/vr/ - Retro Games

I don't think anything on the planet confused me more than this game when I was 8 years old. I wanted to know everything about it but I found myself running around in circles.

Later my mom took it away from me because it promoted WITCH CRAFT!!
What a dumb cunt.

Would play again/10

>>1726438
not really
last good ultima game was serpent isle

Yes

>>1726442
Your mother did you a favour.

>>1726445
>last good ultima game was Ultima IV

fix'd

Only to see how far the Ultima series fell.

Best way to experience it is to read it the play through on it-he software

>>1726445
Serpent Isle is pretty bad.

What's a paladin?

>>1727975
a class wow invented

>>1726442

LOL ... i recall my mum (aus) confronting me being really concerned that i was practising some kind of dark sorcery or something because i left a whole pile of spell notes from ultima VII in the bathroom.

was about 14 at the time .. told her it was for a game and had no idea about the ingredients or really cared.

you just reminded me about that .. thanks for the lulz

as for IX

ehhh ... its not that great now .. back then it was pretty good

>>1726438

The series went to shit as soon as they went from tactical, strategic turn-based combat and simple inventory management to real-time clusterfucks and ridiculous proliferations of bags with thousands of tiny little pissbits in them.

So like... 4 or 5?

Watch Spoony's Ultima videos.

>>1728006
6 had turn based battles and a slot based inventory.
Underworld had real time combat and slot inventory but it wasn't a clusterfuck.
7 went full retard with chaotic battles and inventory.
9 went back to the situation in Underworld.

>>1728008
Don't do this. They're complete crap and misrepresent the whole series.

>>1728008
This.
I did it myself, and now I'm basically an oldtime Ultima fan, yet it saved me a lot of time actually playing the games.

As for IX...
WHATS A PALADIN LOL
GET IT? GET IT? *WINK* *WINK*

If you don't get it, you're a newfag and should watch Spoony. You'll learn a lot of other jokes that ultima oldfags (like me) use.

Are the first 2 Ultima games playable or should I just start at 4?

>>1728008

I'd rather not.

>>1728067
2 is the only one I would call unplayable. It had some cool ideas but they were ruined by the game design.

1 is simple fun. Playing it won't make a big difference for the rest of the series but the investment into it is minor.

3 is a decent game.

I'm sorry but what? Who are the gargoyles?

>>1728161
That's making the game look worse than it is.

>>1727975
A miserable little pile of ashes!

>>1728194
>>1728161

/r/ing a screenshot of the broken glass on the museum floor.

>>1728337
The cursed glass that won't go away no matter how hard you sweep.

>tfw I am the only living being who genuinely liked Ultima IX

>>1728489
I enjoyed it. It's not perfect but it turned out far better than I had feared.

>>1728489
Personally I didn't care that they fucked with the lore. Ultima always had problem keeping it straight. Yeah they made him stupid to help give players an idea on the history of the world. But it was either that or had the player basically read a book on everything that happened which is equally as bad.

My main problem really is EA once again rushed everything. The devs never had proper time to actually fix any of the problems so everything felt really out of place. Also I never really gave a fuck about the Guardian and felt the little jab at EA could have been better if it was something small and not a major villain of 3 games.

>>1728512

Sure, the Origin guys slipped on a few details here and there, but come on, UIX's lore fuckups were way more often, and on a much higher magnitude, than any of the previous games. I mean shit, they fuck up which principles the virtues are derived from.

>>1728526
Oh I agree but I still feel it was mostly because of a rush project over Origin being stupid. But I could be wrong and could be Origin just stopped caring because they knew what was going to happen soon anyways.

>>1728512
It wasn't entirely rushed like Pagan or Serpent Isle. EA let it fester for years and then decided to push for a release and tie all sorts of previously developed content together with some generic plot so they could make the retro cutoff. They went through several lead designers and design phases and the final product is a clusterfuck of everything.

The guardian and the whole concept of a recurring villain had been a stupid idea from the start. Trying to plan out a whole trilogy of games was a disaster.

>>1728532
Yeah I've heard that. Guess too many cooks in the kitchen is a problem too. Honestly VII onward had a lot of problems mostly the developers hating EA so much they put it in their games when it made the game suffer because if it.

