Ultima

Ultima 1 was actually not to bad to get through as long as you had a checklist FAQ or something to know where to go. I couldn't stand 2 though.

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7 BG and Underworld are my top tiers. Serpent Isle holds a special place in my heart

Exodus and those Runes of Virtue spinoffs for Game Boy were the only ones I enjoyed. The rest of the series is pretty garbage-tier, especially with sequels just being endless rehashes of Quest of the Avatar.

VII was pretty notable for breaking social norms at the time, though. The player could solicit members of the same sex if they were so inclined. Not sure how that got past the censors, unless the ratings regulators were simply too focused on consoles at the time.

UU2
5
UU1
6
MD
SE
4
9
BG
3
1
SI
2
8

>>3850596
Play III.

It's where the haphazard jumble you see in I & II snaps together into a real game

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>>3850630
>Not sure how that got past the censors, unless the ratings regulators were simply too focused on consoles at the time.
There were no censors or regulators. And they advertised it as "Voluntarily rated MP-13 (for mature players)".
The times were a lot different in 92 than in 83 when Exodus caused an outcry for encouraging stealing and murder and caused LB to make a game about being virtuous.

>especially with sequels just being endless rehashes of Quest of the Avatar.
None of the sequels has the same content as 4. The virtue system got simplified and you have a clearer plot line to follow.

>>3850681
>None of the sequels has the same content as 4.

They look, feel and play the same, at least up until VII. Ultima never brought back its rich class / race system that was ditched starting with QotA.

>The virtue system got simplified and you have a clearer plot line to follow.

Not what I was referring to.

>>3850708
The races in 3 weren't very exciting and the classes rather unbalanced.
How do they even look the same? If anything it's 3 that looks like 4. They also play more alike than the rest.
The main thing the others have in common is that you start with your avatar and meet new companions during your journeys, a model that was copied by tons of other games.

Underworld 1 and 2 can't be anywhere but God Tier, considering they're among the absolute best RPGs and games ever made.

>>3850596
I mostly agree with your list, but I put III in god tier as well. The freeform party is kinda nice and the game isn't half bad, even if it's more hack-and-slash than IV.

>>3850681
>you'll never even need to touch the keyboard!
Yeah, two buttons makes for a much more powerful interface than 100+ keys, British. The absolute madman ruined PC RPG interfaces for years with this shit.

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>>3851829
He didn't invent it. that shit was normal.
Remember Might & Magic where spells were numbers on radio buttons instead of names? Or Bard's Tale where you had to remember random four-letter codes to type in over and over during combat?

>>3852018
What fucking game is this? How do you play it, let alone beat it?

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>>3852721
https://youtu.be/QPhOHr1Ab2E?list=PLlBsb1mfs4bqAIuPHC0KToB9cQiCZ2n7o

>>3852018
Remembering abbreviations for spells wasn't that difficult and the numbers weren't that bad either.
The inventory and combat in Ultima 7 on the other hand were annoying to no end and they should have known better at that point.

Should i start IV before V? I keep reading that IV is outstanding, but the plot of V is quite compelling

>>3856661
V lives from being a sequel to IV. You return to a familiar world and find things changed.
Plus importing your avatar from 4 makes the start a bit easier.

>>3851829
>Yeah, two buttons makes for a much more powerful interface than 100+ keys, British.

It's true though. PC games (Ultima included) were shot before mice were commonplace. If you need a cheat sheet to figure out basic commands, you have a shit interface. I want to feel immersed in a fantasy world, not like I'm typing in vim.

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started playing IX a few days ago

people lied saying it was a bad game. It's a game of epic proportions on the same scale as morrowind or zelda.

I've beaten 3, 4, 6 and used to play UO and personally think it comes 2nd after UO. Pretty impressive for a game that came out a year after OoT.

>>3856674
Mouse orientated interfaces may be easier to get the hang of but it takes forever to get anything done without shortcuts and mouse based movement is awfully clumsy and slow. Good luck getting immersed when you don't actually directly control your character, but rather hope they feel like obeying your mouse commands properly.

