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Serpent Isle was also distinctly incomplete. Serpent Isle happened right after the purchase by EA and I think it's the first example of a game I ever ran into where the ending was a complete wet fart because executive meddling meant they never really got to complete it as they wanted to.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:04
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Dreamsicle posted:That's the first time I've heard criticism of U7 especially putting it at the same level as U8 and U9. What makes it bad? U7 was a mix of good and bad. The graphics were amazingly good for their time, the writing was generally good, gameplay was fluid with no mandatory grinding, and they came out with both DLC and and a semi-sequel. On the other hand, it had some bugs, the questing was linear and mostly fedex, and it ran poorly unless you had a bleeding edge machine. I'll do an effortpost on the whole series if anyone cares.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:11
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Sure, go right ahead. I'm mostly familiar with the games from U4 onwards, so it'd be interesting to hear the opinion of someone with a more comprehensive understanding of it.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:12
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U7 had amazing exploration. It was so satisfying just wandering all over the place off the beaten track, accidentally discovering a magic carpet just tucked out of the way, roaming through dungeons, accidentally discovering a plot to murder Lord British. It was also cool that you could just skip parts of the plot by wandering into later plot arcs. Also, combat consisted of the music starting, your party scattering to the four winds, the music ending, and you having to go and try to find the corpses of the enemies your team just beat up. The dialogue was cringeworthy thee and thou nonsense, and stats and levelling up were annoyingly opaque. It's an amazing game that I don't think I ever finished and I have no urge to ever replay.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:19
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I liked Serpent Isle.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:50
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The best Ultima game is the one on Mars.
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Feb 1, 2021 03:49
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Peaceful Anarchy posted:The best Ultima game is the one on Mars. Dinosaur one.
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Feb 1, 2021 03:54
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Skwirl posted:Dinosaur one.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:08
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Ultima I: A fairly simple, formulaic RPG. You talk to kings who send you on a quest to see something or kill a monster, usually in a wireframe dungeon, and they give you a reward. After doing enough, you find a spaceship and zap enemy ships in a brief arcade-ish sequence, then go back in time and kill the Foozle, Mondain. It's quick and not too hard: you can probably beat it in a few hours. Ultima II: This one is very similar to the previous one; the big difference is that the quests are gone, which I consider a step backwards. There are five maps instead of one, connected by time portals. The player grinds and grinds and grinds, travels into space and solves the game's one quest, then travels to the Land Before Time and kills Mondain's apprentice, Minax. The game does have some odd design decisions. For one thing, from a roleplaying perspective, it is impossible to complete the game as a "good" character; you need to unlock doors at times, which requires keys, which can only be obtained by killing guards in towns. Also there are first-person wireframe dungeons, but IIRC there's no reason to enter them. Most annoyingly, the game actively discourages exploration, because every step consumes expensive food, while standing in place does not; the optimum way to win is to stand in place near a town for hours whacking monsters. I really wouldn't recommend playing this today, because of the huge amount of mandatory grinding. You need to buff your stats to advance, and that requires gold... lots of it. Ultima III: This game expands the party to 4 characters, and adds some technical advances like pseudo first person (you can't see areas blocked by walls), but at heart it's another bog-standard RPG. Explore, grind, level up, kill Foozle. Again, I wouldn't play it today because of the mandatory grinding; gold is needed to increase your stats, a lot of it. Ultima VI: Here's where things finally get awesome. Ultima IV was a massive milestone in western RPGs featuring a whole boatload of advances: * You have a party of 8 characters, but one of them is 'you'. * A system of eight virtues, amazingly well fleshed out and internally consistent. Each virtue corresponds to one of the eight classes and eight towns. * You don't choose a character class for your character; you choose the virtue that's most important to you. * You can have