Haha funny enough when i saw this video in my feed i was excited thinking it was from LGR then slightly disappointed it was not :) but it was a fantastic video! Other than skipping completely over the only Ulitima i really played and loved as a kid :( that part was not cool.
Sorry to be offtopic but does someone know a method to get back into an instagram account?? I was dumb forgot the password. I would appreciate any assistance you can give me!
Epirc Whoa, that's interesting. 8 was the one you started with..and the one I played least. Goes to show you that it's all subjective. Glad it got you into them! The whole series helped me get into RPGs too!
Damn, this is so amazing! What a review! Thanks for the memories, Ultima VII was the best game i'v ever play when i was young (i'm 42 now). So many sleepless nights to explore Britannia world! Raynald Bureau.
+Mike Keller hands down Ultima V is the toughest and longest game of the series. It took me well over a year to win it back in 1988. It's still my favorite of all of them
Honestly, games are much better today, but something about those old games just seemed more exciting and ground breaking at the time! Good for you for exploring, there are plenty of games to find out. A lot of great ones on steam, even. I would recommend the game in the poster in the background - Grim Fandango. Even if you can't buy the game, watch someone play it online. It is one of the best games or stories ever made, much better than anything on netflix.
Chris Bynum - the Ultima series were great back in the day and most still hold up today entertainment wise. Man... only 16... you make me feel old. Remember playing many of these when they came out. Ultima Online is still a hell of a lot of fun to play now. Definitely give it a try if you haven't and enjoy really open RPGs and/or mmos
I kept seeing Carlos grabbing for the box (it was on the top of the stack for much of the end parts.) Also you showed the map in the outro talk segment - yet it was never mentioned haha. Serpent Isle is heralded by many as their favorite Ultima game (myself included.) For many their favorite CRPG period. In any case: love you guys for doing this video and shining light on one of the most influential series to so many of us in our youth. To the industry as a whole, really.
The Black Gate was my favorite game of all time until Skyrim was released-- personally I did *not* like Serpent Isle. I tried to play that one three different times and just couldn't get into caring about the people on that island.
Love the longer videos. Who doesn't want more metal Jesus. Also love when you talk about older pc games .like hearing and getting a glimpse into things I may have not got a chance to experience. Now I can try some out
I dig these videos on PC games cause I've always been a console guy. This way I get to learn more about PC games that I never even touched outside of a handful(mainly the Myst series).
go back all the way to my space days n even before that msn chats console fanoybs started it not pc users get ur facts straight man im noit hating or startin shit im just saying the facts
D&D in the 1970s/early 1980s had a LOT of space/time travel and other futuristic elements in it as well. Gary Gygax and his co-designer Dave Arneson loved that sort of stuff. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was a D&D adventure written by Gygax that's a great example of that, and Dave Arneson actually designed his entire Blackmoor setting around futuristic elements (and this was actually the first D&D setting ever created by some accounts!) So in a way Garriott stuck pretty close to the D&D themes that were popular at the time. :)
Jayce you're right. I hated Barrier Peaks because it changed my friends whole campaign. Suddenly we had all these modern weapons. Eventually we went back to standard fantasy weapons
I remember DM'ing an AD&D campaign with 6 buddies and they pulled a lever in a dungeon and found themselves falling through the floor into a void that landed them on the dark side of the moon. The adventure became strictly turn-based for exactly five turns to see if they could think it through and survive it. So, while I was just a kid in 8th grade, yeah I can forgive this kinda stuff in Ultima because I did the same thing... my group said they loved it. On a side note, we played AD&D by candlelight at night in an abandoned 1800's two-story house so far away from everything that we had to take 4-wheelers to get there and the floorboards, stairs to the 2nd floor, and the upstairs floor/ceiling itself were all rotting / collapsing...... not smart!!
Great episode. I would love to see more stuff like this! It doesn't bother me that the episode is 20+ minutes, I think it almost better when going through a whole series. If possible, I would love to see an even more in-depth look at some of these older games, more gameplay and talking about graphics, sound, how the game plays etc
Nice retrospective! Love to see more on old school PC games that had a lot of entries in their respective series (Wizardry? Might and Magic?). Keep on rocking and don't forget to check out The Spoony One's retrospective on the Ultima series if you haven't already!
At first Richard and his mom hand bagged the items in zip lock bags for every game. She drew the maps herself and had them printed on cloth. Ya Richard had a cool mom!
So happy you guys did this video! Ultima III was my first intro to RPG's, and I was absolutely obsessed, even making my own graph-paper maps of the dungeons for III, IV and V. Played III and IV on the Atari 800xl and later V on the C64. Loved the music in III and IV as well. And yes...the covers to these games were so awesome Epic games, so influential. Thanks again guys!! (PS....LOVED the Laverne and Shirley reference)
Love the video! I've always known about these games but since they were a bit before my time, even though I love retro games, I may have passed them over entirely. Your passion for them however is what makes me want to play them now.
By far the greatest console-port of _Ultima IV_, however, was the Sega Master System version, which basically took the straight-up original PC game, updated the graphics, retained all the depth, music, and immersion of the PC version, and slightly tweaked the interface to make it "console-friendly." That's it, apart from changing the dungeon-layouts into a 2D mode from 3D. An amazingly-deep release, and while the NES version is good in its own way (though -- as you mention -- severely streamlined), the Master System version is probably the greatest version of _Ultima IV_ out there besides the PC edition itself. If you're looking to play a console version, that's the one to get (plus it even shipped with all of the various actual separate Origin rulebooks contained in the PC version -- _The History of Britannia_, _The Book of Mystic Wisdom_, the overworld map, etc.).
Ultima 6 was the game that got me started in the Ultima series. I used to go to a friends house to play it and we were very young and would typically just explore and rob everything we could find and didn't even follow the story for a long time. Eventually we beat it. Ultima 7 is still my favorite in the series though. In fact, i just installed Exalt so i can run it again, as well as Ultima 6 which via a mod can now be played using the Ultima 7 engine. So a huge upgrade.
