Ultima VI: The False Prophet - PC (MS-DOS) - 1990

At last!  Ultima VI: The False Prophet is one of the reasons I started this blog and is one of the games I had been looking forward to the most.  I became bit concerned when I dismissed Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny as I found playing it a bit of a chore and was worried this instalment would be more of the same.

I first played Ultima VI on my Atari ST back in the early 90’s.  It was one of my favourite games and I spent hours meticulously mapping all the towns and most of the dungeons onto graph paper.  The game ran direct from three floppy disks and one day a gamers worst nightmare happened when one of the disks corrupted resulting in all my progress being lost.  I haven’t touched the game since.

Now in 2015 it’s time to get reacquainted.  I had already purchased Ultima: The Second Trilogy from gog.com and still have my old physical manuals and map from the Atari ST days.  More importantly, I kept my 20-something year old notes and hand drawn maps.

Boy, I must have had a lot of free time.

I have elected to play the PC version of the game mainly due to the 256 colour VGA graphics.  The Atari ST and Amiga display 16 colours, run slightly slower and require disk swapping.  Ultima VI also supports sound cards on the PC but I switched the sound off as the music becomes irritating very quickly.

The game starts off with an intro sequence setting the scene – you are drawn to a moongate that appears outside your house on Earth.  Picking up the moonstone and stepping through you find yourself bound to an altar about to be sacrificed by a gargoyle priest.  Suddenly Dupre, Shamino and Iolo appear through another moongate, slay the priest and cut your bonds.  The party flees via the moongate to Lord British’s throne room having collected the priest’s sacred text.  Three gargoyles manage to follow you before the moongate closes.  Somewhere in the mix you also put in an appearance in a gypsy caravan to establish your attributes by answering some ethical dilemmas – your character class is given as Avatar.

The first thing that strikes you is the quality of the graphics.  Previous Ultima games used the Apple II as the primary development machine.  The Ultima VI engine was developed on the PC meaning the mostly black graphics of the previous games have been replaced by vibrant colours.  Although still tile-based the variety of terrain has increased dramatically.  Another change is that the towns and villages are now blended in seamlessly into the main world – they are no longer a single tile that changes in scale when you enter them.  Additionally, your party and enemies are shown in full and not as a single tile that only expands in combat.  Dungeons are now viewed from above allowing for a more varied design – a very welcome addition in my eyes.  The final main engine change is that the interface has become more user friendly with a big reductions in the number of keys required and the addition of icons for mouse control.  The game can be fully controlled by mouse, keyboard or a combination of both.

Your initial task is to defeat the gargoyles that followed you through the moongate.  By default your party members are not under your control in combat but this can be changed from their respective menus.  Like previous Ultima games, combat is turn based.  Whilst slugging it out with the gargoyles, Lord British, guard captain Geoffrey and Nystul the mage just stand by and watch.  With combat over you can speak to each of them and receive their respective quests.  All NPCs respond to Name and Job with Bye ending the conversation.  Key words are highlighted and can be used to expand the conversation tree.

• Lord British states the gargoyles have started appearing in Britannia and have taken control of the shrines.  He also explains how to use the Orb of the Moons I picked in the intro.
• Geoffrey says a patrol was sent to defeat the gargoyles at the Shrine of Compassion.  The soldiers were defeated and he suggests I should talk to the survivors in the village of Cove. 
• Nystul advises I speak with Mariah at the Lycaeum and ask about the holy book that was taken from the gargoyle priest.

As I can’t remember much of the plot I will be ignoring my notes but will consult my old maps.  I intend to systematically visit each town and speak to the populace, liberating the shrines and picking up clues and quests along the way.  What I do remember is that to make life easier my first two tasks will be to visit Yew to purchase a few pairs of swamp boots then Minoc to buy a ship.  I will note my experiences below….

• In theory the Mayor of each town should have in their possession the mantra and rune needed to free the shrines.  In practice the runes have invariably been lost, hidden, stolen or given away resulting in a side quest to retrieve them.  In Minoc I had to go through a long winded process of joining a guild before they would help me out.  I’m trying to save the world, people!