actual conversations with NPC. * The game gives you XP for completing plot points, greatly reducing the need to grind. * A detailed magic system, where spells are cast by combining reagents with magic words. * Your actions matter. Cheat a blind vendor? You lose Honesty. Kill monsters? Gain Valor if the monsters are evil, lose Compassion if they're not evil. * Expanding on that, the ultimate goal of the game is not to kill the evil overlord, but to better yourself as a person, then go read a book on wisdom. It's still a bit rough by today's standards (for example, back in the day you need to actually map the dungeons on graph paper) but if you're into old RPGs give this a try. Ultima V: In my mind and Lord British's, this is the pinnacle of the series. It takes all the good stuff from IV and expands on it. You can have longer conversations with NPCs, plus there's a day/night cycle, and NPC have routines and may say different things at different times. The plot is of an evil force that is oppressing the land, and some NPCs are actually on the side of evil, so you have to decide who you can trust. Magic is improved, there's a massive underworld map to explore. It even has what may be the first 'cutscene' in an RPG: at one point, the big baddie captures the party and tortures you for information, then permanently kills one of your party members. If you are going to try only one Ultima game, make it this one. Ultima VI: Fun, but not as groundbreaking as the others. Brittania is being invaded by a race of evil gargoyles from the underworld; but halfway through, you learn that they are fleeing the collapse of the underworld, which you caused when you took the Codex back in IV. To solve the problem, you arrange a compromise where the Codex is placed in the Ethereal Void where both races can read it. Nowadays, "YOU were the villain all along!!!" is practically a mandatory plot twist in every RPG, but back then it was a major brainfuck. Ultima VII: This swang for the fences but came up short. The graphics were absolutely mind-blowing: I remember thinking it was like walking across an oil painting. The world was huge and fun to explore, and there was no mandatory grinding. Best of all, it had what may be the first DLC in gaming history, Forge of Virtue; and also a mini-sequel, Serpent Isle, with it's own DLC, Silver Seed. Except that in '92 you couldn't actually download it, you had to waddle into the software store and buy the box, making it WISSC, I guess. However, Ultima VII had problems. It had a few bugs, including a potential showstopper where vital keys would vanish if you slept at an inn. It had the worst inventory system in the history of the universe: you dumped all your crap into one big box and spent 10 minutes fishing around when you needed something. Your companions needed to eat, but would literally starve unless you opened their backpack and shove food into their mouths. You didn't directly control your companions in combat; and in an amazingly braindead move, if combat was too hard, your companions would flee and would drop items from their backpack while doing so, possibly including plot items. The writing is generally good, with lots of fun side quests. However, the main quest is completely linear, and mostly fedex. Like, at one point you need to talk to the 'wisps'. They are information brokers, so they ask for this dude Alagner's notebook in exchange for their help. Alagner askes for 'the secrets of life and death' in exchange. So you find a Seance spell, go to an island of ghosts, and find the guy with the answer... but he won't help you until you defeat a lich. So you go through a complex chain of events to turn the lich back into a human, but now you need to destroy a Macguffin, which requires you to go talk to every single ghost once again. Then, he gives you the answer, which is Also, hardware problems. It really wanted to run on a 25mhz machine, but only the really rich kids had one at the time. On the 16mhz box that was standard, it ran passably in the countryside, but slowed to a slog in combat or in a city. Also, it came integrated with a proprietary memory manager, which was incompatible with the third party memory managers which everyone had, requiring you to create a dedicated boot disk. Ultima VIII: The only one I didn't play, this was a shitshow of poor decisions. There was no levelling at all, which meant that upon encountering a monster, the best bet is to run past it. Stats are improved by use, but the game doesn't track if you're hitting something, so the optimum play is to start the game by spending half an hour swinging a weapon at thin air. Every single chest in the game is boobytrapped to explode for a billion damage. Worst of all it had JUMPING PUZZLES over instant death. Critics panned it as "Super Mario Avatar" and sales were so bad that the planned WISSC was cancelled. Ultima IX: Like I mentioned before, Ultima 9 swung for the fences, then tripped and fell halfway down the first base line. It was (probably) the first RPG that was 100% true 3D, but the 3D engine was abysmal. It was the first RPG to be completely voice acted, but the voice work ranged from decent to putrid. The writing was terrible, combat was boring, dungeons were tedious, balance was off, and oh yeah, bugs. The version that shipped was often uncompleteable due to showstopper bugs; after patching is was playable but still sucky. If you want to hop in Ultima, play 5. If you really want to get the full experience, play 4, 5, 6, and 7, and maybe 2 and 3 with a trainer to skip the grinding. Gynovore fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 04:12
