Reply 7720 of 7726, by newtmonkey
- Rank
- Oldbie
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Finished! I really enjoyed this game, but I must admit that I prefer the overall quest and theme of Ultima IV. I still find myself thinking about the contemplative and beautiful ending sequence to that game from time to time. As a game, though, U5 is an improvement over U4in every way. The dungeons are far more tricky and interesting to explore, and actually often feel like real places instead of mazes. Enemies drop chests that often contain weapons, armor, and items, in addition to food and gold. You also have multiple equipment slots, and can even wield two one-handed weapons at once. Combat is much tougher but more interesting, since some of the tougher monsters can be quite a challenge even for high-level characters; you really need to make use of scrolls and spells against them.
The interface is a huge improvement. It's much easier to buy and mix reagents, for example. Characters can target any space around them (even diagonals), and ranged weapons can target any enemy within range. Most crucially, you can select an "active" character in combat, which forces every other character to automatically pass their turn. This makes it so much easier to navigate through the overhead dungeon encounter rooms, and also makes it much easier to focus on building EXP for a particular character.
However, the greatest change is the atmosphere and world. Although the world map is largely the same as in U4, the world feels so much more real. There's a day and night cycle, and NPCs follow (simple) schedules. You can look at things in the environment to get descriptions, push stuff around, climb in bed, sit on chairs, and more. There are awesome little details, too; there are roads stretching between towns, and lighthouses actually function like they should, lighting up the seas.
Britannia is a very dark place this time around. The virtues have been twisted and are now enforced as law by regent-turned-tyrant Blackthorn, and the mood is very dark. Thuggish guards roam the towns, and shake you down for bribes; refuse, and they throw you in jail. The three Shadowlords (Hatred, Cowardice, and Falsehood) travel from town to town enforcing Blackthorn's laws, and their evil influence corrupts everyone within; people will pick your pocket, insult you, or refuse to talk if a Shadowlord is around. In this world, you either keep your head down and stay out of trouble just to stay alive, or you take advantage of the situation and get rich.
It's not perfect, of course. I have some minor complaints, but my biggest gripe with the game is the underworld area, which is unbelievably annoying to navigate at times. Your field of view is very limited, and the game often requires you to "(k)limb" through giant mountain ranges, following very specific paths through them. There are even a couple sections where you are seemingly forced to use the "blink" spell just to get from one area to another, but I could never figure out the rules by which the spell works (it doesn't work like it does in U4). Still, even the annoying stuff is easy to get over because the rest of it is so good. A masterpiece.
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Now that I actually know how to play the game, I do sort of wish that I had stuck with the Apple II version. It's much slower than the DOS version and technically looks worse, but I actually prefer how it looks; the colorful EGA graphics of the DOS version sort of conflict with the dark atmosphere. I also prefer the Mockingboard soundtrack of the Apple II version to the (unofficial) MIDI soundtrack of the DOS version. If I were to go back to the Apple II version, I'd probably stick with the initial three-person party but spend all my gold just on food for the first hour or so. You build up a decent inventory of equipment and items just from loot dropped by enemies, so you'd slowly be making good progress even if you're just buying food at first. Maybe I'll revisit this version once I've gone through the rest of the series!