>>3857958
Most you hear is overblown criticism of the writing and the difficulty of getting it to run.

>>3858163
>Good luck getting immersed when you don't actually directly control your character, but rather hope they feel like obeying your mouse commands properly.

You can say the exact same thing about keyboard controls. The only thing close to direct control of a character is motion control. Keyboard controls are the epitome of "clumsy and slow". Good luck getting immersed when you need to check a sheet of keyboard commands every 2 minutes to get your character to do what you want.

>>3857958

>It's a game of epic proportions

Ahahahahahahaha

>Ultima 4, it takes a long time of traveling, with several meals, to get from Britain to Yew, even assuming you don't get lost

>By Ultima 7, it takes about half a day, and there's a nice road.

>By Ultima 9, you can fucking SEE Yew from on top of Britain's walls.

Epic my ass.

>>3858610

How exactly is the criticism of the writing "overblown"? Do you remember the female gargoyles? Whom, by the way, the Avatar does not remember what they were despite the whole "False Prophet" thing? Do you remember the oracle in Moonglow, the one that the Avatar seems to be perfectly knowledgeable about despite it never appearing in any game before? Do you remember how half the dungeons shifted places, or how the inhabitants of Jhelom, after their town was destroyed, moved INTO THE DAMN VOLCANO despite being inveterate cowards one and all? And then there's the fucking Pyros thing. Because apparently you need a dead/depowered Titan to get into the Stygian abyss despite THAT never being a thing before. But of course we know the real reason, is that the video was shot for a previous version of the plot and they didn't want to waste the money in discarding it.


u9's writing was legitimately awful. A 10 year old could probably do just as well.

>>3859105
>after their town was destroyed, moved INTO THE DAMN VOLCANO despite being inveterate cowards one and all?
Didn't you pay attention? They did that to prove their courage.
A lot of stuff got retconned in the other games, 9 hardly stands out in that regard.


>By Ultima 7, it takes about half a day, and there's a nice road.
Less than that, travel in 7 is a joke. Paws is practically part of Britain and Trinsic is less than a stone throw away.
In 6 the towns were so far apart that the orb of the moons was mandatory.
9 did the scale a lot better.

>>3859127
Dude, 9 is smaller than 7, by a pretty fair bit. It only feels large (and barely that) because they stick artificial barriers around to railroad you. Once you get access to bread and can cross the oceans by jumping, you realize how tiny things are.

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>>3859143
Maybe it's smaller because the towns aren't sprawling everywhere and houses actually have more than one floor.
The roads are hardly a railroad, there's a lot of stuff to discover if you wander around.
Dungeons are also more than two rooms with a lever.

Even when you get command of the ship it takes a while to get around, which is why it's better to jump to the next port instead of navigating yourself.

>>3858773
But you don't. You remember the keys after your first time playing and it becomes quick and painless. Mouse only control remains slow and clumsy forever.

>>3859105
http://gigi.nullneuron.net/ultima/u9/
http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Removed_Ultima_IX_Cutscenes
http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Ultima_IX_Plot_Remnants


U7 looks real fun, but the font and the perspective strain my eyes. Does Exult solve anything?

Now, now. Ultima IX isn't as bad as Spoony made it out to be. It looks pretty damn good for the time, and has a few nice things here and there.

But the plot is a gigantic mess no matter how you cut it. Even in a series full of retcons some stuff just doesn't make sense, has quite a few dangling plot threads, and more importantly, those plot failures were well-documented and mocked when the game came out.

Yes, stuff like "What's a paladin?" are optional "give me more info because I didn't play Ultima before" selections in convos, but a lot other things are perfectly valid points of criticism. Blackthorn being made a generic mwahaha evil guy for no reason was pretty annoying for instance, and that sure isn't a meme.

>>3861053
What I don't understand is how Black Gate and Serpent Isle get treated as a holy cow.
There's plenty of holes in them and the whole engine is a mess.
Serpent Isle is almost as rushed as Pagan.