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Peaceful Anarchy posted:The best Ultima game is the one on Mars. Oh yes, I have that one and the dinosaur one on GOG as well. Are they worth checking out.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:14
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chaosapiant posted:Oh yes, I have that one and the dinosaur one on GOG as well. Are they worth checking out.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:19
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chaosapiant posted:Oh yes, I have that one and the dinosaur one on GOG as well. Are they worth checking out.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:25
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Saying if you play 1 Ultima game make it 5 is like saying if you watch one star wars movie, watch Empire. It's the Star wars, or a new hope if you want to be pedantic. Empire isn't empire without the foundation that came before. The same is true for U5. U5 without U4 isn't nearly as good. And by themselves, as single entities, U4 is the better game. Saying U5 is the one to go to is like falling into the actual plot of U5. U5s plot is "what if U4, but corrupted." U4 is the pure game. U5 is the hosed up fallout. And really, 35 years later, they are closer to each other than to anything modern. U4 has an easier magic system. U5 has better combat and more dialog and a ton more stuff to explore. But U4 actually has more quests to complete. A fan patch of U4 with U5s combat upgrades is easily the better experience.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:29
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Gynovore posted:Ultima VI: Fun, but not as groundbreaking as the others. Brittania is being invaded by a race of evil gargoyles from the underworld; but halfway through, you learn that they are fleeing the collapse of the underworld, which you caused when you took the Codex back in IV. To solve the problem, you arrange a compromise where the Codex is placed in the Ethereal Void where both races can read it. Nowadays, "YOU were the villain all along!!!" is practically a mandatory plot twist in every RPG, but back then it was a major brainfuck. The giant step forward for this one was modeling the world down to meticulous details like the silverware, having it all be interactive, and completely contiguous. It is the first open world RPG.
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Feb 1, 2021 04:46
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Random Stranger posted:The giant step forward for this one was modeling the world down to meticulous details like the silverware, having it all be interactive, and completely contiguous. It is the first open world RPG. Yeah that. It shifted the engine from Apple character graphics to a real engine, letting them model the world in much greater detail.
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Feb 1, 2021 06:36
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So i've started a game of Ultima IV, made a character (A Tinker apparently) and explored Minoc. I'm supposed to I guess look for the runewright's sister Mischief, but I've talked to everyone in town and don't see here. Additionally, I appear to get poisoned randomly. I was able to mix a couple of cures with my starting Ginseng and Garlic reagents, and now not sure where to go. I constantly get poisoned or trapped and attacked by orcs. I know I can't rest too often because it'll just stop healing. Any tips on what I should do?
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Feb 1, 2021 06:47
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chaosapiant posted:So i've started a game of Ultima IV, made a character (A Tinker apparently) and explored Minoc. I'm supposed to I guess look for the runewright's sister Mischief, but I've talked to everyone in town and don't see here. Additionally, I appear to get poisoned randomly. I was able to mix a couple of cures with my starting Ginseng and Garlic reagents, and now not sure where to go. I constantly get poisoned or trapped and attacked by orcs. I know I can't rest too often because it'll just stop healing. Any tips on what I should do? Start over. You can finish the game with any class, but Tinker is pretty gimped. Mainly because it can't cast a couple of the major spells which means you become reliant on your party to do heavy lifting. Your final answer should be Honesty, Justice, Honor or Spirituality. The purple stuff on the ground is swamp, it's in the manual. You must have missed it. It will randomly poison you. Sometimes you have to go to other places to talk to people. But it will usually tell you where to go. If it just says talk to X then 99% of the time it is in that same town.