>>1728532
>They went through several lead designers
Hah, I remember the articles about del Castillo, his plot and him leaving.

>>1726438
Anyone got any tips for Ultima III? Just finished I and II the other weekend, but III is pretty overwhelming. Got my party annihilated twice, and it's pretty frustrating with the autosave system

>>1728008
>>1727975
>What's a paladin?
>I'm not entirely sure
>Your knowledge of the land shall be great
>The codex of ultimate wisdom?
Repeat a hundred times and you have spoony's Ultima 9 video

>>1728489
It's kinda like Gothic's retarded brother. It's not that bad in itself.

>>1728526
Ultima 6 is the worst offender because they literally rewrote the entire history and all previous parts. 9 has nothing compared to that.

>>1728619
videos*
Excuse me.

>>1728619
Confirmed for not actually watching the video because there's also BETRAYALLLLL

>>1728634
that was just the first one though

>>1728618
What party did you run?
Ranged weapons are king. Try to line up your party so the enemy has to face the whole brunt as he moves toward you.
Priest spells are vital. Mage spells can be useful but aren't as necessary.
Thieves aren't critical, Clerics can also disarm traps.
Stealing is a useful source of income. With a horse it's possible to evade guards and flee the town. Killing citizens for xp and loot can also pay off. Some towns are especially suited for raiding them over and over again.
Your starting stats will remain the same for large parts of the game so spellcasters will need maximum wisdom/intelligence to get enough spellpoints to cast even low level spells.

>>1728674
What's the deal with leveling up and healing your party in this game? I found a Cleric in Lord British's castle, but he seemed really expensive for healing.

My party was Paladin, Thief, Cleric, and Mage.

>>1728562
EA hatred was also present in 6 with the dread pirate Hawkins.
It's hard to understand how they let EA win and ruin the company since they seemed to be well aware of how evil EA is.

>>1728684
Heal with Sanctu. If you have a cleric and a paladin with wisdom 20 you should be able to cast it regularly.
You're leveled by Lord British after gaining enough experience. After five levels he will tell you to seek the mark of kings which can be found in some of the dungeons.

>>1727997
>back then it was pretty good
no it fucking wasn't

jesus.

>>1729954
It had performance issues back then. Nowadays it runs a lot better.

I have no idea why, but VII's inventory system is so appealing to me

>>1731381
Maybe you like chaos or you enjoy obsessively trying to bring order into the packs. You could also find it's more realistic to have an inventory that can swallow important items if you aren't careful.

>>1731658

Not him, but I've never entirely understood why people had trouble with U7's inventory system. I mean, that's the point of bags, to keep shit organized. And subdivide by character. I always gave the Avatar all the quest items, money went to Iolo, Spark, Shamino, and Sentri, Dupre held the food, and whichever jackoffs I got after that could hold onto tools and other miscellania.

>>1727009
>not liking 6
c'mon man. The console version was shit but pc was good.

>>1731673
It's worst in 8 where you can't split it over the party and SI where you need various tiny items and plot events will ruin all your order but still annoying to frustrating in 7.
The problem is less how to store items but how to retrieve a specific one without causing further chaos.

>>1731846
Compared to the shit they pulled with 4 and 5 and the stuff they did with 7, the SNES port of 6 isn't too bad.
I missed the portraits because they really added to the dialogs and the controls aren't as great as keyboard+mouse but the C64 port was a lot worse.

>>1728625
Are you referring to the relationship between Mondain, Minax, Exodus and the Avatar?

>>1732567

Probably that and the suddenly flat world.

So which Ultimas would /vr/ recommend?

I'm thinking of getting 4, 5, 6, underworld and Ultima 7: The Black Gate, Ultima 7: Forge of Virtue, Ultima 7 Part Two: Serpent Isle, Ultima 7 Part Two: The Silver Seed on Gog. Any others I should get?

>>1734043
4, SE and MD are free on gog so maybe start with those.
5 6 7 and Underworld are strongly recommended as well.
Forge of Virtue and Silver Seed are shitty addons but since they're always included there's no way to avoid them.
1-3 can be interesting to play but aren't worth as much as 5+6 or 7.
8 is not worth it.
9 is underrated but not the best bang for your buck.
Consider pirating them and the buying the ones you enjoyed.