Played 3 and 4 on the NES over and over again. Drawing maps on graph paper by using gems was a necessity. I first played Ultima 6 on PC. Blew my mind with the open world. I kept waiting for the overhead map to start. Talking to characters by typing whatever you wanted to say. Finding that damn pirate treasure. Trying to solve the murder of Marney's father. Buying a ship. Finding instructions for a hot air balloon and then building it. Recruiting people. Learning the gargoyles ways. What a game!
The problem with Ultima IX is that it isn't what Richard Garriot wanted. It is what publishers dictated and that ruined the game. Several interviews about the game talk about this. Also Garriot is working on a spiritual successor of Ultima. Shroud of the Avatar.
I heard it was a terrible game. I went looking for an Ultima type game awhile back and pretty much gave up. Legends of Aria may be a close proximation to Ultima Online though but they don't seem to be making much progress on it.
My Dad was obsessed with the Ultima games and I think he checked out when part 8 came out. But watching him as a little kid playing these games certainly got me into RPGs at a young age. Funnily enough I remember him watching me play Dragon Warrior on my NES and commenting on how "quaint" it was. But that didn't stop him from playing it whenever I wasn't. LOL.
SpuddyWesker The original cut of this video was 40 minutes... which is probably longer than most people would watch, but this is a good length for a series over view. Maybe in the future we could spend more time on some of the individual games.
Thoroughly entertaining and informative stuff, MetalJesus & Carlos! Additional in-depth retrospectives on PC games and series you're versed in from BITD would be amazing, especially with all the packaging and other goodies from your collection(s) available for showcase. Cheers to your top quality 'n comprehensive coverage of a franchise you clearly both totally dig.
Am I the only one who actually loves Ultima 8 Pagan? That game is so special for me. People always say bad things about it. Yes, the jumping was hard OK we get it. Yes, it was rushed. Yes, it is another world but I find the dark setting to be very engaging and a break from Britania wasn't bad at all. Besides all the things people disliked, the game's technology was amazing. And it still is today from a programmer's perspective. We have games today that are much smaller and simpler than U8 and they still manage to run laggy on our present "next-gen" computers while U8 (and other Ultima games of course) simulated a vast world map with hunderds of entity interactions on the screen while running on a computer with a RAM of 8 megabytes and a 486 CPU.
Geez Ultima Online...my friends and I all on our cell phones...with dial-up, camped invis outside a cave, and waited for people to hit the load screen while they exited...and killed them, and took all their loot...best game ever.
Awesome... I used to watch my dad play all the classic games you could possibly think of on his old PC when I was very young. I have a lot of fond memories, and the Ultima series is definitely one that has stuck in my mind. Thanks for this video !!
King Arthur: What is the greatest quality of knighthood? No poetry, just a simple answer. Merlin: Alright then. Truth! That's it, truth. When a man lies he murders some part of world. You should know that.
I only got interested in computers and computer gaming because of Ulitma V, which I began playing in the summer of 1988! then I played the "Ultima Trilogy" and got on to the others in order of release, except for Ultima 6, I had an Apple IIGS at the time of its release and was very frustrated. when I dug into my pockets for a MSDOS machine I was blown away by Ultima VII!
Same here -- we had an Apple IIgs, which meant I could play _Ultimas I-V_ (I had a copy of the _Ultima Trilogy_ boxed set, too), but when _Ultima VI_ came out in the spring of 1990, I was kinda SOL for a time. However, not long afterward, my dad bought a brand-new 386 PC, which meant I could now play _Ultima VI_, but it was a while before I saved up enough money to upgrade the graphics card so that it could handle _Ultima VII_ in 1992. Memories.
Holy carp.... this video really brought me back to the first day a friend of mine gave me the book to Ultima V in 1989 which I read and re-read after school for WEEKS until I finally could get hold of the disks. I used to really dive into the whole world of Ultima, take notes and draw diagrams, write notes to my girlfriend in the runic language, stay up all night... play the music... truly live in the world... imagining the towne of Moonglow with its scholars looking into their telescopes searching for astronomical truth.... THANK YOU for making this amazing history of one of the longest-running game series of all time and definitely one of my favourites. Eventually I got U6 with that whole dictionary included in the box and that was the first Ultima that I finished. There were domestic animals and the world was more seamless without a transition to enter and exit townes. Ultima VII again convinced many of us to get mice for our computers although the graphics were still so slow on our 386 machines, and the level of interactivity (baking bread, realtime) was amazing. I had ordered Ultima IX online and somehow it never arrived at my house and I've been waiting for it for over 19 years!! BTW that problem you mentioned with the intro of Ultima VII with the Avatar stuttering in his speech--I had the same problem as I had just gotten a Sound Blaster Pro to play the game, and there was an IRQ conflict with the printer, causing the stuttering. Changing IRQ7 to IRQ5 (via a hardware pin) was my first real view into the computer hardware itself and a whole career... Thanks again guys!!!
The main issue with controls in Ultima 8 was that it was an isometric view, so you had to move your character diagonally, which sucked, especially when you had to perform a precise jump, of which there were many, in some parts. Add to that the fact that even on a high-end PC (for the time), it would run at maybe 8 to 10 fps, so... yeah. Horrible controls. Plus it put a lot more emphasis on the action/combat than on role playing, contrary to all the games in the series to this point. The pre-rendered sprites were pretty tho. :) Great video guys. I'd love to see more PC games from that era on here, so keep up the good work. :P
Love this series. I remember playing Exodus and later Quest of the Avatar on the NES and then discovering it was part of a longstanding computer RPG series. A friend of mine acquired the first three games for his PC back in the 8-bit console era with all the cool books and box items, which I promptly showed off to my D&D interested friends. This started a lifelong obsession, and I remember being so excited for Ultima VII's release. I encouraged my mom to go ahead and buy a 486 she could work on just so I could run The Black Gate. At some point I actually owned all the Ultimas with the original boxes, maps, etc., but got rid of most of it when I was downsizing my life. Talk about regrets.
gog.com is just an amazing site for anyone who wants to get into or loves old pc games. they even have lots of new stuff and indie games. amazing prices and bundles too. jeez, you would think i work in PR for them lol. im just a really happy customer.
