause button makes it much more manageble now.

Rulion - you can play the Ultimas in any order. Each one has a seperate storyline, but they're all set in the same gameworld and have recurring characters from previous games.

 

[Antagonist]

Rulion - you can play the Ultimas in any order. Each one has a seperate storyline, but they're all set in the same gameworld and have recurring characters from previous games.

I would not recommend playing them in any particular order. Despite character reappearances each game builds on the history of its predecessors so you would miss out many references and that's one main appeal of the Ultima series in my opinion: It gives you the feeling of progress and that the world around you changes due to the happenings in the past.

So I suggest that you play them in the correct order starting with U4 if you don't mind the outdated graphics and gameplay. Between Ultima 7 part 1 and part 2 one should play Ultima Underworld 2 because it's part of the Guardian series and some things in Serpent Isle won't make sense if you don't know what happened in UW2.

I disagree that U7 is the best CRPG ever because it plays like an adventure game but it's a damn fine title nontheless, one of the best ever made.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

That's a good point, but he just asked if you could play them in any order, not if it was a better option.

 

[Rulion]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm going to see if I can get any of the Ultimas from the Underdog site. I'll try to check out VII first since it's the one Lunch seems to like the most. Plus, I probably wouldn't like the older titles since I'm a bit of a graphics whore. (in the sense that I like BG or even Fallout graphics - to me they're not so outdated that they're ugly. But I probably wouldn't enjoy lower quality than FO.)

 

[Naked_Lunch]

You can only get the Worlds of Ultima (Which are also excellent, by the way) and Ultima 4 from the Underdogs site. EA is doing a big crackdown on adandonware places, but I think some one posted a link to a site that still carries it in the Abandonia forums.

 

[Shagnak]

Both Ultima VIIs are at abandonia.com
Download Exult to play them on a modern OS with extra uber-ness.(as mentioned above).
No fiddling with DOSBox and you can play at at super-high resolution, with the screen showing more of the world at once. w00t

 

[Naked_Lunch]

That's where you're wrong, Shaggmiester, Abandonia has them in their database, but they're not up for download. Instead of saying "Get It!" and having a floppy-disk icon, it says "No Go" with a little bubble saying "ESA Protected".

Damn EA!

 

[Shagnak]

Aiiieeee!
That is a shame. I'm pretty certain that is where I got my current versions from.
Is it a fairly recent development? (oops, just read your post up there properly)

Oh, I see Lands of Lore (which I dloaded fairly recently) is restricted now as well.


Edit:
Just checked http://abandonware.the-frenchkiss.biz/ , and a whole bunch of stuff has been removed there as well.
*sigh*
Do you have gmail, Rulion? :twisted:

 

[Baley]

::cough::The Frenchkiss ::cough::

Edit:fuck,they got to them too.

Well off to

Jucaushii.

 

[Hazelnut]

Thanks Baley!

I also have never played any of the Ultima's, except for the Underworlds (got bored half way through #1, loved #2 but lost my saves about 70% through and simply couldn't keep going 2nd time through) so I'd like to give them a try.

I missed a lot of good games for many years due to lack of time & money - including Fallout, but I rectified that a few years back. I'm playing SystemShock2 at the moment for the very first time. Hoo boy it's frigging scary. I can't even play it for very long when I'm tired.

H.

 

[k_bits]

::cough::The Frenchkiss ::cough::

Edit:fuck,they got to them too.

Well off to

Jucaushii.

Try here
http://www.abandoneer.com/bygenre.php?id=1
http://www.abandoneer.com/games.php?gameid=71

 

[truekaiser]

You can only get the Worlds of Ultima (Which are also excellent, by the way) and Ultima 4 from the Underdogs site. EA is doing a big crackdown on adandonware places, but I think some one posted a link to a site that still carries it in the Abandonia forums.

there is also a linux/windows/mac-osx remake of ultima 4.
http://xu4.sourceforge.net/