>>1734073
If I may make an addition to that should you play 1,2,3, & 5 there's an excellent port of them on the FM-Towns, in English, and the first 3 come with some sweet new intros, which are sadly in Japanese only. IV is best played with the upgrade patch and xu4, 6 with Nuvie, and 7 with Xult. At this moment I'm not sure whether 8 is completable in Pentagram.

>>1734082
The Towns port of 5 isn't outstanding. The PC98 and X68000 are graphically the best but they're entirely in Japanese. Playing the patched IBM-DOS allows you to transfer a character from 4 and to 6.

For 3 the Towns port has the wrong music. I'd recommend the patched IBM/DOS version instead.

Pagan is completable in Pentagram.

With Exult you can use two notable mods: Keyring and SI fixes. Keyring adds some missing functionality to Black Gate, SI Fixes inserts some content that was left out in Serpent Isle and fixes some annoying or game breaking problems.

>>1734073

>9 is underrated

Not saying you're wrong, but how?

>>1734226
Because it's not the worst thing ever like some people make it out to be.
Most criticism focuses on the writing, how it is different from Ultima VII or how unplayable it was back in 1999.

>>1734260

It seems like certainly among the worst games ever. And its engine doesn't work very well now. It isn't like all the bugs have been patched.

And since when does god-awful writing not make a game shit? Especially in the Ultima series? I still don't see how you're claiming it's 'underrated'.

>>1734264

Spoony. Spoony everywhere.

>>1734264
>And since when does god-awful writing not make a game shit? Especially in the Ultima series? I still don't see how you're claiming it's 'underrated'.

It's an ok game. Shame what it could've been, but you can thank EA.

>>1734226
Most of the detractors only watched the Spoony video.

>>1734264
>And since when does god-awful writing not make a game shit?
Because it's a game and not a novel. There's more to it than the plot and the plot isn't even remarkably bad, just overly generic.
The engine works well enough now. The hardware requirements were a big problem when it was originally released but should hardly matter nowadays.

>>1734294

It's not the plot (which is bad, not just "generic"), it's the shit-tier execution, the bad characterization, and the fucking up of pretty serious Ultima issues, like which virtues are derived from which principles.

>>1734293

And for those of us who were ultima dragons back in the day and despise 9?

>>1734272
>>1734293

>make good arguments for why it isn't underrated at all
>'lol you're just mindless disciples of a well-known mega-autist lol'

>>1734315
>like which virtues are derived from which principles.
Where was that ever a serious issue?

>>1734292
You can blame EA for ruining Serpent Isle and Pagan due to rushing for a release but with Ascension the problem lies in Origin themselves. Given the direct predecessors I don't think it could have been much better.

>>1734326
Did you play it?

>>1734341

Didn't EA demand the engine be changed from isometric to third-person some time late in the process? And weren't they instrumental in gutting the lore so idiots would be able to play it?

Don't get me wrong, Origin ruined Ultima as soon as they took out turn-based combat imo, but EA definitely shares most of the blame for U9 being a horrible abomination.

>>1734346

I tried to, a few years after it came out and just recently. I can't force myself to get very far, and I certainly won't ever finish it. It's fucking garbage.

>>1734319
You guys are ok.

>>1734350
I don't think switching to 3D was a bad idea, Underworld worked great with 3D while Pagan didn't work in isometric.

>And weren't they instrumental in gutting the lore so idiots would be able to play it?
That was Richard Garriot. Every Ultima sold better than its predecessor so he thought he should make them more beginner friendly.

>>1734330

If you're going to be a game where your protagonist is a kind of mystical champion of a set of virtues, and draws his strength from them, you should at least get the virtue system down properly.

Of course, in the journal, the Avatar writes that

>The secrets of Justice can be found within the combination of Truth and Courage.

Which is dead wrong. Does it make the game unplayable? No, not really. I doubt too many people even read the journal. But it's just incredibly fucking lazy and stupid. The fact that they made an error so basic is offensive.

>>1734364

>that was richard garriot?

I have a lot of admiration for the guy even if, knowing him, I don't have a problem believing that.

What's your source though?