For real. You die, you get looted by every cockroach that walked by. I remember having my keep and having three houses out front blocking the entrance (before they changed it so you couldn't build that close to an existing structure), just so I could teleport to my marked room for my doorstep. Even then, when at the bank, with all the thieves, you had to have other rune markers and blank keys and bury your real ones incase you got pickpocketed. If you didn't have a 'courtyard' by blocking houses, you risked some guy stealthed outside your door, waiting for you to open it and charging in then logging out, so he could log back in your house when you weren't there and rob you. Just getting into your house was a huge risk if you weren't lucky to have a grandfathered in setup.
Until I saw Richard Garriott say it in an interview recently, I always pronounced it "ACK-uh-luh-beth". Turns out, it's pronounced "uh-KAL-uh-beth". Either that, or "throat wobbler mangrove".
+Adino1 in an alternate Universe where EA was sucked into one and that alternate Origin company was well rid of them! maybe that is why they are here. the hole they came out of ends here!
Fun fact: every Ultima released after the EA acquisition has evidence of being released unfinished. In SI the Cantra arc just ends because they didn't have time to finish implementing her post-restoration dialog. Pagan has unfinished areas. Ascension is Ascension.
Awesome video! I love watching Ultima retrospectives. I seriously missed out, as I only played The Black Gate on SNES. I had Ultima Online, but never got to play it. Maybe someday I can get to them, but not in the foreseeable future.
Loved this video! Takes me way back to my first Ultima game on NES and then my husband and I playing Ultima Online and raised our kids playing as well! We def knew where our teens were playing UO! Made some many life long friends. We actually live in Austin and have gotten to meet Richard In person!
Your excitement about the material, and the chemistry between you two keep this video entertaining. Thanks for putting this together. More like this =)
Thoroughly enjoyed this episode, anything retro PC game-related always interests me. I joined the series kind of late, my first Ultima was VI, but such good memories with this series.
It's a shame they ruined Ultima 9 in every way. I wish Garriot could buy back the license and not only finish the series properly but also remaster all the other games.
Yeah but Richard Garriott got to fly to the International Space Station with that sweet EA money-- basically fulfilling his video game fantasies (it's why his early Ultima games let you fly to space.)
Great vid! LOVE Ultima!! Ultima II on my friends Apple ][+ got me hooked, but I got a C64 a bit later. Asked my parents for Ultima III which was out then for my approaching BDay. By then Ultima IV had come out and I didn't know it, and they got me that. It was so amazing. The depth in a game at the time was incredible. And the music!! ;-) Good times.. Now I have a few Apple 2s and Ultima 2-5 for them. Still play them from time to time. Ultima III on the Apple 2c with it's green screen just fits!!
Phil B They did try rebooting the series through mobile with Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar... I played it, and it was ok... but got brought down by all the Freemium stuff and was ultimately shallow. Sad really, cuz now EA will probably never make a proper one
Phil B www(dot)ultimacodex(dot)com - I think you'll find that fans been tinkering with these games for years... amongst them you have Ultima V - Lazarus remake in the Dungeon Siege engine...
i dont know why ppl hate U8 so much. it was effing EPIC. It was not 7, and that's fine. And i think that's why ppl hate it: they wanted another U7. To be honest, U7 is probably the very best RPG ever, but U8 is close to it (just different). A few weeks ago, I started playing Witcher 3 because i wanted that RPG feeling i hadnt had in yeas and ... meh... 3D seems to ruin it for me. I dont know why, but the isometric pixelated game looks and feel better. Also another epic game of that era is XCom, unlike the fake recent remakes... to note U7 and U8, i remember being AMAZED that you could drop a useless thing (say, a mushroom or ustencil) somewhere and you'd come back later in the game, after hours of play and it would STILL BE THERE! woaaa. back then, if you played most game like Super Mario something that went off screen just ceased to exist! so having a thing STAY exactly where you put it was so real and it added so much to the magic of a real world. Man i miss that game... in fact, Kikoskia re-started a let's play of U8... and it made me buy it a few minutes ago :-D at least i wont have to play it with a slow as molasses 386 (i remember saving a game took anywhere from 3 to 5 MINUTES, no kidding i remember timing it when i was young)
The first Ultima on Nes was my introduction. The combat was great for the time. From moving around to the flashing screen indicating spells being cast, it's super cool.
I always come back to watch this video before starting the next ultima game. Just starting 4 after beating 1 through 3. I never would have started playing them without this video.
I started playing Ultima 8, having no clue about the previous games. I loved it. It was immersive in many ways. Its lure was the mystical darkness about this game I think. Lots of dark magic, piles and piles of skeletons, reanimating corpses, running from Zombies :) Loved it!
Thing I remember most from Ultima 1 was going to town first thing and trying to steal a good weapon without getting caught, then starting the game from there. :P
Thank you, was a eye opener to what developement took place in Ultima Online before I discovered it in Ultima Online Renaissance. There is where I dropped into this world. The look back you gave, helped me understand how these characters and themes worked their way back into the game even to today.s version.
I loved VI the most, V, VII and IV were all amazing. Gargoyles storyline was awesome and the Underworld in V was so scary. Loved my magic axe... Hated jumping in VIII, never worked for me.
Just came here from your recent Sierra video, and oddly enough, I am currently playing Ultima VII! I can see why it has a 5 star average on GOG; definitely a revolutionary game for its time!!
Thanks soooo much for telling me about GOG!!! I've been looking everywhere for a Quest for Glory series that would run on my modern PC! You friggin rule! Subscription earned.
I feel sad that I never played this series growing up. Being a long time fan of world of Warcraft I owe everything to Ultima online bc it is the direct inspiration for wow. Such a wonderful retrospective. Wish I had found your channel sooner.
Excellent video. Didn't felt long at all. In fact, I wished the video delved more into the Underworld series and Savage Lands as well. The discussion about the thematic depth of each game was fascinating too. Thank you, MetalJesusRocks Loved the previous retrospective on Quest for Glory as well.
