I had owned the Ultima series for a little while on GOG, and now that I'm not really immersed in any other game I decided to give it a whirl.

Starting with Ultima I.

I spent a long while figuring out what's what, got myself killed a few times (usually bats, sometimes overworld enemies).

Eventually I ended up finding out that health comes back when you kill some enemies in the dungeon, then leave. I ground that up for a while, keeping at least 300 life to keep myself alive.

Got a Bow & Arrows, which makes a huge difference on the overworld (still can't figure out how to attack diagonally though).

I eventually stumbled upon a few sign posts which gave me stat-boosts. At this point I had decided to start mapping everything out, which took me hours.

Now I have every stat at 99 except strength (since the stat gains are diminishing for that, and not for any other stat), a blaster, reflector armor and an aircar. (which seems to have built-in lasers :D)

After buying a few drinks I discovered I'm supposed to rescue a princess as a Space Ace at level 8. I knew from watching Spoony's Ultima Retrospective that you go into space to become a Space Ace, and I think I read it in the manual too.

I saved, flew into space, bumped into a few things, realized the thing on the left was the planet I came from, went into hyperspace several times, realized I was almost out of fuel, got lost, ran into tie-fighters and just ran out of fuel.

I tried again, this time playing conservatively and still ran out fuel!

I looked up that I have to dock at a station to buy a vehicle with better fuel capacity... but I can't do it!

You have to be pixel perfect to dock!

I keep trying and keep failing and it BURNS through fuel even doing this stupidly particular maneuver...

I didn't think this would be where I cut my experience short but I'm losing interest.

I think I'm going to go onto Ultima II.

lol If you can't handle Ultima I (and I understand, it took me forever to get the hang of docking), I'd suggest you skip II and head straight for Exodus. Exodus is slightly more coherent than II or I and it drops most of the crazy from the first two.

Luckily, there's no docking in II if you do decide to continue on. I enjoyed them both when I played them a couple years ago so I do recommend them.

Docking is not that hard. It requires some training, but you should be able to do it on - let's say - 5th try.

But yeah, the space part is annoying, but you are almost at the end - I recommend not to give up. Ultima 2 is a bad game, play it only if you want to complete the whole Ultima series. U3 is a lot better game.

I did it! I got through and found out how to dock. Then after I lost all my money by refueling without thinking I became a space ace and couldn't seem to retrieve my shuttle, so I flew my ship back to Earth(the planet, anyway) and died, losing 5k food, 5k health and about 370 gold :D

BUT AT LEAST I'M A SPACE ACE! IT'S ALL GOOD.

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Beat Ultima 1! It was quite an experience.

Started Ultima 2. : | This feels like a crappy prototype for Ultima 1, how did this come to be?

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I come into these old series planning on playing every little bit of them... but I dunno, I liked Ultima 1 since it was simple and I could at least tell what was going on, but in both 2 and 3 I find myself not sure what's going on a decent bit of the time.

You must surely know this by now, but the Ultima I you completed was a remake published in 1986, about five or six years after the original game, which was only available on the Apple II (and the Atari 800, a little after the fact). Ultima II was the first game in the series to be available for multiple platforms right away, so that is actually the older game when it comes to the world of MS-DOS.

The Ultima I remake was based somewhat on the engine for IV and featured true 16-color EGA graphics, which is why it looks more modern than II and III.

It had been a while since you'd wondered that originally and I figured you might have come across that information somehow by this point. (Or at least noticed the copyright dates on both games and thought it odd that Ultima I carries a date four years later than its immediate sequel.) ^^;

I have never played any of the Ultima games before (except Ultima Underworld), and honestly I never looked into the other Ultima games very much at all. But you have just singlehandedly convinced me to play Ultima 1. (I love the gonzo mixing fantasy and sci-fi). It's now on my list, thank you, +1 :)!!

:D I'm glad! I think Ultima 1 is actually pretty enjoyable.