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WHAT DID THEY DO TO ULTIMA!?!?
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- Опубліковано 17 сер 2024
- My other Ultima Reviews:
• The Ultima VI: The Fal...
• The Ultima VII: The Bl...
• The Ultima Runes of Vi...
patreon.com/jasongravesposer
0:00 Intro bee ess
1:34 Exodus
15:39 Quest of the Avatar
30:20 Warriors of Destiny
Ultima 3 NES has some of the most memorable game music ever. I still can't get it out of my head to this day.
The music was written by Tsugutoshi Goto, a pop songwriter who wrote almost all of Shizuka Kudo's top 10 hits. There was an album of his music from Ultima Exodus here:
ua-cam.com/play/OLAK5uy_k3AzxpcfhDi782epsI9IGmKRP-XiGa_go.html
@@brandonberg4798ultima 3 has some of the best nes music.
We had Ultima III and IV on NES when I was a kid. My Dad and I played both, and Ultima IV was definitely the real winner. It was my dad's favorite NES game, and he loved the non-linear approach to it and how it was focused more on pursuing virtues than defeating some big bad. When I started collecting NES games I briefly thought about Ultima V but it has the unfortunate distinction of being both expensive and really bad so I've skipped it.
Thank you for making this retrospective, it's always nice to see people talk about the versions *I* played as a kid... now if I can just find a video for that NES port of King's Quest V...
If a cleric uses the Open spell then it functions identically as the thief opening a chest with get. The Cleric can avoid traps if magically opened. Same with other classes with the Open spell
i am SO glad somebody finally covered the ultima NES games!!! there were like no videos on exodus for many years, great work!!!
i highly reccomend checking out the master system port of ultima 4 by the way, its very faithful to the PC version and quite fun!
Glad you enjoyed! I thought about doing that in this very video, but no time, I think 3 games in 1 month is my limit... Just ignore Phantasy Star lol
There used to be some Exodus grinding tutorials by Ulillillia.
Actually it was Wizardry then Ultima, and Wizardry was a very advanced rpg inspired by Dungeons of Dagorth, which playing today could probably result in dementia.
Wizardry one is currently being remade in all its Bastard glory.
The Shining in the Darkness tavern music makes me feel right at home.
I’m so glad to see a proper review here of Ultima: Exodus. It was one of the most difficult games I remember beating as a kid.
I was motivated to beat it because it was so mysterious-I felt compelled to see it through to the end to reveal the mystery.
But the ending was essentially nothing-roll credits, end game. It was infuriating.
I remember playing that one as a kid, The friend who lended it to me said it was impossible because you couldn't find one of the essential items without using a cheating accessory... and then while I was robbing the shopkeepers of the hidden town for giggles, I found the item by pure luck.
I liked the ending with the collapsing castle. It felt unique.
well remember that it was from 1983 originally
My wife was doing her make-up and listing to your vid, she goes "Is that the angry video game Nerd?" I said no, he's better than the Nerd is now. Love the content brother!
The spells ROT (aoe attack that sets all enemies to 1hp) and ASCEND/DESCEND (move up and down floors in dungeons) remove a LOT of the drudgery of Exodus. They nullify the biggest nuisances in the game and let you focus on finding cool stuff. U4 is a better game, but more of a slog because it doesn’t have these “cheap” spells to get around quickly.
One of the major issues with Ultima 5 on NES was that it came out after Ultima 6 on PC. That sounds weird, but basically when it started development, there was the bright idea to model it after UVI. Instead of playing to the systems’ strengths and bringing the story over to a prettier UIV, they tried to take a more open world style PC game, and squeeze it onto an NES cart.
I’m sure more experienced NES developers might have been able to get something closer to UVI without so many issues. But it would have made way more sense to spend their energy in other places.
I was going to say that it's trying to look like VI and VII. They were trying to squeeze that onto the NES of all systems!
