Heh, I always, all this time, thought it was just called "Adventure" but seeing the 1975 versus 2023 comparison, man those beginning words do ring a bell.

I might have to look into that game... since I never did "finish" it back then. IIRC, back then you couldn't save or maybe it was just because of security concerns in the Pentagon that I couldn't save so each time I played it started with those same words and never did finish it.

I'm not sure I'm going to pay $25 for it though. Probably some internal bias in me that still thinks of it as a text game even though it's obviously not now, I dunno.
Yeah, I played all of the Bard's Tale and most of the Might and Magic too, but for some reason not Ultima. I'm not even really sure why, but for some reason I don't even remember knowing about it until I came to gog. I have tried playing some of the older games that I played before and sometimes have a hard time getting into them again. I guess that's what folks mean when they say some games don't age well.

But some do. I just played Betrayal at Krondor again during the pandemic and man it was just as fun, well almost as fun as when I first played it. I think I'm gonna give the Ultima series a fair shot.

Jajaja andysheets1975, that sounds pretty close & awesome indeed!
Why sometimes the past feels easier & lighter?...

Thanks for sharing a bit OldFatGuy!
I didnt know about Wang computers
Ive spend the last hour reading about them. Lucky you! :)

Had their own OS that I had to go to.... wait for it... Wang school to learn. lol It was in Crystal City (not far from the Pentagon) where I first learned how to use Wang DOS. It wasn't until a few years later that I learned MS-DOS, which was very, very, similar.

Yep, its what Ive been reading. I even found a little vault of software here

wang2200.org/vmedia.html


And entangling another topic:

Why dont you like WASD?
Is it about keyboard layouts?
like Wang seemed to have their own...

Personally, I consider joysticks/gamepads an achievement on the vgaming history
yep, limited as the number of buttons available but still,
a step in the right direction to the perfect controller
I mention it to show I dont seek to antagonize when asking :)

Yeah, it's just ease of use. The controller is just way, way easier to use. And it's not worth the effort to me to play a game in that manner (WASD) when there are a billion other games I can play with an easy to use, comfortable, small, single unit, input device that works just fine. Better IMO.

That reminds me that I had a high school teacher (computer repair) who was one of the top VPs at Wang before he went into teaching. Kind of an odd guy. His class was fun because it was more like a 2 hour break in the afternoon. I didn't learn a single thing.

Wow, who are you people?! :)

Wizardry 1-5 need graph paper, unless you're playing one of the later console ports (SFC/SNES or later, generally).

Same with Bard's Tale 1 and 2 (except the remaster and the 2GS version of 2).

Demon Lord Reincarnation also needs graph paper, as the developer deliberately did not include an automap.

(Of course, you could try and do these games mapless, but it can be a challenge, especially if you aren't already familiar with these games; from what I understand, MM1 might be the easiest of these to try and do mapless.)

Wizardry has always been superior to Ultima and most other RPGs of its era when it comes to combat and the class system. If you ask an Ultima fan why any Ultima game (except maybe 3) is so good, their answer is likely not going to have anything to do with the game's combat and growth systems.

(By the way, the Dark Savant Trilogy (Wizardry 6-8, all available on GOG) has a playable race of cat people.)

I'm not really an old gamer per-se. I'm nearing my 30s but I was raised on games older than I, as well as game consoles older than I. That said, I have no nostalgia for the series, as I started playing Ultima not long after I joined GOG, since I'm a big fan of The Elder Scrolls and Ultima was a huge influence on TES.

That being said, it's hit-or-miss for me. The first four (including Akalabeth) are pretty much too dated and too similar to warrant a playthrough unless you're a completionist or really hardcore. Ultima 4 and 5 have really interesting plots (especially 4, which was really unique for its time), but they also have really dated gameplay. Ultima 6 has a load of ambition and jumped to a more isometric graphics style but has really weird design quirks. I haven't played the two Ultima 6 spinoffs (both are freebies here on GOG) but I've heard good things about both.