• The appropriate rune and mantra are needed to liberate a shrine.  The gargoyles have placed a force field over each shrine and once freed this disappears revealing the associated moonstone.  The gargoyles guarding the shrines can usually be defeated but at the Shrine of Justice they were particularly tough cookies and I couldn’t defeat them in combat.

Combat can be avoided using the invisibility rings.

• Meditating at shrines allows you level up once you have enough XP.  Depending on the shrine, this also raises one or more of your attributes of Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence.

• Damn my younger self for not annotating my maps properly.  I have listed the treasure from level 2 in Dungeon Destard but failed to mark it on the map.  Not that I was aware I’d be playing the game twenty-odd years in the future.

• Initially I didn’t use the Orb of the Moons.  It is basically a fast way to get around but I preferred to travel on foot for the first part of the game.  Depending where you ‘use’ the stone you can quickly travel to all the major towns and shrines in Britannia plus the gargoyle shrines of virtue.  I used it more than once to teleport to Lord British’s throne room for free healing when on low health at the bottom of a dungeon.  And to follow a certain errand…

• Aside from the initial quests from Lord British, Nystul and Geoffrey, Chuckes the Jester tells you to look in Nystul’s chest.  This leads you to look under a plant in Serpents Hold, then under a bee hive in Minoc, then in a harpsichord in Moonglow, then in a jail cell in Yew.  I eventually gave up as I had a feeling it was red herring and I would end up speaking with Smith the talking horse.

I checked a walkthrough and was right.

• The good thing about moving about on foot is you have encounters you don’t get with the Orb of the Moons.  On my initial trek to Yew I came across some wisps who said they required knowledge.  I met them later after I borrowed a few books from the Lycaeum.   My reward for this information (it was ‘The Book of Lost Mantras’ that did it) was all I could carry in gold nuggets.  This was a nice bonus as it’s easy to burn through any gold gained from combat.

"Likewise, I'm sure"

• Currency is pretty well controlled in Ultima VI.  Despite the above I never really felt rich and didn't have to leave masses of gold lying about (unlike the Gold Box games).

• Magic has changed from earlier games in the series.  Spells now have to be purchased and placed in a spell book which must equipped before the spell can be cast.  Each spell still requires reagents but they no longer need to be mixed in advance – you just need to be carrying them.  Spells in the higher circles use more magic points and require you to be a higher level.

Dispelling a poisonous field.

• The best spell caster in my party is the Avatar himself with 38 Magic Points.  Iolo and Shamino have a measly 9 Magic Points apiece whilst Jaana has lost the ability to cast spells altogether. 

• I'm not quite sure how combat is calculated in Ultima VI.  I freed the Shrine of Compassion from the gargoyles easily with four very low level characters.  When I got to the Shrine of Humility with eight level five characters, I often went a couple of rounds of combat without getting a single successful hit.  This was with the whole party targeting a single wingless gargoyle.

• After freeing the shrines it is time to assemble a treasure map.  The map was split up and divided between nine ex-pirates who reside in various places around the land.  The hoard contains a silver tablet that is needed to translate the Book of Prophesies that was take from the gargoyle in the intro.  It's then off for a trek through dungeon Hythloth to the land of the gargoyles on the other side of the world.

That is one big map.

• The gargoyles reveal that since the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom was taken into Britannia, their land started collapsing into the void until just one city is left.  Their prophesy says that only by returning the codex or the sacrifice of the false prophet (the Avatar) can prevent their world being lost.  They go on to say that I must visit the Temple of Singularity to receive a holy quest in order to reach the codex.  Needless to say, the temple is surrounded by mountains and I won't be able to reach it.  I couldn't figure out why a gargoyle hadn't simply flown to the temple for the holy quest and then gone on to recover the codex.

• A balloon was needed to reach the temple and plans were found in Blackthorn's old castle in which a crazy wizard called Sutek was busy making two headed animals and killer bunny rabbits.  I guessed they were located here as this was one of the few places I hadn't mapped - I had drawn the outline when the game crashed on my Atari.