I can only imagine what Spoony would have said if he'd covered this game in his Ultima retrospective, probably something along the line of "what in the bloody diarrhea hell is this massive pile of FUCK?!?"
Martin Galway is actually a legend amongst 8-bit-composers (and even after that). You can't imagine my surprise when you revealed that he is credited for this turd. Someone should really investigate the story behind this game. From the outset, it would have seemed to be destined for success... who knows which evil powers interfered! */distant thunder/* Anyway thanks for suffering for us and sharing your journey.
Yeah! Listen to Times of Lore on the c64 for an amazing rpg soundtrack.
This is great! Ultima Exodus on NES was the very first rpg I ever played when I was like 10. I was hooked even though I had no idea what I was doing since it was a rental and I didnt even have a manual to look at. I just remember the music was kinda nice and I still sometimes hum the town theme randomly.
I feel for u
Ultima 4 is one of the finest CRPGs ever made. I never knew it got console ports, now I needs them..... The Original came with cloth map, a book of magic and book of history. I really miss that level of presentation. The C64 version was huge, complex and required a pen and notepad to keep track of the quest as you had to ask NPCs questions. You became an adventurer Detective.
Love the video, i couldnt find patience for these slow paced battles back in the day
Thank you for acknowledging these! Hardly anybody does. MAN was I hoping Spoony would back in the day.
Quest of the Avatar is what got me into RPGs, and encouraged me at a very young age to learn to read before grade 1, and when I hit grade 2 I was already college level.
Ultima IV: “Ah, yeah, this one looks fine.”
Thank you good sir.
Fun fact clerics in ultima exodus get the open spell which bypasses traps so you only need a thief to get the silver pick
Clerics can get the pick too.
Spoony still has the best content on the internet
Your letter has been forwarded to Lord British for his Perusal. Thankyou for choosing the Britannia Mail service.
Ultima IV on NES was my introduction to the series. My next was Ultima VI on PC.
Two of the best CRPGs of all time.
I think they were going for a realistic walking cycle where each input of a direction you press is for left leg, then right leg, then left leg finally moving you forward lol
Loved Ultima III back in the day. Since the presentation was so minimal, I would use my imagination to keep it interesting, imagining dialogue between my party members as they traveled around. Never did beat it, but I enjoyed the experience, especially the music. I got IV as a present for Easter one year, and loved that one too.
All i remember about this game was creating a party of 4, transfering all the gold to one person in the party, then making another party and doing the same until I had endless gold. This trick was coined "the money exchange," and was in an early issue of Nintendo Power magazine.
Then I remember going straight for a town that only appears out in the woods when the moons are in the right phase. This secret town had all the good weaspons and you can get them pretty much immediately.
I rented this and exodus many times from the local appliance, electronics store. They had a bad ass nes rental section. Friday night after school, that was my first destination. Fuck around and find out Life force and joust were all that was left on the menu. In those days the games generally always came with the manual, which I loved. The place closed in the middle of the snes's life. I was probably 8-10 when playing these two rpgs. Quest of the avatar was WAY more manageable. I made progress in exodus but it was so cumbersome. I would have rather tended to chickens daily at 9 years old than play exodus daily.
Here's a cool fact, there's a homebrew port of Ultima 3 for the GBC. (But It's not the NES version they ported.)
There is? I need to play that.
Don’t know how I stumbled upon your channel, but been hooked. Keep it up.
There seems to be a highly inconsistent degree of quality across the entire board when it comes to early western-style RPGs and their ports. For instance, the original Might and Magic came out in 86 for the PC and the NES port has many QOL improvements including music. M&M 2 came out with versions for the PC, SNES, and the Genesis, but the Genesis version is by far the best.