Ah ULTIMA has some of my most fondest and saddest memorizes. Loved 6-7-8 and underworld were the gold age of RPG gaming for me. They looked at really interesting concepts and ask questions beyond "are you the chosen one?". I loved 8 the most with its unique setting and lore "AVATAR you have been a thorn in my side for far to long" lol. I feel sad though due to the way it went out. I hope that they reboot with the same heart and feel but with better graphics and interface. Great vid guys! ;]
Fantastic video! Ultima IV on the C64 ruled my life as a young teenager, later got heavy into Ultima I as well as II and III. DOS Ultima VI and VII (pt 1 and 2) were huge for me as well as Underworld - Stygian Abyss. The other series I would love a retrospective on are The Bard's Tale (I had the C64 versions which took up too much of my childhood. Also a look at the SSI D&D games (which I believe I see on your wall?) Champions of Krynn, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds... Great job guys!
I got to be the ultimate Ultima fan, I have all the original games for PC with box and manuals, and the first three for the c64. I first played Ultima 3 on c64 when I was twelve and fell in love. My favorite of all time is Ultima IV quest of the avatar. This is my favorite game of all time. Thanks for a great video and getting the word out on these fantastic games.
This is a great history lesson and retrospective for the series, nicely done! I didn't have a PC growing up, so the only experience I had with Ultima was on the NES in the form of Exodus and Quest of the Avatar. Later, when I did get a PC, I went pretty much straight into Ultima Online. I loved my consoles when I was young, but I sure missed out on a lot of classic games.
I was weaned on the Ultima series, no other games have ever felt like being in a complete world. Ultima 9 came out after I had completely given up on PC gaming, I no longer had the money, time and patience to make them work. Would love to see a re-release on modern console for a chance to play...
superdoonz1 Yeah..that realized world feeling..talked about that exact thing when I got to chat with Lord British himself. The imagination it sparked in me..from these fully formed worlds. Oh, and asked him about a re-release/remake. #hoping
Excellent retrospective of some amazing games indeed!
Enjoyed Ultimate series to no end! Most amazing RPG of its time
Haha funny enough when i saw this video in my feed i was excited thinking it was from LGR then slightly disappointed it was not :) but it was a fantastic video! Other than skipping completely over the only Ulitima i really played and loved as a kid :( that part was not cool.
An excellent comment.
LGR you should do an ultima video
Sorry to be offtopic but does someone know a method to get back into an instagram account??
I was dumb forgot the password. I would appreciate any assistance you can give me!
As a kid I played Ultima 8 and I haven't stopped playing RPGs since.
Epirc Whoa, that's interesting. 8 was the one you started with..and the one I played least. Goes to show you that it's all subjective. Glad it got you into them! The whole series helped me get into RPGs too!
Epirc Same here!
I also started with Pagan. I think I was 14. That game made such an impression on me by it's dark, depressing, but fascinating atmosphere.
ultima 8 is not a good starter of ultima series for most kids, but glad you enjoyed it.
Please tell me it was the patched version :P
Damn, this is so amazing! What a review! Thanks for the memories, Ultima VII was the best game i'v ever play when i was young (i'm 42 now). So many sleepless nights to explore Britannia world!
Raynald Bureau.
As a 16 year old gamer who loves retro games just as much as modern games, these look freaking fantastic.
+Mike Keller ... Same here. And if you haven't already seen it, go watch the video of someone beating it in 35-minutes.
+Mike Keller hands down Ultima V is the toughest and longest game of the series. It took me well over a year to win it back in 1988. It's still my favorite of all of them
I am currently replaying it, as I also gave up in 1988-89 because I was lost in the underworld.
Honestly, games are much better today, but something about those old games just seemed more exciting and ground breaking at the time! Good for you for exploring, there are plenty of games to find out. A lot of great ones on steam, even. I would recommend the game in the poster in the background - Grim Fandango. Even if you can't buy the game, watch someone play it online. It is one of the best games or stories ever made, much better than anything on netflix.
Chris Bynum - the Ultima series were great back in the day and most still hold up today entertainment wise. Man... only 16... you make me feel old. Remember playing many of these when they came out. Ultima Online is still a hell of a lot of fun to play now. Definitely give it a try if you haven't and enjoy really open RPGs and/or mmos
I didn't think this was to long of a video because you two kept engaging. Great job putting this one together.
Capn Cummings Thanks so much!
Capn Cummings when your a fan of a series, you tend to talk longer and say great things of it!! many can't help it!
Hey ***** you left out Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle!!! This in my opinion is the best game in the series!!
Davidajr23 I was going to mention that actually! Thanks for reminding me. I loved it.
Davidajr23 agreed, to me it is the best game of all time as well
I kept seeing Carlos grabbing for the box (it was on the top of the stack for much of the end parts.) Also you showed the map in the outro talk segment - yet it was never mentioned haha. Serpent Isle is heralded by many as their favorite Ultima game (myself included.) For many their favorite CRPG period. In any case: love you guys for doing this video and shining light on one of the most influential series to so many of us in our youth. To the industry as a whole, really.
Without any doubt!
The Black Gate was my favorite game of all time until Skyrim was released-- personally I did *not* like Serpent Isle. I tried to play that one three different times and just couldn't get into caring about the people on that island.
You should do more PC retrospectives like this. This was awesome.
I love hearing you talk about old PC games.
You and Carlos did a fantastic job with this video, and I would love to see more!
David Halligan Thank you kindly!
I remember writing my own autoexec.bat and config.sys files for Ultima 7 :D
Was right there with you!
Love the longer videos. Who doesn't want more metal Jesus. Also love when you talk about older pc games .like hearing and getting a glimpse into things I may have not got a chance to experience. Now I can try some out
I dig these videos on PC games cause I've always been a console guy. This way I get to learn more about PC games that I never even touched outside of a handful(mainly the Myst series).
Dane Tucker wow a console gamer that does not talk shit on pc games thats a first lol
Jeremy Krazyman Not sure if you're being sarcastic but it's the other way around.
no itsd console fanboys talkin shit on pc gamers yall dtarted the shit not us
go back all the way to my space days n even before that msn chats console fanoybs started it not pc users get ur facts straight man im noit hating or startin shit im just saying the facts
Jeremy Krazyman
We DO exist! : D
thanks for sharing -- loved the Ultima series - wish it had more of a modern age legacy!
Please do one of these for the Wizardry series!
Ninja - yes! Playing wizardy on my old apple 2e was one of my first computer RPGs.
