Wizardry vs Ultima

[MasterSmithFandango]

Wizardry and this discussion shouldn't even exist. Ultima was... not bad? Overall, 7 (1&2) were pretty mediocre, with the only real draws being a pretty well done world, but the combat is god awful. God awful. God how fucking awful is the combat. Wizardry VI-VIII are still the pinnacle of RPGs in my mind. Haven't dabbled in the older ones, and at this point I doubt I ever will, but the strength of those three games alone knock out every other RPG franchise.

If you add Underworld, the discussion gets a bit more interesting, but it still lands on the side of Wizardry.

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO YOU ARE POPAMOLE

 

[Jaesun]

BRO YOU ARE POPAMOLE

 

[made]

If you add Underworld, the discussion gets a bit more interesting, but it still lands on the side of Wizardry.

It's really telling when people consider Underworld - the bastard action slasher that was Ultima in name only - the most representative title in the series. I wonder how many of you never played an actual Ultima and only ever fired up exult once, thought OMG THE PERSPECTIVE HURTZ MY EYEZ, and went back to their first-person RPGs.

Combat in Ultima was no worse than Wizardry. In fact, it wins by default by virtue of not being blob-based. With the exception of Wiz8, there's fuck all in terms of tactics and every tactical, top-down combat system from Goldbox and Dark Sun to DSA and various jRPGs has it beat. Not to mention encounter design that consists of 90% tedious trash and 10% actually interesting, challenging battles. Pinnacle of RPGs my ass.

Where Wizardry really shines is character development, and that only because of how flexible it is due to being broken rather than ingenious.

 

[octavius]

If you add Underworld, the discussion gets a bit more interesting, but it still lands on the side of Wizardry.

It's really telling when people consider Underworld - the bastard action slasher that was Ultima in name only - the most representative title in the series. I wonder how many of you never played an actual Ultima and only ever fired up exult once, thought OMG THE PERSPECTIVE HURTZ MY EYEZ, and went back to their first-person RPGs.

Combat in Ultima was no worse than Wizardry. In fact, it wins by default by virtue of not being blob-based. With the exception of Wiz8, there's fuck all in terms of tactics and every tactical, top-down combat system from Goldbox and Dark Sun to DSA and various jRPGs has it beat. Not to mention encounter design that consists of 90% tedious trash and 10% actually interesting, challenging battles. Pinnacle of RPGs my ass.

Where Wizardry really shines is character development, and that only because of how flexible it is due to being broken rather than ingenious.

I have played Ultimas 3-5 and both Underworlds and I consider the Underworlds far superior to the pure breds, although being 3D they have not aged that well.

That Wizardry (and Bard's Tale and Might&Magic) are "blobs" is irrelevant. The abstract combat, and greater variety in spells and monsters, of these games are still much more fun than the tedious slow combat of Ultimas 3-5. U5 was saved by having excellent encounter design, though.

Of the Wizardrys I've only played Bane of the Cosmic Forge so far, and the open-for-abuse character development system was actually the only thing I disliked about it. Objectively it may be a good thing to be able to switch back and forth between classes, but subjectively I didn't like it - felt too much like roll playing instead of role playing.

 

[Sceptic]

BRO YOU ARE POPAMOLE

Fuck off, UW is awesome, especially with a CM module. YOU SHOULD KNOW

It's really telling when people consider Underworld - the bastard action slasher that was Ultima in name only - the most representative title in the series. I wonder how many of you never played an actual Ultima and only ever fired up exult once, thought OMG THE PERSPECTIVE HURTZ MY EYEZ, and went back to their first-person RPGs.

OK, I'll bite: I know U1-5 far better than any of the later ones... except for the UW's.
I do agree that UW shouldn't be representative of the series, but really, not a single one of the Ultima's is, 7 (the reason people usually pick the series) least of all. Besides everyone knows 4 was the best
And funnily enough, same can be said for Wizardry. People pick it because of 6-8, even though 6-7 on the one hand and 8 on the other couldn't be more different mechanics-wise, and if one really had to pick a series of games that define the series as a series it would be 1-3 &5... which very few would say are the best (though in terms of pure dungeon crawling I can see why they'd pick them over 6-8)

 

[Wyrmlord]

@Ultima critics

Okay, I have not played Ultima games, so your opinion is more qualified than mine, but -

if BioWare + Bethesda = Ultima

then why do some people who don't enjoy either BioWare or Bethesda still enjoy Ultima? Just asking.

 

[SuicideBunny]

the ultimas suck as rpgs, unlike the wizardries. they make good adventure hybrids though, especially 7.1+7.2+8.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

@Ultima critics

Okay, I have not played Ultima games, so your opinion is more qualified than mine, but -

if BioWare + Bethesda = Ultima

then why do some people who don't enjoy either BioWare or Bethesda still enjoy Ultima? Just asking.

Your troll detection skills need improvement.