This is the first time I'm hearing this, wow
@@hemangchauhan2864 Ultima and Wizardry (and Might & Magic) were pretty huge in Japan and are the reason the jrpg exits; so not only were there a bunch of direct ports of Wizardry and Might & Magic games in the 8bit - 32bit era, but there's a bunch of ports that never made it outside of Japan because they realized there wasn't a market for them on console. Someone just put out a fan translation of Might & Magic Book One for the tg-16 cd, Wizardry 1-6 all have SNES translations and also have psx versions that are playable if you go in the menu and change the language to English.
Honestly, wizardry probably fared the absolute best when it comes to console ports.
The SNES wizardry (5?) Was honestly pretty good and this is coming from a guy who thinks all wizardry games before 7 were bad.
The Japanese release of Might and Magic 2 on SNES is different to the US version and it is WAY better
The size of M&M 3,4, and 5 are nutz
There is one thing about the NES Ultima 3 that was an extra slap in the face: They removed the major clue on where to look for the town of Dawn. In the Apple/PC/all other versions, there's a prisoner sitting in a fire field that you can talk to, and he'll give you XY coordinates as to where Dawn is. In the NES version, he just asks if you've heard of Dawn. The only hint location-wise left in the NES game is that Dawn is "in the forest", and you learn that in the town of Moon, which is on the complete other end of the continent. An extra kicker: There is still a hint that tells you to go talk to the prisoners because they know the secret...and the only thing they'll still ask is "Have you ever heard of Dawn?"
The only way most people found Dawn on the NES version? Nintendo Power or the helpline.
Oh my god. So as of this writing, I'm 42 years old. I was a kid when these games came out. Ultima: Exodus was one of my first RPGs and I played the crap out of it. Quest of the Avatar was amazing! Easily one of the best RPGs for the system. I remember being at a Toys R' Us and my mom told me I could have one game. I saw Ultima: Warriors of Destiny. I impulsively asked my mom to get it for me, knowing how much I loved the other two. This was unusual for me because I usually researched the games I got.
I was excited. I popped it in, created a character. It gave me the familiar questions for virtues. The intro played and drew me into the story. Lord British has disappeared, Shadowlords and Lord Blackthorn... wow. I'm in for a treat!
Then the game started.
...
I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. Apparently they tried to cram the Ultima 6 engine on an NES cartridge or something, and I have no idea why they didn't just use the Quest of the Avatar engine. That would have been so cool! As an adult who has played most of the Ultima games on their PC releases, my favorite is Ultima V: Lazarus, the remake of Warriors of Destiny. It has such a great overall story. The NES version could have been great, one of the best games for the system. The blueprints were there!
I remember playing Exodus way back when, never finished it because I could never figure out what to do. So I just gave up on it.
10 year-old me had no chance with Ultima Exodus…thank you for the great video!
Exodus has such KickAss music. I really tried beating it through exploration but got stuck after dying a million times.
Trying Exodus now, seemed the most mature of the NES ports. Loving every minute; the spells using materials, the chess style battles, the attrition on resources. Even some lite tactics in battle. Wish I hadn't skipped this back then but I won't pretend FF wasn't great.
Thanks for this quick overview, always wondered what these first ultima games felt like. You saved my arse, I thank thee.
Also great you used that tavern song from Shining in the Darkness as your background theme 🎉
Z
Voice crack in the greetings. You know this nerd is gonna be a lot of fun to be around for the next 42 minutes.
I feel in Exodus he would have been happy with a party of 1 fuzzy alchemist, 1 dwarven druid (mystical equipment), and 2 elven larks just for variety. The alchemist can get high enough dex to be all the thief that is needed.
I genuinely enjoyed my first playthrough of exodus. 4 elven (female in the roleplay) barbarians who all used bows.
Ultima 4 is an all time great that blows exodus out of the water though.
Hey, we patreons did it this month, guys. We got him to buy Ultima 5.
I'm only a few seconds in and already can tell I'm in for a treat.
You are the sme on rpgs and I respect your opinions good sir.
Great video. Bunch of good info and fun to watch. Happy holidays/merry Christmas hope it was good :).
