I was tempted to add another exclamation point to the title; if any game in the series (covered, to this point, here: Lessons In Video Game History: the Ultima Saga, Part One , Lessons In Video Game History: The Ultima Saga, Part 2- Ultimas II and III , Lessons in Video Game History- The Ultima Saga, Part III- Ultima IV! , Lessons In Video Game History- The Ultima Saga, Part 4- Ultima V! , Lessons In Video Game History- The Ultima Saga, part 5- the spinoffs! ) deserves it, it's this one. I personally call it the best in the series. It turned the static world of the previous games into something real and living, and was a huge leap forward in graphical quality- while V was, in display terms, just a brighter, more colorful version of the same images we'd seen back in I, VI made it something almost unrecognizable. I can't wait to tell you, so let's get cracking! Here's the box art:
If you can look at that picture and NOT hear choral metal music (is there a subgenre called "crusader metal"? There should be), then check with your doctor; you appear to have died. We've got our Avatar-y self in what looks like Teutonic Knight garb, standing atop a defeated demon creature, standing in a beam of holy light. Kickass! ...Except that's not actually true. None of what this picture seems to be saying is true- but it's not quite false, either. Except that it's Ultima VI; that part is completely correct. What the heck does that mean? Well...
We open up back at home on Earth- this is the first game that really drives home that your character isn't supposed to simply be a character, but a representation of you; an "avatar" in more than one sense. Then there's a disturbance at the stone circle where the moongate to Britannia's always formed.
And moongate appears, but-
Seeing no point in moongate racism, we move through- only to find ourselves surrounded by monsters and quickly tied to a stone altar.
Just as it looks like we're doomed, however...
We're rescued by Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre, then dive back through the portal as it slides closed- but three of the monsters pile through as well! And then comes the high-octane drama of... the gypsy character-creation interrogation.
This part REALLY could've been timed better; it even has the calm, relaxing music it had in the previous games. It totally breaks the tense tone. But once it ends, it's STRAIGHT into the action. Here's the first in-engine thing we see:
Full color, with actual character-sprite GRAPHICS, instead of V's barely-more-than-monochrome tiles. A HUGE leap forward. Also, a trio of demon monsters are attacking us and Lord British. Curiously, neither he (an experienced magician who fought Mondain's hordes well before we did) nor his guards help in the fight; it's mostly for the sake of introducing us to the combat system (we don't control our other party members anymore, beyond a vague "range" "front" "charge", etc. system), but in-world, it's inexplicable and bizarre.
Once the fight ends, British tells us that the creatures aren't demons, but gargoyles, and they've been attacking in force, all over Britannia. They come up from the dungeons and tend to congregate near the shrines of the Virtues, which they've basically captured; all attempts to force them back or out have failed. Nor has anyone been able to determine their strategy. So this isn't just an attack, it's an all-out WAR.
Interestingly, British also says he didn't summon us; we were clearly brought here as part of a trap. He DID learn (from one of his mages) of our arrival and capture, and sent our friends to help, but didn't call us here from Earth- it must've been the gargoyles. The one who tried to kill us was reading from a book; clearly they're sentient. But if they're winning, why risk dragging the Avatar into their fight? British recognizes the orb we have as similar to the we brought him to rescue him from the Underworld in V, but he knows little about it, only that it allows one to temporarily open moongates to a variety of different locations, based on where one places it relative to oneself. This means we're no longer tied to relying on the positions of the moons to teleport around; we can just toss the orb, open up a portal to the gate's location, and hop through it. You'd think this would take the fun and challenge out of long-distance travel, but it doesn't- there's more depth to it than it seems at first glance. There's also another issue, one that's the only serious gripe I have with the game. Here's the map that came with the game:
Okay. Now look back up at that first in-game shot I posted. That's the combat screen, right? Yes. But here's what you see wandering the overworld:
And here's what you see in a dungeon:
There's only one map scale, and the map you get is so zoomed out as to be almost useless. Now, you CAN buy a sextant (eventually), which gives you both latitude AND longitude (somehow), but no one else gives you coordinates, so figuring out where everything is relative to everything else is entirely on you. While you don't wind up with densely-packed impassable terrain, like in Savage Empire, or wide-open emptiness, like Martian Dreams, you DO often find yourself overrelying on the Orb to get around, which makes the world FEEL smaller, even though it isn't, and makes those times when you need to hoof it all the more annoying. It's a decision made in the name of "realism" which serves primarily to remind you that if reality was all that great, we wouldn't need video games. It's not that big of a deal, and if you come to the game straight off Ultima V, you'll probably be so caught up in it that you won't notice (at first, at least), but it is a marring mark on what's otherwise a fantastic game.
