something, something about Ultima IV

[Lord_Santa]

this isn't quite a review, but rather a rambling, or journal of sorts, which I'll try to update, during progress

nothing spectacular, but nonetheless something about this true marvel of a game

backstory/ramble

growing up with friends, whom had the (graphically) superior Amiga 500; I managed to play some titles, not as easily available for the Commoodore 64, hence I stumbled upon the Ultima series

't was Ultima V, which introduced me into a completely different way of cRPG, from what I'd experienced with the Bard's Tale series, which was my favorite at the time

having spent time in Skara Brae, in Bard's Tale and having the opportunity to import Ultima III characters into Bard's Tale II - Destiny's Knight, I already knew a little about the Ultima universe

Ultima V is the middle installment, in the "Age of Enlightenment", which occurs after "The Age of Darkness"

I've yet to try out Ultima 0-III for any substansial amount of time in order to figure out what happens in Sosaria (the Universe/Lands, which the first installments I-III occurs)

but I do know that Ultima III is sub-titled "Exodus", so I gather that Lord British and his people made it to Britannia instead

I've long been trying to (re)start the Ultima series, but I've no intentions of starting with Ultima 0; instead I'm experiencing the adventures of Britannia and hopefully I'll be able to go through the remainding episodes of this highly regarded cRPG-series

this may all take a while, fi I manage to finish it, so I excuse in before-hand, if there's going to be necromancy-threading on this one

Entry I:

Ultima IV - Thus far (ca. 35,000 moves later, Avatar lvl. 6)

Party consisting of:

Avatar
Iolo
Dupre
Jaana

the game's finally opening up and the opponents are bigger and meaner than ever
there's Demons, both Blue and Red, the Blue ones being Magicians, abusing the "sleep" spells

much bigger crowds of monsters, etc. since the first "step" (yes. a functional version of leveled monsters.) is at 20,000 moves and the last at 40,000 moves

at 40,000 moves all Hell is unleashed upon you and your crew, so make sure to use those moves wisely and gain enough XP and equipment to stand a chance

still (re)-learning the fucking spell system, which enforces you to first *create* the spell from ingredients, before being able to use it

and since you need to use the keyboard to enter the *word* which casts the spell, you also need to learn this

the shrines, where Avatar is going to meditate upon virtues, require not only that you have achieved the virtue in question, but you must also know the Mantra and obtain the Rune of the specific virtue, in order to enter

there are ships, albeit no "underworld" as in Ultima V, but the ocean is vast and there's plenty of islands to be found

included in all the "earlier" Ultima's was a cloth-map with the world on it

there is no form of auto-map and instead you [p]eer through a gem, in order to see your nearby surroundings

each level gained, you gain 100 HP, simple as that (and of course auto-skill in the rest of your stats)

I am not sacrificial enough for Julia to join me at the moment, but I'm handing out food and gold to beggars and other unfortunates like there's no tomorrow

buying horses to and fro, but always forget where I leave them off

when dead, the party respawns in Lord British's castle, with the words "Vertigo"
he pulls us from the surrounding Darkness of Oblivion into life once more

should the Avatar die, but the rest of the party survive, Lord British will pull the Avatar to life, upon visit

the world isn't quite as humongous as the coming installments in the series, but nonetheless huge

all conversation is handled through manually typing words to NPC's and notes are required, due to lack of journal

excellent time thus far.

:edit

of note should be that I am playing xu4 - Ultima IV remade

here is a link:

http://xu4.sourceforge.net/

Ultima IV is freely available legally,

side-note:

I own Ultima IV for Master System and have played long ways in that version
but this was many, many, many, many years ago and I have since displaced the game and sold off my Master System, hence my knowledge of the game is still at a minimum