I have nostalgia for NES Ultima 3. I remember using that money shift trick as well so I could get decent gear for everyone. Other than the escape from the collapse at the end and the 'reveal' of what Exodus was, I don't remember anything about the game. Which is probably a bad sign. I do not plan on revisiting it, because I know the nostalgia goggles will be strong for that one. Thanks as always for the video, thanks for your hard work. Take the rest of the year off. You deserve it.
For a bit of additional history here, the Famicom port of Ultima III was quite influential in Japan (it came out much earlier than the NES version did so it wasn't all that dated). You can look at that and Wizardry as the western RPGs that helped set the course of the JRPG.
Richard Garriott even claims there was going to be an Ultima anime series based on Exodus, but they lost the materials to an earthquake.
The battle theme on Exodus, is the greatest battle theme to ever exist.
dududu duh duh, DAH DAH DAH
It's weird how short, simplistic, and repetitive it is, but it's a heck of an ear worm.
Master System of Ultima IV is quite praise among the community, better than NES version at times
I loved the bar type thing that you had going on at the beginning of this video. Great video, I hardly know a thing about Ultima, especially Ultima on NES, yet I saw the whole thing because it was so well put together and entertaining.
I've never played the Ultima franchise, but it's always interested me. Other than Ultima 4 on NES none of them seem like they are worth playing, but they are all interesting parts of the franchise's history none the less.
They're not worth playing on consoles at all... stick with the PC versions.
@@JustMe99999 Yeah, if I ever play through the Ultima games I will stick with the PC versions most likely. Unlike Wizardry it does not seem like the console versions of these games are worth playing.
A fine video! It's nice to see the hintbooks. Those were the first things to get pilfered from the video game rental stores.
This is my 1st time seeing Ultima 5 Warriors of Destiny on the NES. I see they attempted to make it look like Ultima 6 on the PC. That was a big mistake obviously.
I was actually playing Shining in the Darkness when I stumbled into this video.
Ultima for the NES is what put me off console RPGs for years. I loved Ultima III and when it came out for the NES I wanted to try it out.
With Ultima III, the monsters couldn't walk over chests, so I would build a fortress of chests to protect me from monsters. I also had my fleet of pirate ships, which occasionally would be wiped out by the whirlpool.
Ultima and Wizardry! You forgot Wizardry!
The graphics are actually pretty good
For Warriors of Destiny?!
No, Ultima Exodus. It's a NES title, it's supposed to look that way. The sprites are well animated, and it even has a cool line of site effect. Of course it doesn't have any sprite scaling or parallax scrolling, those things are really hard to do on an NES, it wasn't really seen in any early NES titles. The fact that they have animated enemies on the world map is pretty impressive. Sprites are pretty detailed compared to say Final Fantasy. I would argue that this way is prettier than Final Fantasy. But saying this looks like a ColecoVision game is crazy, just look at all the colors on screen. I'm not saying it's Super Mario 3, but the graphics are actually better than a lot of other games on NES. And of course Phantasy Star is going to look better, not only was it considered one of the prettiest RPGs to have ever been released to that point, but it was also on the master system, which was a power house compared to the NES. I know this is all subjective, but I feel like the graphics are probably better than most other NES titles released in 1988 or prior. Also a lot of the better looking games usually used an enhancement chip to pull off their cool effects.
Also animated water tiles, Zelda didn't have that.
@@mage1over137 It's very early NES, like the black box games. There's a certain appeal in that, but it's still kind of a shock to playing an rpg that looks closer to urban champion than mario 2 or something
Have you seen the graphics update ROM hack for Exodus?
I won't defend the standard graphics, those stick figures on horseback were bad by Colecovision standards...
But for the time? It was a sandbox. The world felt like a world. Just discovering you could fight NPCs felt wild and subversive and more real than other games. (Complete with deserved consequnces.)
I wish I'd discovered IV back then. Thank you for giving it the credit it deserves.