I want to see that too. That's actually what I typed into the search bar and I got this. Haha This is cool too though.
Just so y'all know, these games are on sale at GOG right now. The first six games can be bought for $3 total. Just got them myself. Cheers.
D&D in the 1970s/early 1980s had a LOT of space/time travel and other futuristic elements in it as well. Gary Gygax and his co-designer Dave Arneson loved that sort of stuff. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was a D&D adventure written by Gygax that's a great example of that, and Dave Arneson actually designed his entire Blackmoor setting around futuristic elements (and this was actually the first D&D setting ever created by some accounts!) So in a way Garriott stuck pretty close to the D&D themes that were popular at the time. :)
Jayce you're right. I hated Barrier Peaks because it changed my friends whole campaign. Suddenly we had all these modern weapons. Eventually we went back to standard fantasy weapons
S3 module.....
I remember DM'ing an AD&D campaign with 6 buddies and they pulled a lever in a dungeon and found themselves falling through the floor into a void that landed them on the dark side of the moon. The adventure became strictly turn-based for exactly five turns to see if they could think it through and survive it. So, while I was just a kid in 8th grade, yeah I can forgive this kinda stuff in Ultima because I did the same thing... my group said they loved it. On a side note, we played AD&D by candlelight at night in an abandoned 1800's two-story house so far away from everything that we had to take 4-wheelers to get there and the floorboards, stairs to the 2nd floor, and the upstairs floor/ceiling itself were all rotting / collapsing...... not smart!!
Great episode. I would love to see more stuff like this! It doesn't bother me that the episode is 20+ minutes, I think it almost better when going through a whole series. If possible, I would love to see an even more in-depth look at some of these older games, more gameplay and talking about graphics, sound, how the game plays etc
cyde79 Glad you dug the length of the ep!
Nice retrospective! Love to see more on old school PC games that had a lot of entries in their respective series (Wizardry? Might and Magic?). Keep on rocking and don't forget to check out The Spoony One's retrospective on the Ultima series if you haven't already!
It's always cool to watch your vids and see the games I gave you chillin in the background :D
I loved the boxed computer game designs, and the goodies that were included with them.
At first Richard and his mom hand bagged the items in zip lock bags for every game. She drew the maps herself and had them printed on cloth. Ya Richard had a cool mom!
So happy you guys did this video! Ultima III was my first intro to RPG's, and I was absolutely obsessed, even making my own graph-paper maps of the dungeons for III, IV and V. Played III and IV on the Atari 800xl and later V on the C64. Loved the music in III and IV as well. And yes...the covers to these games were so awesome Epic games, so influential. Thanks again guys!! (PS....LOVED the Laverne and Shirley reference)
Someone else here with an age of 35 or older who liked the smell and atmosphere of the old video game stores back in the late 80's?
Eintopf Mitschinken I think I did..? I like the smell of the boxes and opening them up. Maybe it was the smell of a lot of wrapped boxes?
We later came to learn that it was just mold.
I love this historical journey into Ultima! Thank you!
Great stuff, The Black Gate will always be my favorite. Love the map asks extras and Iolo is my boy
Eric T Black Gate 4 EVER. Also, would you play an HD remake? I might seriously be starting to campaign for this. heh
Love the video! I've always known about these games but since they were a bit before my time, even though I love retro games, I may have passed them over entirely. Your passion for them however is what makes me want to play them now.
This is one of your best videos, I really loved it.
Richard's never been shy about how influential Time Bandits was to him.
By far the greatest console-port of _Ultima IV_, however, was the Sega Master System version, which basically took the straight-up original PC game, updated the graphics, retained all the depth, music, and immersion of the PC version, and slightly tweaked the interface to make it "console-friendly." That's it, apart from changing the dungeon-layouts into a 2D mode from 3D.
An amazingly-deep release, and while the NES version is good in its own way (though -- as you mention -- severely streamlined), the Master System version is probably the greatest version of _Ultima IV_ out there besides the PC edition itself. If you're looking to play a console version, that's the one to get (plus it even shipped with all of the various actual separate Origin rulebooks contained in the PC version -- _The History of Britannia_, _The Book of Mystic Wisdom_, the overworld map, etc.).
Dude, thank you for this comment, you just made me remember the Ultima IV I've played as a kid was on a SMS emulator!
Ultima 6 was the game that got me started in the Ultima series. I used to go to a friends house to play it and we were very young and would typically just explore and rob everything we could find and didn't even follow the story for a long time. Eventually we beat it. Ultima 7 is still my favorite in the series though. In fact, i just installed Exalt so i can run it again, as well as Ultima 6 which via a mod can now be played using the Ultima 7 engine. So a huge upgrade.
Started on Ultima V myself C64... So that was my favorite all time. U6 and U7 great memories as well.
Can't tell you guys hire awesome the time bandits reference was. Seriously made me have to dig up and find my old vhs of it.
Great to see CRPGs being covered, and in such length! How about doing Wizardry or Might and Magic next?
Played 3 and 4 on the NES over and over again. Drawing maps on graph paper by using gems was a necessity.
I first played Ultima 6 on PC. Blew my mind with the open world. I kept waiting for the overhead map to start. Talking to characters by typing whatever you wanted to say. Finding that damn pirate treasure. Trying to solve the murder of Marney's father. Buying a ship. Finding instructions for a hot air balloon and then building it. Recruiting people. Learning the gargoyles ways. What a game!
The problem with Ultima IX is that it isn't what Richard Garriot wanted. It is what publishers dictated and that ruined the game. Several interviews about the game talk about this. Also Garriot is working on a spiritual successor of Ultima. Shroud of the Avatar.
Dustin Gibbons And it's awesome. I'm playing it now! We should all friend each other in there - lovers of the series unite!
I heard it was a terrible game. I went looking for an Ultima type game awhile back and pretty much gave up. Legends of Aria may be a close proximation to Ultima Online though but they don't seem to be making much progress on it.
My Dad was obsessed with the Ultima games and I think he checked out when part 8 came out. But watching him as a little kid playing these games certainly got me into RPGs at a young age. Funnily enough I remember him watching me play Dragon Warrior on my NES and commenting on how "quaint" it was. But that didn't stop him from playing it whenever I wasn't. LOL.
