This isn't really a review so much as a retrospective but I'm posting it here because I think one or two people might get something from it. The original article complete with italics, screenshot captions and instructions on how to play the game can be found here: http://www.highlanderreviews.com/?p=1564
Any old school PC gamer worth their salt is familiar with the Ultima series of role-playing games. It all began back in 1980 with Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (or in 1979 with Akalabeth if you want to be awkward about it) and the main series ran right up until its ninth installment, Ultima IX: Ascension in 1999. The saga is divided up into three trilogies, The Age of Darkness which consists of Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress and Ultima III: Exodus, The Age of Enlightenment which consists of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny and Ultima VI: The False Prophet and finally The Age of Armageddon which consists of Ultima VII, Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension.
I am only really familiar with the Age of Armageddon, the rest of them being somewhat before my time. I still remember going to my local Woolworths as a kid and discovering The Complete Ultima VII CD in a bargain basket there. At that point my only role-playing experience had been with the Mega Drive titles Wonder Boy in Monster World and Landstalker so needless to say, I had a lot of learning to do. The screenshots on the back of the CD case appealed to me as did the promise of "literally years of top quality gameplay" and so I bought it. I didn't know it at the time, but I had just bought the game that many people to this day consider the best RPG of all time.
Ultima VII consists of two parts, the first is called The Black Gate and the second is called The Serpent Isle which is why you'll often see references to Ultima VII: The Black Gate and also Ultima VII: The Serpent Isle. To confuse matters even further both of these parts had their own expansions, Forge of Virtue and The Silver Seed respectively. The Complete Ultima VII that I bought as a kid and still have sitting right beside me as I type this contains every Ultima VII release hence the title. Now you may think that getting old DOS titles such as this to work on modern systems is a little bit of an inconvenience but believe me, it wasn't any easier back in the day and Ultima VII is a good example of this. You see the game did not use what was then known as EMS which stands for Expanded Memory Specification and not only did it not use it, but it would fail to work unless this function was disabled. I cannot convey the agony of the hours I spent messing around in the DOS autoexec.bat and config.sys for this reason and many others to try and get Ultima VII working and the term "bootdisk" began to send shivers down my spine. Having to load up DOSbox to play these games in the present day is a walk in the park compared to what was originally required. There were console releases of several of the Ultima games but they were so massive for the time that in a lot of cases the game had to be essentially remade to work on the home systems and are therefore not even worth thinking about.
It could therefore be argued that there has never been a better time to give these old classics a try especially with Ultima I to VIII being freely downloadable from sites like Abandonia in the present day. I myself have been in a real RPG mood recently and I've been sating my appetite with a little bit of Oblivion and some splashings of Dragon Age: Origins but the other day I decided to dust off my Ultima VII collection and make a real effort to play through them properly for the first time. Oh sure I had played them lots in the past but the Ultima series is truly hardcore and if you're not prepared to invest a lot of time and focus into playing them then it really isn't worth even loading them up if your goal is to complete them and I just didn't have the required patience that I have now when I was a kid.
Many times in the past I have preached on the brilliance of Ultima VII but I think the best way to showcase its awesomeness is by way of real life example. To that end I will take you through the events that have transpired so far in the short time since I have returned to Britannia, the fictional setting of most of the Ultima games. In the introduction sequence you are sitting on your PC apparently about to play Ultima VII when something strange happens, an evil figure you will come to know as the Guardian appears and before you know it a Moongate has opened in your back garden ready to transport you from Earth to Britannia. This is one of the interesting things about the Ultima series, it casts you not simply as a hero of a fantasy land, but as someone from our world transported to a fantasy land to become a hero and the relationship between Earth and Britannia is an important element of the plot.
The game proper opens with you exiting the Moongate on the Britannia side and being immediately greeted by your old friend Iolo. Because of the time difference between Earth and Britannia he has aged considerably while you have aged barely at all. In Britannia you are known as "the Avatar", an upholder of justice and of certain principals. You are basically a champion for all that is good in the world. However it has been so long since your last visit to Britannia that most people have lost faith and there have been many imposters claiming to be the Avatar since then. Only your old friends such as Iolo recognise you immediately as being the true Avatar.