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Feb 1, 2021 06:54
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Waltzing Along posted:Start over. You can finish the game with any class, but Tinker is pretty gimped. Mainly because it can't cast a couple of the major spells which means you become reliant on your party to do heavy lifting. Ah ok. I have the manual open in another window and am referring to it, but yeah, I missed. I'll re-roll then. I've found some character guides so I'll look at those for a better class. What is the bestest best class for a newb like me?
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Feb 1, 2021 06:59
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chaosapiant posted:So i've started a game of Ultima IV, made a character (A Tinker apparently) and explored Minoc. I'm supposed to I guess look for the runewright's sister Mischief, but I've talked to everyone in town and don't see here. Additionally, I appear to get poisoned randomly. I was able to mix a couple of cures with my starting Ginseng and Garlic reagents, and now not sure where to go. I constantly get poisoned or trapped and attacked by orcs. I know I can't rest too often because it'll just stop healing. Any tips on what I should do? Get a full party. In every town except the one you started next to, one character will join you when asked. Then, find the Rune in every town; this will give you XP. For free healing, ask Lord British about HEALTH. Also if you're going to start over, answer Honesty to be a mage or Valor to be a fighter. IIRC, Shepherd is terribad and Tinker is not good, the rest are all ok.
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Feb 1, 2021 07:00
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chaosapiant posted:Ah ok. I have the manual open in another window and am referring to it, but yeah, I missed. I'll re-roll then. I've found some character guides so I'll look at those for a better class. What is the bestest best class for a newb like me? The well regarded LP rolled a druid I believe,
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Feb 1, 2021 07:01
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chaosapiant posted:Ah ok. I have the manual open in another window and am referring to it, but yeah, I missed. I'll re-roll then. I've found some character guides so I'll look at those for a better class. What is the bestest best class for a newb like me? Mage: Honesty. You get the most spell points. That's the only stat that differs from class to class. Everyone gains 100 HP when they gain a level. Doesn't matter what class. Everyone has max of 50 in STR, INT and DEX. They all perform the same function. But Spell points are based on your int and your class. Mage 2x int = sp Druid 1.5 x int Paladin, Ranger & Bard = 1x int Tinker: .5 x int And the other two classes can't cast spells. Mage = honesty Druid = justice
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Feb 1, 2021 07:05
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Thanks for the quick replies. I re-rolled and got a Paladin so now I'll explore Trinsic and see what's up!
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Feb 1, 2021 07:05
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Gynovore posted:Get a full party. In every town except the one you started next to, one character will join you when asked. Then, find the Rune in every town; this will give you XP. Fighter is barely better than a Shepherd. They are essentially the same after a couple levels.
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Feb 1, 2021 07:06
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So far, Paladin seem beefy in battle at least. I'm trouncing orcs and rogues and such, and making sure not to chase them when they're fleeing. I'm looking for someone named Terrin in the town of Trinsic, and a weird mage told me a skeleton has a secret so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for that poo poo. Neat game so far! The only issue I have (and it's an issue most older games have) is the lack of feedback. I'm at least keeping my own notes for now. Are there any patches I should apply to the GOG version of the game, or is it fine as is?
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Feb 1, 2021 07:44
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chaosapiant posted:So far, Paladin seem beefy in battle at least. I'm trouncing orcs and rogues and such, and making sure not to chase them when they're fleeing. I'm looking for someone named Terrin in the town of Trinsic, and a weird mage told me a skeleton has a secret so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for that poo poo. Neat game so far! The only issue I have (and it's an issue most older games have) is the lack of feedback. I'm at least keeping my own notes for now. Are there any patches I should apply to the GOG version of the game, or is it fine as is? It's fine the way it is. You will likely visit all the towns multiple times. Don't worry if you miss something. Just take notes and follow the Name, Job questioning scheme. If you do that with everyone you will eventually find everything out. After a while, you will know common things to ask for and you may jump dialog chains. Mage in town says talk to bard in another town about a widget. But you already know to ask people about that widget so when you come across that bard, you just ask and find out where it is without the earlier step. After doing a single town, you should know 3 or 4 things to ask in every town.