Christopher Pico Your dad is awesome!
didn't notice it was a long video untill you mentioned it lol. good work.
SpuddyWesker The original cut of this video was 40 minutes... which is probably longer than most people would watch, but this is a good length for a series over view. Maybe in the future we could spend more time on some of the individual games.
This was an awesome video MJR! This one needed to be long... and you two did great!
Yes please, much more of this kind of material!
Thoroughly entertaining and informative stuff, MetalJesus & Carlos! Additional in-depth retrospectives on PC games and series you're versed in from BITD would be amazing, especially with all the packaging and other goodies from your collection(s) available for showcase. Cheers to your top quality 'n comprehensive coverage of a franchise you clearly both totally dig.
Drixxel Thank you kindly. Would love to do more old school PC game vids.
Am I the only one who actually loves Ultima 8 Pagan?
That game is so special for me. People always say bad things about it. Yes, the jumping was hard OK we get it. Yes, it was rushed. Yes, it is another world but I find the dark setting to be very engaging and a break from Britania wasn't bad at all. Besides all the things people disliked, the game's technology was amazing. And it still is today from a programmer's perspective. We have games today that are much smaller and simpler than U8 and they still manage to run laggy on our present "next-gen" computers while U8 (and other Ultima games of course) simulated a vast world map with hunderds of entity interactions on the screen while running on a computer with a RAM of 8 megabytes and a 486 CPU.
Gotta say - I loved the Ultima games since 6 (when I first got a PC) - including Pagan.
i love U8 one of the best in the series for me :)
what a trip down memory lane . Thank you so much guys !!!!!❤❤❤
Please, do a video on some of the TSR Gold Box games. I have a lot of fond memories playing these on the C64.
Ehumis Ten LOVE the gold box games!
Ehumis Ten Just played through them again last year.....loved the series.....
Heh... I just asked the same thing too! Yeah... definitely would like to see that.
Geez Ultima Online...my friends and I all on our cell phones...with dial-up, camped invis outside a cave, and waited for people to hit the load screen while they exited...and killed them, and took all their loot...best game ever.
I wanna see more retro RPGs stuff.
Awesome...
I used to watch my dad play all the classic games you could possibly think of on his old PC when I was very young. I have a lot of fond memories, and the Ultima series is definitely one that has stuck in my mind.
Thanks for this video !!
RemixedVoice I keep thinking that I .. me .. could be the dad in these stories. I'm dad age!!! AGH!
King Arthur: What is the greatest quality of knighthood? No poetry, just a simple answer.
Merlin: Alright then. Truth! That's it, truth. When a man lies he murders some part of world. You should know that.
I only got interested in computers and computer gaming because of Ulitma V, which I began playing in the summer of 1988! then I played the "Ultima Trilogy" and got on to the others in order of release, except for Ultima 6, I had an Apple IIGS at the time of its release and was very frustrated. when I dug into my pockets for a MSDOS machine I was blown away by Ultima VII!
Same here -- we had an Apple IIgs, which meant I could play _Ultimas I-V_ (I had a copy of the _Ultima Trilogy_ boxed set, too), but when _Ultima VI_ came out in the spring of 1990, I was kinda SOL for a time. However, not long afterward, my dad bought a brand-new 386 PC, which meant I could now play _Ultima VI_, but it was a while before I saved up enough money to upgrade the graphics card so that it could handle _Ultima VII_ in 1992.
Memories.
Holy carp.... this video really brought me back to the first day a friend of mine gave me the book to Ultima V in 1989 which I read and re-read after school for WEEKS until I finally could get hold of the disks. I used to really dive into the whole world of Ultima, take notes and draw diagrams, write notes to my girlfriend in the runic language, stay up all night... play the music... truly live in the world... imagining the towne of Moonglow with its scholars looking into their telescopes searching for astronomical truth....
THANK YOU for making this amazing history of one of the longest-running game series of all time and definitely one of my favourites.
Eventually I got U6 with that whole dictionary included in the box and that was the first Ultima that I finished. There were domestic animals and the world was more seamless without a transition to enter and exit townes.
Ultima VII again convinced many of us to get mice for our computers although the graphics were still so slow on our 386 machines, and the level of interactivity (baking bread, realtime) was amazing.
I had ordered Ultima IX online and somehow it never arrived at my house and I've been waiting for it for over 19 years!!
BTW that problem you mentioned with the intro of Ultima VII with the Avatar stuttering in his speech--I had the same problem as I had just gotten a Sound Blaster Pro to play the game, and there was an IRQ conflict with the printer, causing the stuttering. Changing IRQ7 to IRQ5 (via a hardware pin) was my first real view into the computer hardware itself and a whole career... Thanks again guys!!!
what is a paladin?
Shinjiro Aragaki A paladin is basically a Fighter that has an alignment or moral affinity towards Honor, Lawful and everything Good.
MetalJesusRocks "what's a paladin" is a running gag, see spoony's retrospective on the ultima series ;)
Franz Yama Or don't if you're not into watching a grown man have a mental breakdown over a bad game.
warriorforpeacerfk lol, that's all played
Shinjiro Aragaki I'm not entirely sure.
I still play Ultima Online to this day. My favorite game ever made for sure.
Ultima online consumed a lot of my teenage years. Anybody still play that?
SERPENT ISLAND (VII second part) was the best game ever. Had the best of times playing that. Replayed it back last year. A+
The main issue with controls in Ultima 8 was that it was an isometric view, so you had to move your character diagonally, which sucked, especially when you had to perform a precise jump, of which there were many, in some parts. Add to that the fact that even on a high-end PC (for the time), it would run at maybe 8 to 10 fps, so... yeah. Horrible controls. Plus it put a lot more emphasis on the action/combat than on role playing, contrary to all the games in the series to this point. The pre-rendered sprites were pretty tho. :)
Great video guys. I'd love to see more PC games from that era on here, so keep up the good work. :P
mrsabidji Yeah, the graphics looked good but I agree - it was less RPG-y than the others.