Using the magic fan to guide the balloon over the mountains.

• Upon reaching the Temple of Singulariy, the shrine says the Avatar needs to visit the gargoyle shrines of Control, Passion and Diligence to learn their mantras.  The shrines are statues representing the antagonists from the Age of Darkness Trilogy.

Weren't you supposed to be a computer or something?

• Combining the these mantras gives you the mantra to speak to the Shrine of Singularity.  This then grants a holy quest which allows you to pass the guardians that block access to the codex.  The codex gives instructions on how to send it back into the vortex from whence it came.  It can still be viewed from both worlds using the respective lenses that were used to retrieve it.

The End....

Like UltimaV I initially found playing Ultima VI to be a bit of chore and found myself doing other stuff to put off playing it.  Eventually something clicked and I got into the game as enthusiastically as I had the first time around.  I did find the interface to be a bit clunky and awkward when managing inventories.  The new icons also take up more of the screen reducing the main viewing window to 9 x 9 tiles from the 11 x 11 of Ultima IV and Ultima V.  This and the changed scale has the negative effect of making the play area feel slightly claustrophobic.  The game world cannot be faulted offering a freedom not seen in many games before or since.  Britannia is a truly open world where you can go almost anywhere straight away without being hemmed in by artificial barriers or impossible encounters (I'm looking at you Final Fantasy).  Most objects, however mundane, can be picked up or handled.  I can't think any other games where you can pick up items such as a shovel, a frying pan or a rolling pin let alone use them as weapons.  I can't say that Ultima VI: The False Prophet has aged well but it is still worth playing and another game I can tick off my list, albeit almost a quarter of a century later than expected.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar - Atari ST & Commodore Amiga - 1987

Ultima IV is one of those games I start off with every intention of completing but never quite manage it.  I love the game but my gameplay always ends up losing momentum. By the time I am back in the mood I've forgotten where I've got to and have to start over.  This time, for the blog, I was determined to reach the end.  I am playing the Atari ST version which came out in 1987 along with the identical Amiga release.  I've not personally tested it but I believe the PC version is slightly inferior in terms of graphics (certainly so in the dungeons).  Richard 'Lord British' Garriott has professed to this being his favourite Ultima game and it was the first in the series to  introduce the concept of 'virtues'.

You start the game by selecting your character name and gender and are then shown an introduction...

Upon reaching the gypsy caravan you are asked a series of ethical questions which will determine your character class.  This was unique for the time and was an ingenious way to start the game.  Although you can fudge the answers to choose any of the eight classes, I chose to answer truthfully and began the game as a fighter.  The starting location for the fighter is just outside Jhelom, City of Valour.

Each of the eight character classes starts near the city that represents their virtue.  The eight virtues are Compassion, Honesty, Honour, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality and Valour.  Your aim is to become the embodiment of all these virtues through the actions and choices you make during the course of the game.  Only then can you descend into the Abyss to reach the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom to complete the game.

The main game world is tile based and is viewed from above.  Your party, monsters and towns are represented by a single icon.  When you enter a town the scale changes to the town plan.   The game employs a line-of-sight mechanic so you can’t see through trees, mountains or walls.  The only time you can view your entire party is in the battle screen.  Movement is limited to the four cardinal directions. As with previous iterations of Ultima, dungeons are viewed in a simple first person perspective. 

Typical dungeon view

It was my intention to firstly travel to meet with Lord British, then recruit Shamino, Dupre and Iolo in their respective towns.  I would then travel to the other towns picking up clues and delving into the dungeons.  I believe you need to have a party consisting of all eight character classes towards the end of the game, but I find picking them up early makes combat too unwieldy and time consuming.

As Jhelom is located on an island the only way off is by means of a moongate.  Although they can be rather ‘hit and miss’, moongates can be a convenient way to travel long distances.  The moongates are controlled by the phases of two moons.  The first moon phase represents where a moongate is open, the second represents the destination.  When the moongate opened, the second moon wouldn't have reached my preferred ‘destination phase’ before it disappeared so I jumped in hoping for the best.