And reminding me why I was lucky I couldn't afford that last one.
It's been such a long time since I laugh so hard at a video game review. Your style of review reminds me of the old school AVGN videos I used to watch back then, but way funnier (which I can't say the same for the current AVGN videos nowadays).
I have been watching your videos on an off for about a year now (since I first saw your Breath of Fire review), and your videos keep getting better and better. I don't know how manage to do that, but please keep doing what you are doing and never lose your way.
3:26 "Unlearn what you think you know because it is so far removed from anything we recognize as an RPG"?
No, not for those of us who weren't born in 1995 or later. I always get a kick watching some kid tell me how weird a game looks from the '80s.
RPGs initially looked like that and many of us remember playing them. Ultima and Wizardry were groundbreaking at the time. What people call "JRPGs", came from people who played games like Ultima (which is why I don't distinguish JRPG from RPG).
I wish the background music was a tad louder.
Thumbs up for Christmas miracles!
Yay! Glad to see Quest of the Avatar getting some love -- not that I expected anything less. Game really is ahead of its time in every regard, and the NES port was handled exceedingly well, mistranslated yes/no prompts notwithstanding. About the only thing I'd say Exodus has over QotA is the music, and even that, only just -- I just REALLY like the music in Exodus. Even that super simple battle theme.
Warriors of Destiny... yeeeeeeeah... really, truly baffling indeed.
QotA was so cool with the virtue stuff, moongates & character classes that I wanted to get the other games knowing nothing of the PC origins. You're right about the Exodus music. Ultima had another sequel I have on SNES but it's unplayable.
@@josepha3805 Yeah, QotA was a game that really made you THINK about what you were doing, more so than any other game I'd ever played before it (and just about any other game I've played since, frankly!). Truly a one-of-a-kind adventure.
Don't know if its been mentioned yet but Sansara Naga, a famicom RPG, definitely had toilets... and you used them to fast travel.
The game's tone drastically shifts from bizarre and goofy to dire and serious, and the toilets are definitely the former.
cucumber gatorade is amazing. take that back!
3:13 If you know how to play Dagon Warrior 1; you need not spend hours, tediously grinding. You can advance quickly by having enough healing items to fight the harder enemies, giving you more EXP, leveling up fast. You can do this early in the 1st couple caves. You will make plenty of trips back to town for items; but it is way faster than grinding, out on the world map, fighting slimes and ghosts for hours.
Yep. Low risk = low reward.
13:58 "There's old and then there's Ultima Exodus old."
Games back then we're so much harder and with no internet, u ether figure it out,know someone who beat it or maybe a walkthrough in a game mag. The experience and difficulty made it more immersive. Blessed to come up then.
Ah, the good ol' days. When thieves weren't some magical master murderers who somehow dodged EVERYTHING and also did more damage than anyone else. You know, when RPGs aimed for REALISM. Around DnD 3e they turned thieves into op mother fuckers. You basically had to ask yourself "why would a nation even have soldiers? They should make an army of thieves if they want to win wars".
And, unfortunately, that type of rogue has become a staple. It's lame.
People so often fail to appreciate the depth older games could have when it was just impractical to use their storage for nothing but assets. There's a lot of old computer games that have so much going on, especially once hard disks came around.
No reason coming in here to say Ultima Quest of the Avatar on the NES is one of my favourite games and I weirdly like it more than the PC version
When growing up, the corner store had Exodus Ultima for rent. My buddy and I must have spent well over $50 one summer renting this game since we couldn't find it in stores. There simply wasn't anything like it on the NES at the time. Everything you complained about was the draw to this for us. It was the closest thing to a game of D&D on a home console. We beat it, and we didn't have any strategy guides. Was it brutal? Sometimes. But it always felt like an adventure. Yes, once you know everything that you can skip, it can be beaten quickly. But the exploration you skipped was part of the fun of the game.