>>1734369
fans.txt from the patch for Pagan.

With each Ultima we have created, we have made massive changes
in technology, interface and approach. This pattern was started with the
first few Ultimas. Back in those days we were just learning how to make
games. By the time one was finished it was clear that there was a much
better way, so the best plan was usually to start over from scratch.
Interestingly, it had another effect as well. Since each game was really,
measurably, noticeably better than its predecessor, it also sold better.
Whereas, most of Ultima's competitors, were cranking out sequels in the
same old engine and selling to a subset of their initial market. So our
pattern of innovation and experimentation that began as a learning
experience became a powerful tool to insure success.

With each new game it is always the interface and play style
experiments that cause the most debate. With each product it is interesting
to note how changes we have made are received. I remember how much
debate there was about converting from keyboard control to mouse control,
a decision I am very pleased with now. There is still an ongoing debate
about 'mono scale maps' like we have had in the last few Ultimas. In fact it
appears that for Ultima IX we are going to have two scales, town scale and
outdoor travel scale. This will allow more interesting travel by horses,
ships, dragons and such. I'm sure these debates will continue. Probably the
most debated play style changes, though, came in Ultima VIII.

>>1734382

Oh. I meant source for the claim that he was responsible for gutting the lore.

>>1734365
It's not dead wrong. Justice is love and truth while truth and courage is honor. It's a simple mixup that's easily overlooked.
The games after Ultima 5 didn't even explain the virtues in the manual and in some cases they aren't even present in the game.

>>1734387
In Ultima VIII, we worked very hard to reach a lofty goal of audio
visual impact. We wanted the Avatar to be seen in greatly detailed
animation. We wanted it to feel like you were really there. In addition we
were concerned by the fact that Ultimas had become so big, that only hard
core gamers were willing to play them. They were especially daunting to
new, non-Ultima-playing gamers. So we decided to really focus on the
scope and pace of the game to try to reach some of this 'new' audience. To
a large degree, we succeeded at many of our goals. Ultima VIII is easily the
most beautiful Ultima to date; the animation is smooth and detailed. This
helped draw new players to the product who had never bothered to look
before, especially in Europe. This did, however, come at some cost.

Many aspects of what people had grown accustomed to in an Ultima
were less emphasized, and some new aspects felt a bit out of place. And,
overall, there was so much change that I think we had not yet mastered the
new style. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20...

We have studied and examined Ultima VIII, considered customer
feedback, and debated new directions for Ultima IX. We have come up
with a plan that, we believe, will retain the strong advancements we made
in Ultima VIII and really give people the epic game that will be worthy of
the last game in the trilogy of trilogies!

Origin has always prided itself on strong customer interaction.
Customer feedback consistently mentioned issues with the implementation
of jumping, the arcade feel, a frustrating user interface, holes in the
storyline, and low interactivity. The design of Ultima IX (which is still in
progress) relies heavily on this feedback and has resulted in a dramatic
turnaround back toward classic role playing. Even better, it has resulted in a
classic Britannian Ultima.

>>1734326
Okay, I'm a faggot
I guess I just hate Ultima threads turning into "What's a paladin lol"

>>1734442
>>1734442

But UIX is (at least supposedly) about the virtues. I mean, apparently the columns of anti-virtue are mass mind control devices which can only be dispelled by the power of the shrines.

To mix up the principles behind a virtue I still say would be inconceivable in an earlier Ultima, but one that was supposed to bring them back into focus is a bad joke.

It tucks in very neatly with the bad directions you get in Yew to the shrine, and makes me strongly suspect that whomever was coding this thing had cursorily glanced at some notes for previous ultimas, if even that.

I wanna get into this series, but I kinda find the UI of Ultima 4 to be bad.
Is the Master System version good? From what I hear it's a 1:1 port of the PC version, only with streamlined controls, so you get a menu for dialog, instead of typing shit in, or using bazillion keys for different things, like K for Climbing and that confusing as fuck way to navigate the menus to cast spells.

>>1734628
>From what I hear it's a 1:1 port of the PC version
No. They removed the first person view in the dungeons but there's nothing really wrong with that.

Spells in U4 are easy since there's one spell for every letter of the alphabet.