Despite you playing the role of the Avatar you are free to behave and do exactly what you want in the world of Ultima VII. If you want to rob every good citizen blind then you are free to do so. If you want to murder every last living thing then you can do so provided you are capable. Ultima VII does not punish you for the choices you make like a lot of other games do even if you're clearly being a bit of a prick, excuse my French. Your companions however, will most strongly object to any nefarious deeds you commit and will leave your company or sometimes even attack you if you go too far. Iolo shouted at me for moving a bit of clothing around in someone's house presumably thinking that I intended to steal it. Of course you can ditch your companions at any time so they won't hinder you if you decide to walk a dark path. What I find absolutely hilarious is that your companions only chastise you in Ultima VII: The Black Gate. By the time Ultima VII: Serpent Isle comes around they just don't care what you do anymore, the Avatar presumably having broken their will.
People may praise games like Oblivion for their day and night cycles and the fact that the NPCs live their own lives around you but Ultima VII was doing this and doing it better back in 1992. Walk into someones house while they are asleep and they won't be happy. As you might imagine Ultima VII is a rather hilarious game to play and I can literally be reduced to tears of laughter by dragging poor Iolo and the rest of my companions around while I indulge in all kinds of questionable activities in the dead of night. Speaking of which, you can also be a total player if you so choose. There are any number of willing females around the land just waiting to be "disciplined" by the Avatar, mainly barmaids. I'm not sure if playing as a female character results in lesbian activities or simply a different choice of lovers but in any case, unless you tell Iolo and company to wait for you somewhere, they will all happily come along to observe your carnal acts and since the screen fades to black during, who knows what else? Iolo has seen many sights he now wishes unseen during his time in my company.
The plot of Ultima VII primarily concerns the activities of a group called The Fellowship who have essentialy usurped the Avatar's position as spiritual leader in his absence but like with the best of RPGs, you are free to ignore the main plot entirely if you so choose and just go off and do your own thing. There are naturally a million side-quests for you to complete if you want and like with everything else in Ultima VII, they are brilliantly thought out and written. To offer you but a small example from my time playing the game last night, I came upon a small village called Paws in which a local merchant had been stolen from. The items taken were vials of serpent venom which is basically a fantasy equivalent of cocaine. A local boy named Tobias had been accused of the crime by a little brat called Finnigan and indeed Tobias had been found with a vial of the substance on his person. Upon further investigation however, I discovered that Finnigan himself had stolen the items, planted one of them on Tobias and had even begun to use the substance himself.
Finnigan's parents run the local Fellowship shelter and despite the boy begging me not to, I told them what their little angel had been doing. They are an arrogant pair who look down on everyone else especially those like Tobias and his mother who refuse to join The Fellowship so it came to no surprise to me that despite my revelation they still tried to blame everyone but themselves and their son. Bad parenting is one of those things that makes me rage and I was tempted to, and could have, slaughtered the whole lot of them. But alas I am trying to play the avatar as he should be played, a champion of virtue. The important point here is that Ultima VII is still more than capable of evolking these kind of emotions despite its obviously dated technology.
The Ultima series is known for the way it deals with important issues through metaphor. One of the prime issues dealt with in Ultima VII is that of racism. As well as the human inhabitants of Britannia there are also the gargoyles who are largely shunned by society and segregated to their own communities. This may be a fantasy RPG but it is certainly very throughtful in the way that it approches these topics and often places the Avatar in the position of having to make extremely difficult ethical choices. Of course a gaming experience of this depth comes at a price. The reason I said earlier that if you're not prepared to invest time and energy into the game then you shouldn't even bother loading it up is that there are reams and reams of dialogue to read through containing references to countless different people and places. Ultima VII is one of the largest RPGs ever made in terms of geography and so while it's an extremely fulfilling experience, you will only get out of the game what you are prepared to put in. I myself sit with a pen and notebook while playing the game to write down relevant information because otherwise, unless you have an exceptional memory, you can quickly find yourself completely bewildered and working on guesswork alone to achieve your objectives. This is a hardcore experience, have no doubt about that.
Ultima VII allows you to explore a truly massive world filled with quests, secrets, interesting characters and the opportunity to be an do just about anything you want. Remember that serpent venom I talked about earlier? I could start using it myself if I chose to. The game will even happily let you kill of characters central to the plot. It puts the world in your hands, removes all boundaries and just lets you have all the fun you can have. Ultima VII has long since taken its place as a classic of the RPG genre and unlike in so many other cases, it is truly well deserved.
So that's it for this article. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have decided to try Ultima VII for yourself, good luck! I have deliberately avoided discussing points important to the central plot here so as not to spoil it for anyone. If you have any further questions about getting the game to work under DOSbox please feel free to contact me. Ultima VIII: Pagan is also well worth playing even though it is an entirely different game and one which I intend to deal with in an article in the near future.