Love this series. I remember playing Exodus and later Quest of the Avatar on the NES and then discovering it was part of a longstanding computer RPG series. A friend of mine acquired the first three games for his PC back in the 8-bit console era with all the cool books and box items, which I promptly showed off to my D&D interested friends. This started a lifelong obsession, and I remember being so excited for Ultima VII's release. I encouraged my mom to go ahead and buy a 486 she could work on just so I could run The Black Gate. At some point I actually owned all the Ultimas with the original boxes, maps, etc., but got rid of most of it when I was downsizing my life. Talk about regrets.
gog.com is just an amazing site for anyone who wants to get into or loves old pc games. they even have lots of new stuff and indie games. amazing prices and bundles too. jeez, you would think i work in PR for them lol. im just a really happy customer.
maziku I'm the same way. Actually didn't know Metal had that promo with them, and just randomly said how awesome they were. They are!
maziku I really love their site too and when I was offered being an GOG , I jumped at the chance. I have bought a ton of games from them already.
Love how you guys described UO as being the "Wild West." So true! Ultima VI, VII, and UO are my favorites.
For real. You die, you get looted by every cockroach that walked by. I remember having my keep and having three houses out front blocking the entrance (before they changed it so you couldn't build that close to an existing structure), just so I could teleport to my marked room for my doorstep. Even then, when at the bank, with all the thieves, you had to have other rune markers and blank keys and bury your real ones incase you got pickpocketed. If you didn't have a 'courtyard' by blocking houses, you risked some guy stealthed outside your door, waiting for you to open it and charging in then logging out, so he could log back in your house when you weren't there and rob you. Just getting into your house was a huge risk if you weren't lucky to have a grandfathered in setup.
*ehem* It's "Akalabeth"...
Iago Mosquera I know I was cringing...Everyone calls it alkabeth ....
Iago Mosquera Was about to comment on the same thing.. people with lazy grammar.. ugh... ;)
Thank you, for that.
Until I saw Richard Garriott say it in an interview recently, I always pronounced it "ACK-uh-luh-beth". Turns out, it's pronounced "uh-KAL-uh-beth".
Either that, or "throat wobbler mangrove".
And not even showing the amazing cover art for the first games. It kinda pisses me off doing this without propper historic content included.
Man, great job! I love this format of video, doing a full series retrospective. Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing more like this!
I look at the TES series and often wonder where the Ultima series would if that black hole known as EA didn't exist.
+Adino1 in an alternate Universe where EA was sucked into one and that alternate Origin company was well rid of them! maybe that is why they are here. the hole they came out of ends here!
Fun fact: every Ultima released after the EA acquisition has evidence of being released unfinished. In SI the Cantra arc just ends because they didn't have time to finish implementing her post-restoration dialog. Pagan has unfinished areas. Ascension is Ascension.
Nathan Brown Ultima VII was released post-acquisition. More like, every game started post-acquisition. ;)
@Aunchient Pistol Haha, I never noticed that.
Awesome video! I love watching Ultima retrospectives. I seriously missed out, as I only played The Black Gate on SNES. I had Ultima Online, but never got to play it. Maybe someday I can get to them, but not in the foreseeable future.
Definitely more old skool games!
School*
Loved this video! Takes me way back to my first Ultima game on NES and then my husband and I playing Ultima Online and raised our kids playing as well! We def knew where our teens were playing UO! Made some many life long friends. We actually live in Austin and have gotten to meet Richard In person!
Please more videos about the wonderful old PC games
MegaAedu I'd like to make em! We'll see.
Your excitement about the material, and the chemistry between you two keep this video entertaining. Thanks for putting this together. More like this =)
I really like you Metal Jesus. You are a very good person and i wish you all the best in life. Thank you for all your awesome video's.
Richard said that Time Bandits was totally the inspiration. In an interview with Matt Barton at Matt Chat, I think.
Minor point, Iolo is pronounced, Yolo
Thoroughly enjoyed this episode, anything retro PC game-related always interests me. I joined the series kind of late, my first Ultima was VI, but such good memories with this series.
***** The series always feels like home to me. When I go back into Britannia memories come back, and nostalgia hits me.
Ultima 9 looks better than Two Worlds lol.
it was really good
Lulu Linn Two Worlds or Ultima 9?
Tony Koslowski Ultima 9, I played it as a kid. I really enjoyed it. Despite its crazy sudden turn from all the other games stories.
Its not an anime, her name is Ann she is from the game Harvest Moon 64. A favorite of my childhood
Dr. Dhoom Rare find then. the game is worth quiet a lot. My copy has sadly quit working.
Just ran into this video, between this and Spoony's series it gives a great light into this series.
It's a shame they ruined Ultima 9 in every way. I wish Garriot could buy back the license and not only finish the series properly but also remaster all the other games.
@@dragondude9637 I think he tried something with Shrouds of the Avatar. It did not end well
Ahh, Origin Systems. So sad how EA basically slaughtered them and crushed a lot of fans in the process.
sglider EA turning into a bunch of suits ruined a lot of stuff used to be the best company....well except Microprose....and Epyx....
Yeah but Richard Garriott got to fly to the International Space Station with that sweet EA money-- basically fulfilling his video game fantasies (it's why his early Ultima games let you fly to space.)
Well, having been a console kind of guy my entire life I would love to see more videos like this outlining older games I never had a chance to play!
Old UO Player. Now Shroud of the Avatar player.
Lord Zeldoc How far are you in Shroud? Just started up myself
shroud is in pre alpha.
you can pay some support money and get in now tho!
yeah
Lord Zeldoc I'm waiting for the full version before playing it.
Great vid! LOVE Ultima!! Ultima II on my friends Apple ][+ got me hooked, but I got a C64 a bit later. Asked my parents for Ultima III which was out then for my approaching BDay. By then Ultima IV had come out and I didn't know it, and they got me that. It was so amazing. The depth in a game at the time was incredible. And the music!! ;-) Good times.. Now I have a few Apple 2s and Ultima 2-5 for them. Still play them from time to time. Ultima III on the Apple 2c with it's green screen just fits!!
guys maybe youve covered this before but with all the "remastered" games now a days how has NO ONE remade these games?