>Blackthorn being made a generic mwahaha evil guy for no reason
It's the same that happened with the Guardian. He was interesting in Black Gate and Labyrinth of Worlds but after that he became a joke. Recurring villains were a mistake.
One of the reasons the plot is such a mess is because they tried to tie up various hooks previous writers had left and ended up resorting to the most generic solutions available.

>>3861071
Believe it or not, I actually agree. (yeah people agreeing in /vr/, wow)

Rushed development is the god damn bane of this kind of thing. And it shows there was a lot of rushing and executive meddling in the whole affair.
It also came out at a terrible time in technical terms (when old 3D acceleration tech was being replaced by the current standards, and even fully patched the game still suffers from it).

It's really a pity. Hell, even the Guardian being the recurring baddie could have been handled more gracefully. As simple and generic as the red guy is, he had some potential that went entirely wasted by the "he's your eeeevil half" resolution. Just leaving him as some trollish conqueror from beyond dimensions would have worked nicely. As for Blackthorn, fuck, they might as well have resurrected Mondain. Would be as stupid and controversial but at least Mondain was an asshole by default.
I mean they resurrected Dupre for no real reason (although I do like the guy, it was still a huge ass-pull) so why not go with an actual villain instead of a redeemed one.

Anyway I digress. It's a pity the franchise ended up (not counting Online) in such a weird-ass note.

>>3861132
They managed to create a decent action RPG in a relatively limited timeframe.

The terrible part is that they don't even really use the technology. You get a seamless 3D world but instead of freely exploring it you get stuck to exploring one quadrant at a time for half of the game even though it barely makes a difference for the plot.
The pre-rendered movies end up looking worse than the game and restrict you to a single design for the avatar.
Favoring glide over openGL or direct3D was a poor decision in hindsight but I'm not sure if anybody could tell that 3dfx would fold so quickly.
It's a shame the plot ends up dragging it down since it had the longest time in development.

I tried playing this game on the SNES the other day, don't know which version was it but the graphics and mechanics were so outdated it was difficult to play.
I also had no idea what i was supposed to do.

It reminds me so much of the goold ol' days of Tibia online.

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>>3863250
I assume it's Ultima 6. The SNES port is better than most of the other Nintendo titles but it's still a game designed with mouse and keyboard in mind.
Nowadays there's nuvie which adds a bunch of features the original lacked.

>I also had no idea what i was supposed to do.
Talk to anybody you come across about anything you can think of.

>>3863264
I'm gonna try playing it again some other day.

Seems very comfy and i like reading dialogue between characters from old rpg games.

Where should i begin?

>>3863280
With 4 at least. That's where the continuity and core aspects kick off.
You can start with 1 which is very short and a bit wild or 3 which plays more like a traditional RPG.

>>3861132
I agree, again.
Just imagine what could have been if they used all it properly. The graphics still stand out, the gameplay is fine, but story and technical issues make it definitely not great.
Same engine with a good story, a bit more polish, better use of the environment, and using D3D natively from the get go would have made it great. (Although, yes, glide is most likely not their fault)

>>3850596
Ultima V for me

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Ultima Underworld
Ultima V
Underworld II
Ultima VI
Ultima VII
Ultima VII P2
Savage Empire
Martian Dreams
Ultima IV
Ultima III
Never finished II, I, or Akalabeth.

In fact, my whole phone is Ultima V themed backgrounds (pic related).

>>3863845
> Simon Tatham's Puzzles
good taste

Can anyone explain how to get into Ultima VII? It looks interesting, but I can never really understand it.

>>3866153

Well, it does help if you've played the earlier ones so you have an idea of what the world is about.

But in general, it's a game where there isn't an open enemy. Things just seem not quite right, and you have to find out why everything is falling apart. Explore, talk to people, listen to their problems, and try to make peoples lives better a bit at a time. Humility is an important virtue too.


If you're looking for walkthroughish hints, start by doing as much of the Trinsic murder investigation as you can. That will lead you to more clues in the capital, which will also give you two other major questlines; follow around Abraham and Elizabeth, and track down a gypsy fortune teller in Minoc. Either is enough to get you started, and if one questline seems to be stalling, try the other one.

>>3866153
Start with Ultima 4.