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Feb 1, 2021 07:49
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Oh hey! I found something called the Ultima 4 Upgrade Patch which gives me music and spruces up the graphics a bit. Pretty cool!
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Feb 1, 2021 08:04
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Dreamsicle posted:That's the first time I've heard criticism of U7 especially putting it at the same level as U8 and U9. What makes it bad? Because 7 is a terrible rpg bolted into an amazing technical demo. Awful combat, limited rpg mechanics, clunky play control, inventory management hell, and party members begging for food constantly. U9 was at least a fun game. (When the bugs weren't killing it. Even with patches. I got to one of the final towns and a quest flag never tripped. Dude needed to talk to his ghost brother. He wouldn't.) I've got strong Ultima opinions. Forged from early 1988 to now.       (Third Dawn Beta and 2nd Age stuff probably in one of the 2 UO boxes but eh who cares?) My Ultima collection is strong but not perfect or perfectly complete but im not that rich, stupid, or insane.  I got some other old rpgs this week though. At dirt cheap prices.  Nox Archaist is pretty good sadly the KEGS emulator (with a Bluetooth keyboard) is the only one I can get running the game in a semi decent manner. Lots of older Apple 2 emulators on devices id play Nox don't run it or look even worse. And the one with the best rendering for Apple2? No workie with Nox.  Kegs output.   Last 2 what it could look like if Apple2ix could run it. Can't even run the disk version. And Microm8 and AppleWin are really PC only for me and I tend to game heavier on my tablet or consoles/Raspi 400 right now. (And I dont really dig their crt or voxel sim modes.) Heck, lack of a real good Android/Pi TI 99 emulator is why that other new CRPG hasn't been bought yet. ( http://quixotic.adamantyr.com/roa.htm plus he sells in a weird way with PayPal. I'm hoping it'll end up on gog or Steam too.) Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 09:13
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Captain Rufus posted:
Oh poo poo! Tongue of the Fatman! I picked up the Worlds of Ultima games on GOG, I really like the idea, and wish the Arthurian one came out, but I've never been able to get into them whenever I try. I been intrigued by Ultima, but the only one I've played for any length of time, and it was mostly as a kid and I didn't get far, was Ultima Underworld. Maybe I'll try again after I get worn out on Gold Box. Then again, I still have to finish Icewind Dale too... want to try Arx Fatalis too.
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Feb 1, 2021 10:03
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Regarding 7, just like it's a bad RPG bolted on top of an amazing sandbox, I'd argue the worldbuilding is great but the main plot isn't Like, U4-5-6 got praised for doing away with the cackling end boss or having a story where the big red demon things aren't villains, but then you get U7 where from the get go there's a big red cackling demon villain that's very obviously evil, with no twist regarding his motivations (well, there is one a couple games later but the twist is that he's evil!!1!). The only innovation is you don't get to fight him, you'll have to buy the whole
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Feb 1, 2021 13:03
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I think you can give it a little more credit. It's been a century since I played it, but I vaguely recall that part of 7's plot is that the Fellowship only works because of the massive disparities in LB's society. So them being evil or not evil is an aside compared to the society only being as strong as it's weakest pieces. The end is that LB sucks and should be seeking redemption in 9. That seemed pretty inline with the plot of the previous games but maybe I'm misremembering. I almost don't want to replay them because I have such fond memories of U7 and SI.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:27
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catlord posted:I been intrigued by Ultima, but the only one I've played for any length of time, and it was mostly as a kid and I didn't get far, was Ultima Underworld. They were probably the best imo.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:30
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Captain Rufus posted:
Oh hey, I've got that collection. Circuit's Edge is the game to play in it. Some people like Mines of Titan, too, though I didn't care for it. And I've called U7 an adventure game that happens to have some RPG systems poorly bolted onto it.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:31
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Circuit's Edge is one of those games I've started so many times, but I don't think I've ever made any noteworthy progress in it. Man, I wish someone would remake it. The setting might be slightly cyberpunk-cliché, but the time is ripe to cash in on that zeitgeist.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:35
