newtmonkey wrote on Today, 07:55:

Ultima V (Apple II)

when i played older games like this i would suspend my "analytical" mind and just go with the imagination and story, i find that more difficult to do now, such RPG's start to feel a bit to "rinse and repeat" or spreadsheet like... i'd like to enjoy them innocently again in a way, without knowing too much about how they actually work and so on, too much experience results in illusions shattered and curtains falling away, if you know what i mean

gerry wrote on Today, 12:59:

when i played older games like this i would suspend my "analytical" mind and just go with the imagination and story, i find that more difficult to do now, such RPG's start to feel a bit to "rinse and repeat" or spreadsheet like... i'd like to enjoy them innocently again in a way, without knowing too much about how they actually work and so on, too much experience results in illusions shattered and curtains falling away, if you know what i mean

I think it's just a matter of sitting down and committing to playing a game and appreciating it for what it is. Modern games are generally so streamlined and "easy" to play that it's easy to just sit down and play for an hour without really putting any thought or effort into it.

When I decide to play an older game, I always "force" myself to spend at least 60 minutes (even if over a couple of days) playing it before deciding whether to continue. A lot of getting into an older game is just learning its interface, really, and 30-60 minutes is usually enough time to get used to its interface and quirks.

Ultima V (Apple II)
Now this is interesting. I could not believe how expensive food is in this game--anywhere from 18-30 gold for 6 units, when each character requires 3 units per day. That means your starting party of three needs 9 units of food per day or they start starving to death. I was finding it unbelievably difficult to get anywhere in the game, because I had to spend all of my money on food and only food.

I figured there was something I had to have been missing, so I started searching around. I checked every walkthrough and FAQs I could find, and no one mentions it being an issue at all. Then I found one resource that mentions that food is sold in packs of 25:
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Ultima_V:_Warri … rectory#Taverns

I started up the MS-DOS version (GOG) and, sure enough, food is 18-30 gold for 25 units! So, the early difficulty definitely seems to have been tuned down a bit compared with the Apple II original.

I'm honestly considering just playing the MS-DOS version. It looks better, has no disk swapping, and has a fan patch to add the soundtrack back. On the other hand, I really like the idea of playing the original version of the game (and transferring my Ultima IV Avatar into it). I'm gonna have to think about this some more, because the food situation in the Apple II version is absolutely ridiculous.