>>1734478

I apologize, but I don't see Garriot saying that he's going to disregard everything about the lore of Ultima.

In fact, he's describing a game that decidedly was not U9.

>>1734652
I mean I got to the first dungeon on my own by wandering around, and I didn't really like the First Person Perspective thing, so this might be cool.
Also, fuck Castle British, shit is a beginners trap, I looted all the chests in the treasure then I got told that I am a giant dick, so I had to restart. I did find one rune there though by accident

>>1734661
U9 didn't disregard everything about the lore of Ultima but he didn't want to make a game that's only playable to people who experienced the whole series.
Obviously U9 turned out different than he imagined in 1994, notably it didn't have the multiple scale or travel by dragons he mentioned.

>>1734586
> bad directions you get in Yew to the shrine
What now? The shrines are on your map.
The position of the shrines and towns had changed throughout the games.

What bothered me in Yew was that I had to ask for the mantra to advance the plot, which wasn't necessary in the other towns.

>>1734706

No, that's right, I made a mistake. When you read the Book of Justice (a la Vasagralem's directions) it tells you that the Quill of Justice, not the shrine, is northeast of Yew, not southeast like it really is.


Still, not the same thing, and I'm sorry for jumping at it. Been a very long time since I played.

>>1732623
It's not flat, you loop around just fine when you use the hot-air balloon.

>>1734628
be careful with the SMS version, i ran into a bug in the ROM i used where the game couldn't advance.
some stone wasn't where it was supposed to be
other than that, it was great. pretty much exactly like the PC version, but a better interface

>>1735313
I don't understand how the Gargoyle world is supposed to work. It has a day and night cycle despite being in the underworld.

>>1735819
Yeah the concept of the Underworld changed dramatically from V to VI.

It must be some kind of interdimensional folding space. Those crazy ladderholes....

>>1735826
As much as I like 6 I have to admit that the Gargoyles were poorly handled.
They're just sitting at the shrines and once you reach their world the game is almost over.

>>1735532
The SMS version also has an oversight in some dialog - the clue where to look for the shrine of spirituality is skipped. If it's your first playthrough, you better know it beforehand.

For a game that I played back in 2000, it was actually really good.

Anyone play the Ultima remakes that were done in Dungeon Siege? Are they any gud?

I have good memories of it, nice soundtrack and visuals - but 7 and 8 were better IMO.

>>1741351
>Plotholes:the image

>>1728532
Oh yea. EA fucked up Serpent Isle with the Ghost bug that could screw up the entire game(If any1 plays, don't talk to the ghosts in the building on the way to the mint)

>>1741351
7 was already a mixed bag but how can anybody prefer 8? The thing fails in both gameplay and plot. The main positive elements are the animation and the intentions.

>>1741567
I recommend getting the SI fixes mod for exult. It adds some unused elements from the code and fixes various annoying and game ruining bugs.

>>1741551
I like how the Avatar, ankh symbol and all, is all the way back in the first trilogy.

>>1741626

>7 was a mixed bag

Subtle; smooth.

>>1741702
The Ultima VII engine is terrible and the gameplay is shit. In many areas it's a huge letdown compared to its predecessors.
Black Gate manages to get saved by its plot but in Serpent Isle it all falls apart due to overloading the engine and the rushjob of plot.

>>1741738

I'm not disagreeing with you. Wasn't that an inventory management joke?

>>1741740
Not intentionally.

>>1741698
Was the ankh ever clearly defined in its symbolism?
The Avatar was retconned to be the protagonist of the first trilogy in VI.

>>1741351
>8
>better than anything

all of my keks

>>1744241

>>>/v/

>>1741626
I thought 7 was a fantastic game. 8 obviously lacked the tremendous scope and depth of 7 but was still hugely playable. I also liked the plot. I did miss the character portraits when talking to NPCs though.

>>1744241
>not having the F8 Cheat Menu
Looks like you're screwed. Did anyone else have that cheat menu? Hours of fun back in the day.

After reading the thread a little more carefully it's a shame to see it's largely negative. I also looked up this "Spoony" guy's videos to see what all the fuss was about.