However, Ultima 7 is considered by many (myself included) to be the peak of the series. It refined most of Ultima 6's design issues, set it in a massive world packed full of content. It's also effectively two games in one, with each game having an expansion pack of its own; this is the only Ultima I put a reasonable amount of time into. Its plot isn't as interesting as Ultima 4 and 5 but it has classic, nerdy high fantasy charm to it.

Ultima 8 was divisive but I don't mind it for the most part. They went for an action RPG approach, and I tend to prefer action-based combat anyways, but I also do see the frustrations with 8 since it likewise abandoned the world of Britannia and all of the high fantasy world building the series was known for, trading it for a relatively nonsensical dark fantasy tone that was clearly trying too hard to rip off of Diablo. Still, I consider it worth playing; it was the first Ultima I ever played, as I had it as a freebie from EA's Origin platform way back when.

Then, Ultima 9... I can't really speak on that one, as I haven't played it yet. I know a LOT of people hate it, though, as it was rushed and EA apparently pressured Origin Systems into developing a game that'd appeal a lot more to newcomers, rather than franchise fans, which resulted in a dumbed down, goofy game that evidently abandoned most of what the series was known for ("What's a paladin?"). Again, can't speak on it as I haven't actually played it yet, but I've heard many say that Gothic was the "real" Ultima 9 in that Gothic was what Ultima 9 could have been, if EA didn't push Origin Systems to rush and dumb down the game.

As for the Underworld games, I've only played the first one and not a whole lot. It's fun, but very clunky by today's standards. If you have patience for that, absolutely go for it because the ideas are great, it's just hard to jump into unless you're willing to be patient with a very old school dungeon crawler RPG.

I got the entire franchise on sale for an extremely reasonable $11 (and some odd cents) and I'm absolutely satisfied with that purchase. Even though the games are a bit hit-or-miss and even though most of them are hopelessly outdated & clunky, they're a piece of gaming history that every cRPG fan needs to own and at least try to enjoy! If you're hesitant, I'd recommend trying Ultima 4 or maybe the two Worlds of Ultima games, as those three games are freebies. Maybe even Akalabeth, but that's not technically part of the Ultima series and it's the most outdated of them all.

That refinement of design issues comes at a cost, as it introduced new design issues that its predecessor did not have, as I mentioned in my earlier post. In fact, I think Ultima 6 has the best combat in the series (which unfortunately is somewhat wasted, as that particular entry de-emphasizes combat compared to its predecessors), while Ultima 7 has perhaps the worst.

This is actually a problem throughout the series: For every Ultima game other than the first, there's at least one thing that it handles worse than its predecessors.

In fact, I can mention some of these issues:
* Ultima 2: Spells are only usable in dungeons, and dungeons are optional, making spells pointless. Also, stat growth is handled in a horrible random fashion, making reloading because the wrong stat increased sometimes necessary (especially since, if a stat gets too high, it rolls over and becomes small).
* Ultima 3: You now have multiple party members, each with separate inventories. This means you now need to worry about who is carrying what, and need to enter extra commands to trade items between party members; this is especially annoying when it comes to food (though at least running out of food is no longer instant death).
* Ultima 4: You need reagents for even the most basic of spells. This actually makes certain spells, like Missile and Open, practically useless.
* Ultima 5: Random shadowlord appearances in towns, so you basically have to rest 24 hours and try another day. Also, it gets dark at night, making navigation annoying. (Earlier Ultima games have no day/night cycle.) Also, leveling up is annoying; in order to level up once you've earned enough XP, you have to rest and hope that the ghost of Lord British appears when you rest, which means you're now at the mercy of the RNG if you want to benefit from the XP you earned.
* Ultima 6: Back to having separate inventories for each character. Also, due to towns being at the same scale as the overworld, the overworld is too massive to explore, making it a pain to travel that way; in fact, most travelling is done through the Orb of the Moons rather than actually walking because of this.

Thanks! That really does help my prioritize these games!

You're right about Ultima in that it's always the plot/story (unless you're talking about Underworld.) I've never heard anyone say that they enjoy the game's mechanics. Might and Magic 2 was fun for everything, including the giant stacks of 100+ monsters, but it quickly falls into what story?