Any old school PC gamer worth their salt is familiar with the Ultima series of role-playing games. It all began back in 1980 with Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (or in 1979 with Akalabeth if you want to be awkward about it) and the main series ran right up until its ninth installment, Ultima IX: Ascension in 1999. The saga is divided up into three trilogies, The Age of Darkness which consists of Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress and Ultima III: Exodus, The Age of Enlightenment which consists of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny and Ultima VI: The False Prophet and finally The Age of Armageddon which consists of Ultima VII, Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension.
I am only really familiar with the Age of Armageddon, the rest of them being somewhat before my time. I still remember going to my local Woolworths as a kid and discovering The Complete Ultima VII CD in a bargain basket there. At that point my only role-playing experience had been with the Mega Drive titles Wonder Boy in Monster World and Landstalker so needless to say, I had a lot of learning to do. The screenshots on the back of the CD case appealed to me as did the promise of "literally years of top quality gameplay" and so I bought it. I didn't know it at the time, but I had just bought the game that many people to this day consider the best RPG of all time.
Ultima VII consists of two parts, the first is called The Black Gate and the second is called The Serpent Isle which is why you'll often see references to Ultima VII: The Black Gate and also Ultima VII: The Serpent Isle. To confuse matters even further both of these parts had their own expansions, Forge of Virtue and The Silver Seed respectively. The Complete Ultima VII that I bought as a kid and still have sitting right beside me as I type this contains every Ultima VII release hence the title. Now you may think that getting old DOS titles such as this to work on modern systems is a little bit of an inconvenience but believe me, it wasn't any easier back in the day and Ultima VII is a good example of this. You see the game did not use what was then known as EMS which stands for Expanded Memory Specification and not only did it not use it, but it would fail to work unless this function was disabled. I cannot convey the agony of the hours I spent messing around in the DOS autoexec.bat and config.sys for this reason and many others to try and get Ultima VII working and the term "bootdisk" began to send shivers down my spine. Having to load up DOSbox to play these games in the present day is a walk in the park compared to what was originally required. There were console releases of several of the Ultima games but they were so massive for the time that in a lot of cases the game had to be essentially remade to work on the home systems and are therefore not even worth thinking about.
It could therefore be argued that there has never been a better time to give these old classics a try especially with Ultima I to VIII being freely downloadable from sites like Abandonia in the present day. I myself have been in a real RPG mood recently and I've been sating my appetite with a little bit of Oblivion and some splashings of Dragon Age: Origins but the other day I decided to dust off my Ultima VII collection and make a real effort to play through them properly for the first time. Oh sure I had played them lots in the past but the Ultima series is truly hardcore and if you're not prepared to invest a lot of time and focus into playing them then it really isn't worth even loading them up if your goal is to complete them and I just didn't have the required patience that I have now when I was a kid.
Many times in the past I have preached on the brilliance of Ultima VII but I think the best way to showcase its awesomeness is by way of real life example. To that end I will take you through the events that have transpired so far in the short time since I have returned to Britannia, the fictional setting of most of the Ultima games. In the introduction sequence you are sitting on your PC apparently about to play Ultima VII when something strange happens, an evil figure you will come to know as the Guardian appears and before you know it a Moongate has opened in your back garden ready to transport you from Earth to Britannia. This is one of the interesting things about the Ultima series, it casts you not simply as a hero of a fantasy land, but as someone from our world transported to a fantasy land to become a hero and the relationship between Earth and Britannia is an important element of the plot.
The game proper opens with you exiting the Moongate on the Britannia side and being immediately greeted by your old friend Iolo. Because of the time difference between Earth and Britannia he has aged considerably while you have aged barely at all. In Britannia you are known as "the Avatar", an upholder of justice and of certain principals. You are basically a champion for all that is good in the world. However it has been so long since your last visit to Britannia that most people have lost faith and there have been many imposters claiming to be the Avatar since then. Only your old friends such as Iolo recognise you immediately as being the true Avatar.