Phil B They did try rebooting the series through mobile with Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar... I played it, and it was ok... but got brought down by all the Freemium stuff and was ultimately shallow. Sad really, cuz now EA will probably never make a proper one
Phil B www(dot)ultimacodex(dot)com - I think you'll find that fans been tinkering with these games for years... amongst them you have Ultima V - Lazarus remake in the Dungeon Siege engine...
Thanks for that walk down memory lane. Such fond memories of Ultima 3 on my Atari 800
Akalabeth is pronounced "Ah-kal-a-beth"
There's no L infront of the K.
who gives a fuck
Alcoholabeth
I had the first one. Never finished it. I remember the game cartridge had a massive battery pack attached so you wouldn't lose your saves.
i dont know why ppl hate U8 so much. it was effing EPIC. It was not 7, and that's fine. And i think that's why ppl hate it: they wanted another U7. To be honest, U7 is probably the very best RPG ever, but U8 is close to it (just different). A few weeks ago, I started playing Witcher 3 because i wanted that RPG feeling i hadnt had in yeas and ... meh... 3D seems to ruin it for me. I dont know why, but the isometric pixelated game looks and feel better. Also another epic game of that era is XCom, unlike the fake recent remakes... to note U7 and U8, i remember being AMAZED that you could drop a useless thing (say, a mushroom or ustencil) somewhere and you'd come back later in the game, after hours of play and it would STILL BE THERE! woaaa. back then, if you played most game like Super Mario something that went off screen just ceased to exist! so having a thing STAY exactly where you put it was so real and it added so much to the magic of a real world. Man i miss that game... in fact, Kikoskia re-started a let's play of U8... and it made me buy it a few minutes ago :-D at least i wont have to play it with a slow as molasses 386 (i remember saving a game took anywhere from 3 to 5 MINUTES, no kidding i remember timing it when i was young)
Great video. I never knew anything about Ultima but you guys ran it down really well and I learned a few things.
After the game Pagan came Christianity ba dum cha
Octavia Black Nice one, haha.
Great retrospective. A series I've always heard about but knew little. This video was quite educational.
OOOooOOH it's so annoying! It's AKALABETH not ALKABETH! It's a game, not a battery!
The first Ultima on Nes was my introduction. The combat was great for the time. From moving around to the flashing screen indicating spells being cast, it's super cool.
I always come back to watch this video before starting the next ultima game. Just starting 4 after beating 1 through 3. I never would have started playing them without this video.
I started playing Ultima 8, having no clue about the previous games. I loved it. It was immersive in many ways. Its lure was the mystical darkness about this game I think. Lots of dark magic, piles and piles of skeletons, reanimating corpses, running from Zombies :) Loved it!
Thing I remember most from Ultima 1 was going to town first thing and trying to steal a good weapon without getting caught, then starting the game from there. :P
Ondaedj I did the same thing. Quick in and out!!
Everytime you do a retrospective video about an specific game saga it's so awesome!!
Thank you, was a eye opener to what developement took place in Ultima Online before I discovered it in Ultima Online Renaissance. There is where I dropped into this world. The look back you gave, helped me understand how these characters and themes worked their way back into the game even to today.s version.
I loved VI the most, V, VII and IV were all amazing. Gargoyles storyline was awesome and the Underworld in V was so scary. Loved my magic axe... Hated jumping in VIII, never worked for me.
Just came here from your recent Sierra video, and oddly enough, I am currently playing Ultima VII! I can see why it has a 5 star average on GOG; definitely a revolutionary game for its time!!
I like the 25 min format for this type of video. A game series deserves a good chunk of time when you are passionate about it.
Thanks soooo much for telling me about GOG!!! I've been looking everywhere for a Quest for Glory series that would run on my modern PC! You friggin rule! Subscription earned.
I feel sad that I never played this series growing up. Being a long time fan of world of Warcraft I owe everything to Ultima online bc it is the direct inspiration for wow. Such a wonderful retrospective. Wish I had found your channel sooner.
Excellent video. Didn't felt long at all. In fact, I wished the video delved more into the Underworld series and Savage Lands as well. The discussion about the thematic depth of each game was fascinating too. Thank you, MetalJesusRocks
Loved the previous retrospective on Quest for Glory as well.
Ah ULTIMA has some of my most fondest and saddest memorizes. Loved 6-7-8 and underworld were the gold age of RPG gaming for me. They looked at really interesting concepts and ask questions beyond "are you the chosen one?". I loved 8 the most with its unique setting and lore "AVATAR you have been a thorn in my side for far to long" lol. I feel sad though due to the way it went out. I hope that they reboot with the same heart and feel but with better graphics and interface. Great vid guys! ;]
BigZapfer Thanks for checking it out. Also, I think i'm gonna start campaigning for and U7 remake!
Fantastic video! Ultima IV on the C64 ruled my life as a young teenager, later got heavy into Ultima I as well as II and III. DOS Ultima VI and VII (pt 1 and 2) were huge for me as well as Underworld - Stygian Abyss.
The other series I would love a retrospective on are The Bard's Tale (I had the C64 versions which took up too much of my childhood. Also a look at the SSI D&D games (which I believe I see on your wall?) Champions of Krynn, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds...
Great job guys!
I got to be the ultimate Ultima fan, I have all the original games for PC with box and manuals, and the first three for the c64. I first played Ultima 3 on c64 when I was twelve and fell in love. My favorite of all time is Ultima IV quest of the avatar. This is my favorite game of all time. Thanks for a great video and getting the word out on these fantastic games.
This is a great history lesson and retrospective for the series, nicely done!
I didn't have a PC growing up, so the only experience I had with Ultima was on the NES in the form of Exodus and Quest of the Avatar. Later, when I did get a PC, I went pretty much straight into Ultima Online. I loved my consoles when I was young, but I sure missed out on a lot of classic games.
Great video MJR and Carlos. I would love to see more classic PC game videos for sure.
I was weaned on the Ultima series, no other games have ever felt like being in a complete world.
Ultima 9 came out after I had completely given up on PC gaming, I no longer had the money, time and patience to make them work.
Would love to see a re-release on modern console for a chance to play...
superdoonz1 Yeah..that realized world feeling..talked about that exact thing when I got to chat with Lord British himself. The imagination it sparked in me..from these fully formed worlds. Oh, and asked him about a re-release/remake. #hoping