 

[bhlaab]

If you add Underworld, the discussion gets a bit more interesting, but it still lands on the side of Wizardry.

It's really telling when people consider Underworld - the bastard action slasher that was Ultima in name only - the most representative title in the series. I wonder how many of you never played an actual Ultima and only ever fired up exult once, thought OMG THE PERSPECTIVE HURTZ MY EYEZ, and went back to their first-person RPGs.

Combat in Ultima was no worse than Wizardry. In fact, it wins by default by virtue of not being blob-based. With the exception of Wiz8, there's fuck all in terms of tactics and every tactical, top-down combat system from Goldbox and Dark Sun to DSA and various jRPGs has it beat. Not to mention encounter design that consists of 90% tedious trash and 10% actually interesting, challenging battles. Pinnacle of RPGs my ass.

Where Wizardry really shines is character development, and that only because of how flexible it is due to being broken rather than ingenious.

Bu

but it really does hurt my eyes

 

[made]

What hath changed the nature of the Codex?

Back in '08:

Might&Magic
24% [ 32 ]
Ultima
41% [ 53 ]
Wizardry
20% [ 27 ]

Earlier this year:

Might & Magic
32% [ 26 ]
Ultima
31% [ 25 ]
Wizardry
21% [ 17 ]

Now:

Wizardry
47% [ 33 ]
Ultima
24% [ 17 ]

Is this a symptom of the decline I've been hearing so much about?

 

[Crooked Bee]

More like an understandable reaction to what "RPGs" are, or rather what they are not, these days.

 

[Excommunicator]

More like accessibility dictates the more popular games

 

[SuicideBunny]

if that were the case, ultima would be winning hands down.

 

[mondblut]

Wyrmie, probably for the same reason people love classic Wizardry but couldn't care less about jap dungeon crawls - them being an inferior copy of the original. Or they need romances and hiking to go hand by hand in order to get their Ultima fix.

But most likely, they just grown up and stuff that captivated them when they were 15 no longer works for them.

What hath changed the nature of the Codex?

The true RPG nerds marched forth to take back what is theirs. Reoccupation of the Codexland is just a beginning... Next, we'll have an Anschluss of RPGWatch, a partition of IGNVaultia, an invasion to Biowaland...and then the rest of the world will kick our asses and ban everything that has more than 3 stats.

 

[MMXI]

What hath changed the nature of the Codex?

Back in '08:

Earlier this year:

Now:

Is this a symptom of the decline I've been hearing so much about?

Maybe it's down to how the questions were worded?

 

[Excommunicator]

if that were the case, ultima would be winning hands down.

Actually I don't think it is a big enough difference to say it is case of accessibility in this poll, but Wizardry is most certainly more accessible as a series.

 

[Wyrmlord]

But most likely, they just grown up and stuff that captivated them when they were 15 no longer works for them.

Good, so certain old RPGs are not all that different from recent RPGs in their flaws, but it's just that people grew up and are blindly nostalgic about the former and harshly critical about the latter.

Eventually, one can apply this to a lot of games.

 

[HiddenX]

Wizardry vs Ultima is like asking Rolling Stones vs Beatles.

Both series are genre defining, original and good.

 

[almondblight]

I wonder how many of you never played an actual Ultima and only ever fired up exult once, thought OMG THE PERSPECTIVE HURTZ MY EYEZ, and went back to their first-person RPGs.

How about some of us saw a setting where the game programmer put himself into the game world as it's god-king, the main player is person from the real world sent to this place, and it's called Britannia and everyone talks with "thees" and "thous" and decided that no matter what else was good, it was hard to overcome that.

 

[MisterStone]

Wizardry is about a large multi-headed blob that lurches through mazes and hoses down massive numbers of enemies with fantasy machinegun surrogate attacks. It's kind of hard to overcome that.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Both series are genre defining, original and good.

how exactly did ultima define the rpg genre?

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Both series are genre defining, original and good.

how exactly did ultima define the rpg genre?

 

[Gragt]

Wizardry is about a large multi-headed blob that lurches through mazes and hoses down massive numbers of enemies with fantasy machinegun surrogate attacks. It's kind of hard to overcome that.

When you put it that way, it does sound pretty awesome.

 

[MisterStone]

Look, it's simple really.

People who think CRPGs are defined by PnP RPG-like combat combined with strong adventure game elements will think Ultima is the definitive CRPG game series.

People who think that CRPGs are defined by PnP RPG-like combat, intensive character building and maze exploration (ie morons) will say Wizardry is best.

Arguing in favor of one of the other is simply going to boil down to this.



BTW Calling the adventure game elements in Ultima "larping" is a pretty retarded straw man argument, and the shit about Garriot putting his persona into his series is pretty irrelevant to any argument, unless there is a huge community of cool-guy CRPG gamers you know in real life who give a fuck about their image as cool-guy gamers. Which there isn't.