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Captain Rufus posted:
Nox is fun but that green-purple pixel effect is giving me a headache. I never had an Apple2 so I have no nostalgia for it, it's just distracting.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:42
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I always thought the Guardian being a cackling evil kind of worked because he was an alien influence worming his way into another world's society through the gaps in its internal contradictions. The appeal of the plot isn't in the villain itself but tracing the path of the conditions that led to his presence.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:48
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inscrutable horse posted:Circuit's Edge is one of those games I've started so many times, but I don't think I've ever made any noteworthy progress in it. Man, I wish someone would remake it. The setting might be slightly cyberpunk-cliché, but the time is ripe to cash in on that zeitgeist. It's based on one of the novels that created those cliches, so I'd give them a pass on that one.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:53
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FuzzySlippers posted:I think you can give it a little more credit. It's been a century since I played it, but I vaguely recall that part of 7's plot is that the Fellowship only works because of the massive disparities in LB's society. So them being evil or not evil is an aside compared to the society only being as strong as it's weakest pieces. The end is that LB sucks and should be seeking redemption in 9. CYBEReris posted:I always thought the Guardian being a cackling evil kind of worked because he was an alien influence worming his way into another world's society through the gaps in its internal contradictions. The appeal of the plot isn't in the villain itself but tracing the path of the conditions that led to his presence. Heck, the conditions that led to the guardian's presence in those worlds aren't societal flaws. He managed it in Britannia because he had sent three bigass machines to induce said flaws, and in Pagan because they were gonna be destroyed otherwise and merely didn't know the guy destroying them and the guy saving them were the same. There's no moment in the guardian tetralogy where you're actually trying to better society as a goal by means other than driving the guardian's specific machinations out. You can make small things better as entirely optional asides that do not matter for victory. And then, of course, if you're talking to the circumstances that led to the guardian's existence in the first place, we have to go into the most idiotic twist in the universe where for some reason a single person showing that everyone can be at their best with effort is somehow the source of ultimate evil, and it says nothing about those societies. What you do get to see is all societies or organizations that tried alternatives to the virtues get them comically wrong. All the fellowship rules are actually about discrimination, the serpent isle colonists' principles are superficial and lead them to strife and again discrimination, Pagan cults are about literally feeding your people to monsters, the Zealans were impulsive. The ophidians fared a little better but their balance was rigged, entirely reliant on a cosmic order and polarized towards two opposing sides, and once the mediator was removed they just happily exterminated each other (and for that matter the general setup of the serpent isle towns suggests the three principles of balance, when everything's working right, are matches for the three britannian principles). Chev fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 14:24
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Random Stranger posted:It's based on one of the novels that created those cliches, so I'd give them a pass on that one. Oh wow, really? I'd never heard that before, and after doing a bit of cursory digging, the books/author seem to have sailed me by all these years.
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Feb 1, 2021 14:48
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inscrutable horse posted:Oh wow, really? I'd never heard that before, and after doing a bit of cursory digging, the books/author seem to have sailed me by all these years. Well, how many 80's cyberpunk novels can anybody name other than Neuromancer?
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Feb 1, 2021 15:14
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I was part of an Ultima fan group about the time Ultima 9 was being worked on, and people were pretty excited to get a game about breaking that cycle of getting one hero to solve everyone's problems. 9 went through so many iterations, it's a shame it ended up a mish mash of ideas.
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Feb 1, 2021 15:59
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