I still play it once a year or so, each time changing up the party. Might be time to start up another run.
I like the sprite work of Exodus
Its cool you mentioned spoony, love that guy. Your voice kinda sounds like his too. Different writing though
Sure, the American version of Dragon Quest/Warrior looked better than Ultima Exodus, but have you ever seen the Japanese version? It looked more like the PC versions of Ultima 3 with the character only being able to face the screen and less animated movements from your character and NPCs. It like Ultima started life on an old PC platform, the MSX. Nintendo did quite a lot of work to clean it up for a western audience when bringing it outside Japan.
I have wanted to go and play the Ultima games for so long but this video is a great primer on why that is a Fuckin' Terrible Idea™
Just play the good versions dude
I love fantastical adventures on the Nintendo Fun Computer
Ultima Exodus, possible origin of "THE FLOOR IS LAVA!"?
A correction: Pony Canyon didn't do Ultima: Warriors of Destiny. It appeared that Origin attempted to port it themselves.
Shining in the Darkness' tavern theme!
Zelda doesn't count, it's an action adventure game NOT an RPG.
However you had me double check because I was curious... yep, Ultima 3 was the first US NES RPG!
That's kind of awesome trivia.
glad i found this channel, interesting look at Ultima. Yeah most people dont cover these games in depth
I loved Ultima Exodus on NES. Played it over and over, never got close to beating it cause got completely lost wondering dungeons and stuff but have fond memories.
I'm actually planning on playing through the Ultima games for the first time soon. Never got the chance when I was young so I'm looking forward to it.
Ultima III - build a party Lark, Paladin, Cleric, Wizard - they all need magic to beat entry level enemies for XP. Grind to level 2 and stop. Remove Lark and create Ranger in the first position. Grind xp ONLY on Ranger (has cleric and wizard spells to kill every enemy group) to level 5, gain your level, and find boat. Once you have boat, remove Ranger from party and put Lark back in. Now you can travel anywhere, only have basic enemies, easily get gold and can max stats.
And this game is fantastic for coming out in 1983 when you consider all the limitations.
I tend to get either Wizard or Paladin when I take the personality quiz. I'm pretty firmly of the belief that Justice basically always overrides Valor or Humility if they conflict, and Truth trumps all. If you're acting in or out of deception, the other virtues can't stand clearly.
Upvoted for not being ashamed of robbing and dropping characters.
In Ultima 4, there are small indicators for hidden walls. It's just 1 pixel that's off, though. Might not even be visible on rf video out
Oh god! They seem to have made an ultima 6 engine port for ultima 5!
Someone doesn't wanna go Front Mission hah
Banger video as always tho
I tried playing the old school Ultimas on the PC. I believe it was 4. I couldn’t even get past the title screen. I’m not sure what I have to press.
I heard 7 is better and holds up, so I’ll get around to trying it sometime.
Menus that you can navigate with the mouse or keyboard weren't a thing back in the day. Old Ultima games expect you typing the first letter of the command you want to select, so, for Journey Onward, just pres J, and Initiate a new game just pres I.
Also you save with the command Quit and Save, so, I don't remember if during game, you just press Q, or it was CTRL+Q. Something like that.
It's not difficult, just very old mechanics.
Big Jason fan....btw
Every nes rpg ever!
Lmao hell yeah did I get another party cameo???
Lots of pipes in Mario but no toilets
Basically they took the series and made it more like Dragon Quest, like a JRPG. I'm ok with that. If you want something more faithful, there's the Europe exclusive port of Ultima IV for Sega Master System. That one is pretty much exactly like the original Mac/PC version.
Actuallu back in thr day you could write to Lord British. If you wrote him after you beat Ultima 4 and 5, he would mail you a scroll congratulating you on beating it
Ultima IV on the PC was a pain in the ass to play. You had to mix the reagents together ahead of time before casting a spell. You had to switch between melee and projectile weapons in the middle of battle depending on what was needed. And at the beginning of the game, enemies would routinely run from you if you did enough damage to them, thus chipping away at your health and not allowing you to gain experience and gold in exchange for raising virtue.