I ended up on Verity Isle which contained The Lycaeum and the town of Moonglow.  I talked to all the NPCs in both these locations before jumping back into the moongate. You can actually converse with characters in this game rather than get the stock responses you had in previous Ultimas.  All the NPCs respond to ‘name’, ‘job’ and 'health'.  You can then pick up key words in their answers to take the conversation further.  ‘Bye’ ends a conversation.

'Wrong game, mate'.

In Moonglow I took the opportunity to buy some reagents.  Reagents are essentially the ingredients of a spell.  You need to mix the appropriate reagents together to make the spell before it can be cast.  There is a list of spells in the manual though some of the more powerful don’t have the reagents listed.  Some NPCs also reveal spell ingredients.  This was  a good time to pick up some honesty points as the proprietors of the magic shops are blind and you are asked how much gold you wish to give them.

To leave Verity Isle I had to hop back into a moongate to reach the mainland.  On my way to Britain I was thankfully attacked by pirates so was able to pick up a ship early on. One of my main bugbears in this game is the random nature in which ships appear.  You can sometimes play for hours before you even see one.

Combat takes place on the battle screen.  The terrain on the battle screen depends on what type of tile combat was initiated.  The terrain can be used to your advantage in battle which can be quite tactical.  Combat is turn based and each character can either move or attack (limited to the four cardinal directions), or cast spells.  In addition to normal melee and missile weapons, you can hurl flasks of flaming oil or attack from behind your comrades using the longer reach of the  halberd.  The bestiary in the excellent ‘History of Britannia’ manual shows the standard variety of enemy types you would expect in any fantasy RPG.  A defeated enemy leaves behind a (usually trapped) chest containing a small amount of gold.  One thing I didn't really appreciate until I played Final Fantasy and the Phantasie games (which didn't make the blog) is that you can see your enemies coming.  There are no random encounters and overworld combat can mostly be avoided if you wish.

A fixed dungeon encounter

The ship l commandeered from the pirates is the most useful form of transport in the game.  I used the ship to follow the coast to the Castle of Lord British.  Travelling by sea can be slow going if the wind is not favourable but you can reach locations inaccessible on foot or on horseback.

On the ground floor of the castle you can find Hawkwind the Seer who keeps track of your virtues.  He tells you in which virtues you have attained enlightenment and gives advice on how to achieve it in others.  On attaining enlightenment in a particular virtue you can gain partial avatarhood by meditating at the appropriate shrine for three cycles.

As usual with my RPG reviews I won't be blogging a full walkthrough (for this I recommend The CRGP Addict or an old blog called Blogging Ultima).  I will note some of my thoughts and experiences below....

• With my 3 companions I first attempted to conquer dungeon Destard but had to retreat  to the nearest town licking my wounds.  I decided I needed more magic power so returned to Moonglow to recruit Mariah.
• Dungeons contain orbs which can boost one or two of your base stats of strength, intelligence and dexterity to a maximum of 50.  Touching them costs hit points so make sure you have enough.  Touching an orb in Dungeon Hythloth raises all three stats but will instantly kill any character with less than 600 hp.
• Dungeons reset when you leave so any treasure you have plundered and orbs you have touched will reappear.  Creatures also respawn if you leave and return to a room with a fixed encounter.
• I seem to be progressing much faster than I remember and quickly attained enlightenment in all the virtues apart from spirituality.  This is probably due to my previous mapping and note taking.
• Whilst travelling the ocean I came across a whirlpool.  In Ultima III it takes you to the land of Ambrosia and when entering it in this game I ended up in Lock Lake.  My party took a lot of damage but could now enter the village of Cove.  I now need a new ship to use on the open ocean....
• On leaving Cove I was attacked by a pirate ship that appeared in Lock Lake and was sunk before I could properly retaliate. On returning to Lock Lake after being resurrected the pirate ship had disappeared.  I now need two new ships. Gah!
• You need to ensure you visit Lord British regularly.  As well as resurrecting and healing your party for free, he also levels up your characters.
• Rather unfairly enemies can target your party diagonally but not vice versa.
• Getting frustrated due to a lack of ships I entered Dungeon Hythloth to come out on the Isle of the Abyss where some pirates hang out.  Using wind spells I flew the balloon (located nearby) a little north to this 'pirate bay' then directly west back to the mainland hoping to draw out a ship or two.  Coincidence or not, after hanging about for a short while a ship did come along and there were plenty of boats appearing during the rest of the game.
• Combat gets tiresome with a full party.  I lost my valour attainment by killing fleeing monsters as I couldn't be arsed waiting for them to leave the battle screen.  Lesson learned.
• When you reach enlightenment in a particular virtue and meditate at the appropriate shrine for three cycles, you are granted a vision.  Each vision displays a letter which when correctly arranged form the 'one pure axiom'. To enter a shrine you need to know the mantra and be carrying the appropriate rune.

