Ultima series

I picked up the ultima pack off gog during their summer sale, fired up 1, 2 and 3 just to see what they look like. It was quite confusing not knowing what any of the buttons do. I accidentally stole a bunch of weapons from a castle and got killed by the guards lol. Then I read the manual for 1. I'm shocked the hotkeys aren't listed in there. These games definitely hearken back to a time when computer gaming was more niche and nerdy and the gamers were fascinated with figuring stuff out on their own and playing challenging games. I mean go read an original wizardy review- that game looks downright appalling in difficulty. But I do remember myself as a wee lad figuring out all of civ 1 with no manual at no internet, just experimenting and guessing what stuff was like production shields and food icons.

Anyway, back to ultima. 1 is the dos remake and it looks far better than the 2 and 3 I got so I will probably play through it first. Anyone have any thoughts or tips for a brand new ultima player? How long approximately are these games?

I read that the dungeons are randomly generated. Is that right? But the overworld is not?

I don't remember the first Ultima games much. I played them, but even when I revisited them in the late 90s I didn't have the courage to go through with them. I don't remember about the random generation, but I think the overworld is not randomly generated.

Ultima 5 is about as far back as I'm ready to go nowadays. The earlier games are interesting for their wacky stories. You might be interested in Spoony's (from Spoony experiment) videos about all the Ultima games... He did a great job talking about them, but it has many spoilers. Ultima 6 and 7 are absolutely awesome games still to do this day, especially 7. Ultima 8 was kind of an obtuse mess but still pretty good, I am oddly attached to this game because of the context of the time during which I played it.

Ultima Ascencion I only played a long time ago, on computers that could barely take it. It was potentially great, but disappointing in the end. Buggy and messy...

If I booted up an Ultima game today, it'd be Ultima 7. Maybe I should do that this year...

Also Might and Magic 5 (with Xeen!).

Yeah it sounds wacky cus you end up in a spaceship at some point. In a fantasy/medieval setting game.

There is a remake of Ultima V called Ultima V: Lazarus. It's a total conversion mod for Dungeon Siege, so it needs Dungeon Siege installed to run. The mod tries to make Ultima V more like Ultima VII, with the same kind of dialogue boxes and character portraits, and expands on the plot and conversations, and a re-done score. The one problem I found is when sailing a ship. The way it's done in the mod is when you enter a ship, arrows appear over the screen and you have to click the arrows to sail the ship. This is where I found the game was most likely to crash.

When installing Ultima V: Lazarus, it is recommended to also install some other mods, like the bugfix collection.

The only one I played was the last one Ultima IX. But it was far too ahead of its time, as though they tried to make Oblivion using DX 6.0 and turned any computer into a potato.

bhavv said:

The only one I played was the last one Ultima IX. But it was far too ahead of its time, as though they tried to make Oblivion using DX 6.0 and turned any computer into a potato.

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Pretty much! My friend had a cutting edge PC when it came out and it still chugged along at 15-20 frames per second, or at good frames-per-second with sudden long moments of being frozen.

But that wasn't the only problem with the game. The characters were all dumb, the quests tedious, the game mechanics awkward. There weren't that many redeeming qualities frankly.

It didn't even run on my Geforce 3 upgrade at the time. Though it ran wonderfully on my GTX 680s, finally.

I never got the fixed version that they released later, I wonder if the GoG version is the less buggy one, but its not worth paying for.

I actually really liked the puzzles in the dungeons, and it was pure eye candy at the the time, and fortunately since I hadn't played any of the earlier ones, nothing was ruined for me and it was a decent RPG ... When played on a GTX 680.

I tried 1, 2 and 3 for about an hour each and just couldn't do it. 2 and 3 look downright terrible. 1 was redone with a decent color palette so I can stand it but I get so lost inside dungeons. This is old school gaming where you need to draw maps and junk. I guess I'm too spoiled! But I don't really see the point in reliving classic games that just don't quite hold up and simply aren't as fun as like replaying dragon age or skyrim now. I'm going to try 4 5 and 6 but not holding my breath.

civvver said:

I tried 1, 2 and 3 for about an hour each and just couldn't do it. 2 and 3 look downright terrible. 1 was redone with a decent color palette so I can stand it but I get so lost inside dungeons. This is old school gaming where you need to draw maps and junk. I guess I'm too spoiled! But I don't really see the point in reliving classic games that just don't quite hold up and simply aren't as fun as like replaying dragon age or skyrim now. I'm going to try 4 5 and 6 but not holding my breath.

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Yeah, I've retried a lot of old games for nostalgia, but hardly any of them kept my interest for long. Being ugly is only part of the problem. They're often just antiquated in a lot of ways we just take for granted now, whether it's interface, "quality of life" features, etc...

Don't approach Ultima 6 and 7 all pessimist-like because of your experience with the early games. 6 and 7 and pretty good. And as I said earlier, 7 is a classic, and was the main source of inspiration behind Divinity: Original Sin, the currently hot PC game everybody is talking about right now. I'd play 7 right now if I didn't have so many other games to play. If anything, stop burning yourself on the series and just go straight to 7. If you can't stomach THAT, I don't see you enjoying any of the previous games.

civvver said:

I tried 1, 2 and 3 for about an hour each and just couldn't do it. 2 and 3 look downright terrible.

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You can try the Ultima Patcher (found in the Miscellaneous section). It updates the graphics for Ultima 3.

Rub'Rum said:

Don't approach Ultima 6 and 7 all pessimist-like because of your experience with the early games. 6 and 7 and pretty good. And as I said earlier, 7 is a classic, and was the main source of inspiration behind Divinity: Original Sin, the currently hot PC game everybody is talking about right now. I'd play 7 right now if I didn't have so many other games to play. If anything, stop burning yourself on the series and just go straight to 7. If you can't stomach THAT, I don't see you enjoying any of the previous games.

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I played a bit of Ultima 7. From that short time it came off almost like a top down Elder Scrolls, except with better characters.

if you've played tibia online before, well tibia is pretty much what ultima online would have looked like if they use the U6 engine to make it. in fact i think some fans made an MMO version of U6, but the server went down years ago.

as for U7, i thought it was the best thing ever when i played it belatedly back in 1996. except the battle system is terrible, bugs as usual, and pickpocketing NPCs, and the 2nd part: serpent isle is very linear and kind of foreshadows U8, in the sense that you cause a hella lot of death & destruction to beat the game.