 |
| The MS-DOS version has this neat castle on the title screen |
| Quick Info | |
|---|---|
| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | Richard Garriott (1987: Origin Systems) |
| Publisher: | California Pacific (1987: Origin Systems) |
| Release Date: | 1981 (1987 for MS-DOS remake) |
| Time played: | 7.5 hours |
Origin Story
After the success of Akalabeth, Richard Garriott teamed up with Ken W. Arnold to develop what would become the first Ultima game during his first year at the University of Texas. The gameplay of Akalabeth was used as the basis for the dungeon crawling aspects of Ultima I and the overworld was fleshed out giving more locations to visit, quests and plot, as well as a revamped user interface. There's even a space combat segment (I'm not even joking) just to appease any of the sci-fi fans out there.
The original plan was to name the game Ultimatum, but as the name was already in use, the name was shortened to Ultima. California Pacific published the game in 1981 for the Apple II and the game went on to sell 50,000 copies and earn $300,000 by 1990, which sounds like chump change nowadays but this was a lot of money back in the 80s. Eventually a remake of the game would be released in the late 1980s by Origin Systems and the 1987 MS-DOS remake is the game being reviewed today.
 |
| Those that have played Akalabeth will be familiar with the dungeon gameplay |
Why am I here?
In Ultima I you play the role of an adventurer who is tasked by four lords of four continents (one of these lords being Lord British) to defeat an evil wizard called Mondain who is terrorising the people of Sosaria. More than 1,000 years ago, Mondain created a gem that made him immortal and has been unleashing monsters on the people of Sosaria ever since. The plan to defeat him is to travel back in time and assassinate him before he has a chance of creating the gem. The game gets wackier and the plot more convoluted the further you progress but like many games in the 80s, most of the plot is gleaned from materials outside the game, so when I first started playing this, that's where I first went.
The version I'm playing is the GOG version of the game and while I found the manual to be beautiful and effective at immersing you into the world of Sosaria, it provides little practical information. The manual gives you descriptions of the various races and classes, but doesn't actually tell you what they confer in terms of benefits, which attributes are useful to particular classes, nor does it (most importantly) give you a list of keyboard commands.
Consequently, I had to use a guide again since it is not clear what you have to do in the short term in order to achieve the long term objective of defeating Mondain and it took me a couple of guides before I found the correct list of commands (they differ between versions). I eventually had to use multiple guides/walkthroughs at the same time since some would provide general advice about classes, races and items in the game, which is still useful information, but I would sometimes need a guide to nudge me in the right direction in terms of the plot.
The dungeon part of the game is very similar to Akalabeth and when you exit the dungeon after vanquishing a few monsters, you will gain hit points and experience points. To a contemporary RPG player, this might seem a bit odd since you usually only get more hit points after levelling up and you only level up once you reach a certain level in terms of experience points. This is not the case in Ultima I. For example, in this game, not only can you gain hit points from defeating monsters, you can get them from paying money to a local lord (I'm not quite sure what the in-universe explanation for that is). Also, while you do gain experience points and level up, it doesn't actually seem to do anything. Your attributes aren't affected by levelling up. In fact, the way to increase your attributes (once you have transport over the seas) is to visit landmarks dotted around Sosaria: it's a rather strange and monotonous grind for these attributes. Gold, on the other hand, seems to be a very important resource since with lots of gold, you can pay the king to increase your hit points, purchase food (as if you run out of food, you die) and purchase weapons, armour and transport.
 |
| Never thought I'd be shooting down TIE Fighters in an Ultima game but here we are |
A long time ago… in a Sosaria far, far away…
At the beginning of the game, you're trapped on one of four continents until you can save up enough money for transport. So, the game seems a bit slow at the start and you'll most likely be annoyed by the many monsters that spawn on the overland as you travel between dungeons (to fight more monsters) and towns (to replenish your supplies) but once you can purchase transport, you can get back at them by firing cannons on them if you buy a frigate or… blasters if you purchase an aircar? Yes, I was confused at first but Richard Garriott is not one to worry about mixing fantasy with sci-fi, and I'm definitely getting “Star Wars" vibes when it comes to the sci-fi in this game, which is probably understandable considering the year this game was originally released.
Travelling to other continents allows you to increase the rank of your attributes and to visit other lords that offer you quests. These quests involve killing a particular monster type in the dungeons and once you do, you'll be rewarded with a gem which you'll need to activate a time machine. But, before you go back in time to defeat Mondain, you'll first have to purchase… a space shuttle! And you'll have to fight TIE fighters to prove that you're a Space Ace! So again, “Star Wars" seems to be a major influence on this game and it seems so strange that a space combat mini-game was tacked on to this, yet on one hand, I find it charming that developers back in the early days could truly let their imagination run wild and add just about anything they wanted in a game; they were pioneers playing with new ideas, discovering what gamers would find fun. Unfortunately, in my case, I found the space combat to be a bit frustrating as you're using a keyboard to aim but it's doable provided you have a lot of patience since aiming to take a shot consumes fuel and becoming stranded in space is game over.
 |
| I've got a fast air car, and I gotta ticket to kill Mondaaain |
Grinding my Way to Victory
The end game involves defeating Mondain and apparently, the guides I read recommended accumulating a whopping 5,000 hit points at least and maxing out all your attributes! While I'm glad I listened to this advice, it took an hour or so of grinding in order to ensure I was ready, and you know one of my pet peeves is grind in RPGs. Sure, I don't mind a little bit of grind and if it's grind that you don't even notice since you're too busy having fun or feeding on new morsels of story, even better. However, Ultima I doesn't mask this grind very well, but to be fair, this is an early 1980s CRPG, one of the earliest of its kind, so all I just mentioned was probably not a concern for pioneers of the genre.
Anyway, in the end, I was glad I took the time to try the game out. I'm doubly glad I completed it with the help of a few guides since I reckon I would've been too frustrated otherwise or I would've had to commit my entire 2024 to playing it over and over again before I figured it out for myself. It's a bit rough around the edges when compared to modern CRPGs but nothing in the game seems impossible to achieve, even for modern gaming audiences.
|
6
|
Ultima I is no doubt a primitive CRPG when compared to what we get to play more than four decades later, but you can see early signs of what would become commonplace in its successors. It's definitely not what I expected, with an unorthodox way of levelling your character and mini-games that would fit better in a “Star Wars" game, although I think this game could be fun for modern audiences, provided you follow a guide. |
If you like this game, you might like…
Comments
Post a Comment