Achieving partial avatarhood reveals a runic letter. 'N' in this case.

Before you can enter the abyss to win the game you need to...

• Find the eight runes, mantras and stones that relate to the eight virtues.
• Behave in an appropriate manner to attain enlightenment in all eight virtues.
• Locate the Silver Horn which allows you reach the Shrine of Spirituality on the Isle of the Abyss.
• Meditate at each of the eight shrines to attain Avatarhood.
• Find the Bell, the Book and the Candle (symbols of the principles of Truth, Love and Courage)
• Discover the one pure axiom from which these three principles are derived. 
• Use the stones on the dungeon altars to obtain the Three Part Key.
• Know the word of passage derived from the syllables given by three Lords (but it i didn't find if/where it gave the order they should go in).
• Arm your party with mystic or magical weapons as normal weapons won't work in the Abyss.
• I think the mystic robes and strengthened ship hull are optional.  I picked up the mystic robes but skipped searching for the wheel of HMS Cape and still made it past the pirates.
• Also optional is finding the skull of Mondain which can be destroyed in the volcano on the Isle of the Abyss.

One you have the above you can then sail to the Isle.  After battling the pirates, wading through a swamp and making your way through molten lava, you can then use the bell, book and candle to open the dungeon.  In the Abyss dungeon, normal weapons always miss and the spells to go up or down a level fail to work.  At the end of each level you will find an altar which poses a question on each of the virtues.  If you answer correctly and choose the stone of the appropriate colour the altar will transform into a ladder to the next level. 

Ultima IV was originally developed on the Apple II so the graphics are very, very primitive and any animation is two frames at most.  They probably looked basic back in 1985 and not much effort was expended on improving the graphics for the more powerful home computers.  The sound wasn't up to much either.  While the music is okay the handful of tunes quickly got repetitive.  I switched to the sound effects which were again basic and more annoying than anything.  I left these on but so low I could barely hear the ‘tick’ sound every step your characters take.  More that anything though, Ultima IV is about the story which is where the game excels.  Rather than saving the world from an evil baddie, your quest involves becoming the embodiment of eight virtues and an example for the people of Britannia to follow.  As far as I know this was and still is unique in the realm of CRPGs.  Also the game is completely non-linear.  I love how you can do any quest in any order as long as you complete your 'shopping list' by the time you enter the Abyss.  Ultima IV definitely deserves it's classic status.  I'm also pretty chuffed to have finally completed it after all these years and abortive attempts.

Screenshots from the Abyss.....

At the end of each level of the Abyss you are asked a question pertaining to a virtue.

Level 6 was 'interesting' to map as some rooms were divided into two and trying to find tiles to open walls whilst controlling eight individuals can get frustrating.

There was a surprising encounter on Level 8

I had the syllables for the word of passage, but not the order they went in.  The three part key is listed as TLC in the stats screen so using the syllables in that order was a good guess.

The ending sequence.....

....and final screen.

Uridium - Commodore 64 - 1986

After his success with Paradroid, Andrew Braybrook comes up trumps again.  After we read the review and the 94% score it got in Zzap!64, me and my mate headed straight into town to get this for his Commodore 64.  We were allowed to play it on his big downstairs telly and I still remember being blown away by the graphics - it was like having an arcade machine at home.