>HOLDS UP U8 DISC
>POORLY DESIGNED ABOMINATION! BLAH BLAH BLAH RUINATION HATE HATE HATE

Poisonous self-satisfied smug whining? As if life isn't too fucking short already. Switched it off right there, never to be watched again. Ultima rules, even the not-so-great ones.

>>1747219
Try playing 8 nowadays.
The biggest issue in my eyes are the controls. The platforming gameplay may have been passable if jumping didn't involve pressing both mouse buttons. Simple tasks such as walking take effort to not get stuck in doorways or fall into puddles.
The plot was ruined by EA pushing for a release so it ended up as fragmentary and disjointed. The finale is particularly lackluster and disappointing.
The game could have been good with a year or two more time of development but the thing we have is but a shadow of that.

>>1747219
I couldn't watch the spoony video, it was just too over-acted and forced
could tell he was raging not because actually upset but because nerdrage is the thing to do these days to generate views
like that Francis fatass

What's the best way to play Ultima VIII? Should I use Pentagram? Are there any patches I need to install for the GOG version?

>>1750516
Pentagram works fine.
The gog version contains the relevant patch.

>>1747219
Tfw you find the one golden plaque from the developers taunting you for using the hack mover.

>>1748123
Those videos are terrible. In the time he takes to make fun of the space shuttle in 1 you could actually finish the game.
The whole idea behind it is retarded as well sincce he wanted to show how much Ultima 9 betrayed him only to reveal that he only liked 3-5 anyway. Some parts made me question whether he played the games at all.
I really wish people would stop recommending and quoting that shit.

>>1741351
At least the Avatar is a proper Aryan

>>1750695

Actually he praised 6 and 7 a lot more than they deserve. 8 and 9 are both god-awful anyway. Especially 9.

Even if I liked action RPGs, they would still be awful. Anyway, Richard Garriot liked his videos enough to do a big interview series with him, so there's gotta be something there.

I mean it was at least partly to plug his new MMO (to which no fucking thanking you) but still.

>>1750942
He complained about the item system in 6 because he was too stupid to understand how to sift through items without picking up everything.
The worst part was the Underworld 2 "review" because it got pretty much everything wrong.
I wouldn't give too much on Richard Garriot nowadays. His work in the 80s was important but afterwards you had people like Warren Spector doing job.

Apparently Pentagram also works with the PC-9821 port.

>>1751013

>>1750942
I feel Richard Garriot mostly did that interview to push his new game more than him liking his video.

Also during his review of 9 he does talk about how the plop of 8 showed that there's no real pure good and pure evil. He just felt 8 was rushed and 9 was horrible. I mostly hate how he just picked on tiny little things that didn't even matter since Ultima never had a clear history. Nearly every game had tons of stuff that contradicted the last game.

I do like some of his videos but feel his raging reviews really annoys me. I never understood why people enjoy watching people scream and get upset at a game.

>>1727981
>A class WoW invented
>Being this fucking pleb

Go sit in the autistic corner Anon until you learn what Dungeons and Dragons is.

>>1751714
shhhh.

Don't feed the trolls.

>>1751249

I don't usually like angry reviewing, but Spoony generally does it well. I used to think it was a persona, and he usually seems exasperated rather than that sort of faux-rage so many of them do.

Then I saw some of his vlogs. That a person would genuinely get that angry about a fucking comic book movie is deeply disturbing.

To be fair, they did rape the lore like never before in U9.

>>1752571
And him basically bashing Pacific Rim 99% of the video but than feel the views are morons because he said he liked the movie.

>>1750695
>>1748123

I think the idea that a game can betray you is pretty dumb anyways.

Ultima is not your friend spoony, it's a product

I have my fair share of series that I feel went to shit and yeah it makes me a touch upset and dissapointed but there's a difference between that and BETRAYAL!

he acts like he's the only one who should be marketed too

>>1752761

In the time it takes Spoony to review a movie I could actually watch the movie in question. He's not even like the Red Letter Media guys where they elaborate in depth.

it's just him making his cop brother who shot a guy do stuff he doesn't want too

I for one enjoyed Ultima 8 immensely as a kid. It's damn near impossible to figure out without a walkthrough though.

Ultima VII is literally the best thing ever made by humans and someone less lazy than I am should do a thread on it tyvm