And if you still killed them it dropped your virtue stats
Damn those spoony videos were 10 years ago. Im old.
Anyway cool video. I had one of these nes ultima games as a kid. I didnt get very far. I kept picking fights with guards, dying and giving up
You should've stopped at, "It is... It is green."
exodus does smooth 4 way scrolling
Deja Vu had a men's and women's restroom in Joey Siegel's bar
Ultima V NES was not developed by Pony Canyon like 3 and 4. It was developed in house at Origin. It never had a Famicom release either.
the fridge on the patio is a nice touch
Your channel is awesome
As somebody who was a fan of these games as a kid this is a great video. I think you were a little hard on Exodus. It's a little obtuse, difficult, and grindy but I still think it's a good game. Quest of the Avatar is a flat out great game and one of the best RPGs on the NES (not as good as Dragon Warrior III but I liked it better than any of the NES Final Fantasy games). As for Warriors of Destiny.........yeah, we don't talk about that one. How you go from one of the best NES RPGs to one of the absolute worst is mind boggling.
Loved it and keep up the great work
I always thought that they tried to go "above and beyond" to keep the series and ran out of time, so they phoned it in.
What did they do to Ultima? They made FCI fit it on a NES cart.
That's what happened to Ultima.
Chest traps? Cast Appar Unem, nubcake! (cleric spell B)
Ugh... I absolutely HATE level scaling. It make you feel likes you've gained no progress if the enemies level up with you. When I play an RPG I want to start out weak as hell, and end up a Godess by the end.
@Schizo-Mentats Yes, but they made that adventure a lot less fun by doing so. There are better ways to handle that, such as exp. Distribution, and marking which enemies/quests are currently too high level.
I love lime cucumber Gatorade but even I wouldn't want an alcoholic drink that tasted like it.
Ultima III was the first RPG I played, way back in the early 1980s. The version I played was on the Atari 8-bit, which is very similar to the original Apple version. I have previously seen a little video of the NES version, but I've never played it or looked at in detail. It is interesting to see this - the game has a completely different look and feel on the NES. However, it looks like it is pretty much the same tedious grind. Ultima III was fun back in the day because it was a new concept and was unlike any other game I had encountered, but it hasn't aged well. At its core, it is just a murderhobo simulator with a little exploration. I got into Ultima I and II afterwards. They are also quite the grind, but combat goes faster since they aren't party-based games.
Ultima IV is where the series really starts to get good. With the previous three games being murderhobo simulators, I automatically expected Ultima IV to be the same way and behaved accordingly, only to find very quickly that killing townspeople and stealing their stuff leads to failure. There are more places to explore, and the dialogue system (which was a new concept at the time) was somewhat successful at fleshing out the story and the game's concepts. It has the same style of tedious combat as Ultima III, and with eight party members rather than four, it is even worse. Back in the day, I would have loved the auto-combat system that the NES version has. If I ever decide to play through this game again, I'll have to see if I can find an emulator and a ROM for that version. The original version is tedious to the point of being unplayable nowadays, but the NES version looks like it might actually be fun.
Ultima V has a lot more of a story, but the PC version still has the same old combat system, albeit with some updates to improve targeting. It is as tedious as ever. It's a shame that the NES version is so terrible. However, there is a good way to play the game now. The fan-made Ultima V Lazarus, a mod for Dungeon Siege, improves the game's mechanics in every way, and it adds more story elements and side quests while remaining true to the original. (There is a similar fan remake for Ultima VI - though the original Ultima VI is far more streamlined and playable than Ultima V, this remake is also a major improvement.) People who want to play Ultima V nowadays should buy a copy of Dungeon Siege (it is available on GOG and Steam), download Lazarus, and enjoy one of the best games in the series in its best version.