The plot goes that fifteen enemy super-dreadnought starships have gathered in the solar system and are draining minerals from the planet cores.  Each of the super-dreadnoughts is named after a metal, culminating with the titular (and fictional) Uridium. As per usual it falls on your shoulders to take a lone starfighter and destroy the enemy vessels.

Uridium takes place over the smoothly scrolling decks of these super-dreadnoughts.  The game uses an unusual viewpoint as it is a side scroller viewed from above.  You control a fighter called the Manta which is rather nippy and can travel in both directions.  You start at one end of the enemy ship and have to travel to the other end strafing objects on the surface and downing waves of airborne enemies.  Once enough of the enemy defences have been destroyed you get a 'Land Now!' message and can land on a runway at the back of the ship to presumably plant a device to destroy it.

Most of your lives will be lost colliding with the superstructure of the dreadnought.  There are pylons and walls to be avoided whose height can be determined by the length of the shadows they cast.  The game plays so fast it quickly turns into a memory test.   The further you progress, the narrower the gaps get between the tall structures. There are also homing mines that are occasionally launched from from flashing ports and these have to be dodged until they self destruct.

Attempting to out-manoeuvre a pesky homing mine.

Once you have landed on the enemy vessel you can earn extra points in the form of a reaction test mini-game.  You then take off and fly back over the dreadnought while it vaporises before heading off to the next one.  

Each level ends with a mini-game.

This is one impressive game with outstanding graphics and good sound.  The scrolling is fast and silky smooth running at 50fps - which is faster than my video clip.  It can and does get frustrating when trying to get through the same gap or flying into the same wall time and again  but once you memorise a layout you can get that bit further each time you play.

The gaps are starting to get narrow.

The Commodore 64 is far and away the best version of Uridium.  The other 8-bit machines can't hope to match it graphically, lacking as they do the hardware scrolling and sprites.  The Atari ST version looks the same as the C64 but the game is so slow and cumbersome it feels like you're playing in treacle.  Not to mention the worse scrolling and a lack of destruct sequence at the end of each level.  A very, very lazy port indeed.  A version also appeared in 1990 on the NES as The Last Starfighter with different sprites. It lacked that 'certain something' the C64 had and was ultimately a charmless version of the game.

A vaporising dreadnought.

Underwurlde - Sinclair Spectrum - 1984

First guardian, wrong weapon

Underwurlde was the second of three Sabreman games released by Ultimate Play The Game during 1984 and the only one I have not played before.  It is the follow up to Sabre Wulf and was released at the same time as Knight Lore.  After escaping the jungle, the unlucky Sabreman has been trapped in the ‘Underwurlde’ and must make his way through a castle and caverns to one of three exits (one for each of the planned sequels).  To reach the exits you have to defeat three guardians, requiring you to collect a particular weapon to pass each one.  Underwurlde boasts nearly 600 screens of side on, flip screen platforming set in the castle and the caverns beneath.

This time out Sabreman can athletically leap about the play area and cannot be killed by touching the enemy creatures.  He can however lose a life by falling too far into one of the deep caverns.  When the enemies touch Sabreman he is bounced around the screen.  Due to the abundance of enemies and the narrowness of the platforms and ledges this can make the game frustrating as it is all too easy to die. You are armed but can only shoot left or right and the enemies come at you from all around.  Aside from using platforms you can descend into the caverns by using ropes and ascend by standing on bubbles that rise from the floor.  Again, it is all too easy be touched by a creature and sent plummeting into the cavern floor.  Another annoying feature is that you jump automatically when reaching the edge of a platform; this and the touch of the enemy creatures give the game a slightly ‘out of control’ feel.

The graphics are up to the usual Ultimate standards with colourful, smooth and fast moving sprites. The sound effects are also decent enough for the Spectrum.  Underwurlde is both fun and infuriating at the same time.  I was in two minds about whether to include the game on the list due to the annoyances, but the quality of the game (just) won me over in the end.

Using a rope is the safest way to descend into the caverns.

Eagles can pick you up and try to drop you from a great height.