How is it fantastic? Well, remember the wild openness of Ultima II? Picture that, but with all the open-world power that 1990 computers could offer. One aspect I don't think I've touched on is that in Britannia, time flows differently from how it does on Earth- this is why the games, while mere years apart to you, are decades apart to the Britannians (and earlier Sosarians), and why people from Earth live so long there- you didn't think your companions still being around was due to sheer coincidence, did you? Hmm... Does the prospect of living under a functionally immortal king, given ludicrously long life by an otherworldly origin, and held in power by a cadre of similarly nigh-immortal companions sound like it might be a problem for you? Hold on to that idea; it'll come up again. But meanwhile, know that the "enlightenment" of the age doesn't just refer to Virtues and morality; there have been some... interesting innovations over the years.
And while they're huge, and not at all practical for anything beyond defending immobile structures, there are other places that have cannons, too. There are also new forms of con men:
This is Finn. He hangs out just outside of Castle Britannia and claims to be Lord British in disguise. Every time you walk out of the castle, he'll approach and start talking to you, hitting you up for money and information. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. But if we introduce these developments to one another...
Okay, it's not AT ALL in line with being the Avatar, but DAMN is it satisfying. Interestingly, because the game doesn't treat it as an attack, you're free to blow away a great many NPCs- even the nameless respawning guards, whose equipment you can loot and sell to the local blacksmiths, who not only don't question why official military gear is being sold on the open market, but don't even ask about the cannonball holes. Another perk: in the first three games, conversation didn't really exist; T was for "transact". In IV and V, dialogue range was limited- oh, sure, there was more for people to talk about, but you needed to pay close attention; the only things that everyone would answer were "name", "job", and "health" (i.e., how are you?). Beyond that, it was a crapshoot as to whether you'd catch everything someone mentioned and think to ask about it. Shrines, runes, mantras- THOSE you'd get; it quickly became obvious that you needed them to win. But the minor details, that make a world real? Hit-or-miss. VI, on the other hand...
They were highlighted. Of course, a long, multi-step dialogue could see you miss one or two, but just writing them down, or repeating that part of the conversation, would take care of that. It's amazing how much of a difference this makes. Ultima V had children being taken from their parents and enslaved, to make them talk. It had them starving in hiding because their families were imprisoned. If you snuck into Blackthorn's castle and asked the cook what he was making, he'd say "a little horse meat, a few young children, that sort of thing". Heck, in the dungeon of Castle British, there was a guy named Drudgeworth. He claimed "I didn't murder her", and blamed the killing (whoever it was) on Chuckles, British's jester. And if you searched in Chuckles' room, behind his fireplace was a corpse. If you confronted the clown, he'd deny any knowledge of Drudgeworth- and NOT with his usual "I don't know about that" dialogue, for when you use a wrong word. Is Chuckles a murderer? Who was the woman? If you pick the lock of Drudgeworth's cell, he leaves it- and promptly attacks you. I've never been able to find a resolution to that subplot, but it's creepy as hell- and most people will never know it even exists, because the words the game can use to communicate to you are so sparse, and it's so hard to naturally prompt the player to seek out more information about stuff that's not directly related to their mission. Ultima V was a VERY dark game, but it didn't come across nearly as well. Coupled with the ancient-today-but-still-hugely-improved graphics of VI, it makes the world come alive.
Now, so far I've mostly been talking about interface improvements, and that's fair; they're huge. Low on food and don't have the money to buy more? Well, you're KIND OF in luck; food isn't necessary to survive anymore, but you only heal while resting if you've got something to eat. But no matter; you can just head out into the woods and hunt for some more!
But I called this "return of the bugfuck" in the last entry, and I meant it. But unlike in Ultima II, where the wildness was untempered with logic, and seemingly only present for zaniness, here, it's all about the complexity of the systems and the things they let you do. For example, let's say I want to open a locked door, but I don't have the key, and the lock is too high-level for my party members to pick.
Well, if I cast "magic lock" (a spell that's normally only used to seal doors when you're being chased by a monster you can't kill) on it:
And then cast "unlock magic", I can open it normally:
Or let's suppose I've got a full party of eight, and I want to equip them with magic armor and helmets. Now, magic armor is excellent, but it is NOT cheap- there is ONE free one of each which can be found hidden in secret places, but that'll only whet your appetite, especially if you have a full party. Armor costs 350 a pop, helms 200; seven of each is an eye-watering 3850 gold. Or, you could spend 100, plus 8 for reagents, and animate that free suit. Which does... well, nothing, by itself; animate is mostly useful for getting hard-to-move things out of your way, or distracting enemies. But if we also use the Clone spell...
...then we learn that MyTakes have a 20 image limit- good to know! I'm also almost at the three-quarter mark for length, so I think I'll end this here. Stay tuned for part 2!
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