Despite you playing the role of the Avatar you are free to behave and do exactly what you want in the world of Ultima VII. If you want to rob every good citizen blind then you are free to do so. If you want to murder every last living thing then you can do so provided you are capable. Ultima VII does not punish you for the choices you make like a lot of other games do even if you're clearly being a bit of a prick, excuse my French. Your companions however, will most strongly object to any nefarious deeds you commit and will leave your company or sometimes even attack you if you go too far. Iolo shouted at me for moving a bit of clothing around in someone's house presumably thinking that I intended to steal it. Of course you can ditch your companions at any time so they won't hinder you if you decide to walk a dark path. What I find absolutely hilarious is that your companions only chastise you in Ultima VII: The Black Gate. By the time Ultima VII: Serpent Isle comes around they just don't care what you do anymore, the Avatar presumably having broken their will.
People may praise games like Oblivion for their day and night cycles and the fact that the NPCs live their own lives around you but Ultima VII was doing this and doing it better back in 1992. Walk into someones house while they are asleep and they won't be happy. As you might imagine Ultima VII is a rather hilarious game to play and I can literally be reduced to tears of laughter by dragging poor Iolo and the rest of my companions around while I indulge in all kinds of questionable activities in the dead of night. Speaking of which, you can also be a total player if you so choose. There are any number of willing females around the land just waiting to be "disciplined" by the Avatar, mainly barmaids. I'm not sure if playing as a female character results in lesbian activities or simply a different choice of lovers but in any case, unless you tell Iolo and company to wait for you somewhere, they will all happily come along to observe your carnal acts and since the screen fades to black during, who knows what else? Iolo has seen many sights he now wishes unseen during his time in my company.
The plot of Ultima VII primarily concerns the activities of a group called The Fellowship who have essentialy usurped the Avatar's position as spiritual leader in his absence but like with the best of RPGs, you are free to ignore the main plot entirely if you so choose and just go off and do your own thing. There are naturally a million side-quests for you to complete if you want and like with everything else in Ultima VII, they are brilliantly thought out and written. To offer you but a small example from my time playing the game last night, I came upon a small village called Paws in which a local merchant had been stolen from. The items taken were vials of serpent venom which is basically a fantasy equivalent of cocaine. A local boy named Tobias had been accused of the crime by a little brat called Finnigan and indeed Tobias had been found with a vial of the substance on his person. Upon further investigation however, I discovered that Finnigan himself had stolen the items, planted one of them on Tobias and had even begun to use the substance himself.
Finnigan's parents run the local Fellowship shelter and despite the boy begging me not to, I told them what their little angel had been doing. They are an arrogant pair who look down on everyone else especially those like Tobias and his mother who refuse to join The Fellowship so it came to no surprise to me that despite my revelation they still tried to blame everyone but themselves and their son. Bad parenting is one of those things that makes me rage and I was tempted to, and could have, slaughtered the whole lot of them. But alas I am trying to play the avatar as he should be played, a champion of virtue. The important point here is that Ultima VII is still more than capable of evolking these kind of emotions despite its obviously dated technology.
The Ultima series is known for the way it deals with important issues through metaphor. One of the prime issues dealt with in Ultima VII is that of racism. As well as the human inhabitants of Britannia there are also the gargoyles who are largely shunned by society and segregated to their own communities. This may be a fantasy RPG but it is certainly very throughtful in the way that it approches these topics and often places the Avatar in the position of having to make extremely difficult ethical choices. Of course a gaming experience of this depth comes at a price. The reason I said earlier that if you're not prepared to invest time and energy into the game then you shouldn't even bother loading it up is that there are reams and reams of dialogue to read through containing references to countless different people and places. Ultima VII is one of the largest RPGs ever made in terms of geography and so while it's an extremely fulfilling experience, you will only get out of the game what you are prepared to put in. I myself sit with a pen and notebook while playing the game to write down relevant information because otherwise, unless you have an exceptional memory, you can quickly find yourself completely bewildered and working on guesswork alone to achieve your objectives. This is a hardcore experience, have no doubt about that.
Ultima VII allows you to explore a truly massive world filled with quests, secrets, interesting characters and the opportunity to be an do just about anything you want. Remember that serpent venom I talked about earlier? I could start using it myself if I chose to. The game will even happily let you kill of characters central to the plot. It puts the world in your hands, removes all boundaries and just lets you have all the fun you can have. Ultima VII has long since taken its place as a classic of the RPG genre and unlike in so many other cases, it is truly well deserved.
So that's it for this article. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have decided to try Ultima VII for yourself, good luck! I have deliberately avoided discussing points important to the central plot here so as not to spoil it for anyone. If you have any further questions about getting the game to work under DOSbox please feel free to contact me. Ultima VIII: Pagan is also well worth playing even though it is an entirely different game and one which I intend to deal with in an article in the near future.
