Ultima V Day 1

Here I go! As you can see I started Ultima V yesterday and well, it was quite interesting. Before plunging in the game I had to create my character and I noticed that I could transfer my character from Ultima IV. I didn't think I could do it since I had played Ultima IV using xu4 instead of the original DOS program, but after digging around I found my savegames and they worked with U5!






Only my stats were not maxed out in Ultima IV. I finished the game with 50 STR, 46 DEX and 46 INT. That gave me 25 STR and 24 DEX/INT in Ultima V. I thought about it for three seconds and decided it was worth it to max out my character in Ultima IV before importing him.

So I fired up U4, got the heck out of the abyss using x-it, grabbed my boat, sailed to Britain, ran all the way up to wrong (the Truth + Love dungeon) and looked for an orb. Didn't take me long to find one, saved my game and headed back into Ultima V. Look at the results!




















From what I can see this gives me a HUGE, and I mean a HUGE boost early on! Everytime I tried to play Ultima V (which consisted of running around to fight monsters basically) before I thought the battles seemed quite hard even that early in the game. This should even the odds a bit. I know I can do the same for Ultima VI so this fills my heart with thoughts of glory and success! And also of Love, Truth and Courage of course. My capacity for good is INFINITE after all! At least I think it is. Oh no, wait, it isn't according to the rest of this post!

What do I mean? I'll get to it don't worry. Before starting the game I read through the manual, which is HUGE btw, far bigger than any of the previous ones, and found it quite interesting. I also read the player reference card, the spell book etc. What's fun about Ultima V is that I still have the original map! Lookie!





Yep, one of the few things left over from the games I had on the commodore 64 as a kid. The other things I have left are of course the Ultima IV guide I talked about earlier in a previous post, and two of the coins that came with some of the games. Having the map will keep me from having to use that black and white atlas that came with the Ultima Collection.

After importing my character I read the in game introduction, and I have to say that I was quite happy to hear stones. I finally feel like I'm really getting into Ultima now. Then the game started.

Oh boy. OH FREAKING BOY. Already in that hut I was OVERWHELMED with the possibilities offered to me! I was testing out the controls and I realized I could look everywhere, search everywhere, get the torches on the walls, push stuff. Can you imagine? Of course you guys can but for me it's day and night between this and Ultima IV. The complexity of this game, even that early on, seemed to be on a totally different level than Ultima IV. Oh and did I mention the equipment? So many more choices! And my characters actually started out pretty well equipped which is...actually I'm not too sure what I think of it since I like the concept of starting out in my trousers and then getting to buy some cool new stuff as time goes on. I guess I'll take every advantage they're going to give me, it's not like I have a choice though.





































After this little period of discovery my first thought was "Holy hell I'm in deep trouble". You know when I started this blog the title of it was "Follow Rotting Dragon as he TRIES to finish every Ultima". I wasn't sure I could do it and games like Ultima V shows me why. At this point though I'm sure I'll end up finishing all of them so I changed the title. It's not going to be easy though that's for sure.

Did I mention that I love the graphics? In fact I don't ever remember commenting on how ugly the overworld graphics are. The reason for that is that I DON'T find them ugly. I was raised with these graphics and I love them. Now I won't say they're good looking but they don't disturb me one bit. The dungeon graphics however that's another story entirely. It's just that I feel that a first person game relies almost entirely on the graphics to convey information to you, so if the graphics suck then it's basically like you're walking around blindfolded. That was certainly the case in Ultima III and it was also the case in Ultima IV. I don't know about you guys but I like to see where I'm walking. That's really my main problem with the dungeons. In a way their problem is that they're too ambitious for the technology that was available at the time.

I also like the music. Now I was slightly disappointed with the music of both U3 and U4 but the reason for it was because of the repetitiveness of it. As good as the music is, when you've been hearing it over and over and over again for 25 hours, you'll get tired of it guaranteed. One way to solve that is to make each particular tune longer, so you don't notice it as much when it loops because the track lasts 2 to 3 minutes. The other solution is the one they started to use in Ultima VI (if I remember correctly) which is to use more than one track for any given situation, totally solving the problem. I think, I'll know better after playing Ultima VI. But for the moment the music in Ultima V definitely sounds better than the two previous games. One reason for that is that I am finally hearing some classic Ultima tunes, such as the aforementioned 'Stones', which feels great.

I'm getting distracted a lot today aren't I? I decided to write in a more natural manner lately and rely less on screenshots. Anyway on to the game.

I headed in a straight line for the castle of Lord British. I found it quite quickly and entered it's surrounding suburbs (which is a nice touch). My first interaction with the population of this Britannia was,well,non-existent because it was nightime! And in Ultima V people SLEEP during the night! Holy cow that makes my job of gathering information THAT much more complicated! So I walked around trying to find something of interest and I found what seemed to be an empty bed at the healer. So I slept. After waking up the healer kept blocking the way to the door so I had to step on the bed of one of the patients to reach it. Oops!






















Afterwards I gathered a lot of info, learned the word of power Vilis, heard something about a secret quest given by the shrines, glass swords etc. I learned a good bit of info. The NPC's sure have a lot to say compared to Ultima IV, that's for sure! It makes it harder to detect the good stuff from the bullshit but I'll manage.

Something funny happened during my discovery of the game. I stumbling around at night and found a stable. Strangely the doors were unlocked so...I stole a horse. Now I don't know wether upholding the virtues is important in this game but I have a hunch it is and I still took the horse. The funny part is that I had no idea how to kept him from moving. The manual says really clearly that I have to leave my horse next to a hitching post if I want him to stay still and not run away. WELL IT DOESN'T WORK! I tried and tried and tried. I tried to leave him north of the post, south of the post, west of it and east, NADA. If I sleep or go up stairs that son of a mare leaves! After 20 minutes of this circus I realized that I just leave him outside like in Ultima IV he just stays put. Are those manuals supposed to help me or hinder me? I wonder :)

The rest of my time was spent gathering more information. I messed around with an harpsichord in LB's castle which was interesting and fired a cannon which seems to have made the guard pissed off at me. I didn't way to see what they were going to do to me I just restarded but it could have been interesting to see what happens when I get thrown in the dungeons.


I ended up going over to Paws and ended my session there. Total play time at this time stands at around 3 hours. My impression of the game so far are great but really intimidating. Ultima V is much much more complex than Ultima IV is. As long as I keep taking good notes I'll be fine!