I’ve still got a few loose ends to sort out in Monitor so I start on these fist. I’m pretty sure Luther has my sheild so I head for the training grounds to take him up on his earlier challenge. I lose my nice weapon when I enter the arena and its quite tricky to win the fight without decent equipment but I beat him in the end. While I’m here I take the chance to train my stats up a bit – this is quite expensive though and I soon run out of money.

The healer who’s daughter was kidnapped wants me to look in her crystal ball. This shows a strange scene where her daughter is attacked but she is either possessed or not what she seems as she fights back with a barrage of magic herself. I promise to try to bring her back and the healer gives me her training sword. I’m supposed to find some sort of Serpent Isle style bloodhound creature to follow her trail but I have no idea where to look. I’ll have to attempt to pick this quest up later.

I finally get around to freeing Iolo who’s been needlessly languishing in the prison cells all the time I was off fetching the silver seed. He is of course still level 2 whereas the rest of my party in up to level 6-7. I really should have taken him with me but I’m sure I can build his experience up pretty quickly.

I’ve run out of things to do in Monitor so I head out to explore. Between Fawn and Monitor is a large pub called the sleeping bull. This place is really a small village with quite a few houses on the outside and a lot of characters to talk to. The pubs bard tells us a tale that sounds very familiar to Shamino about one of the castles to the north. He also tells us about the castle of the white dragon. This is where I can guess that the Serpent Isle is actually the lands of danger and despair I guess although I did know that much heading into the game. I’m looking forward to finding out more about this storyline. Most of the people in the pub were travelling to Moonshade but are trapped here now as their captain has been arrested by the pikemen. I’ll have to attempt to get him released later.

The lady who owns the pub has my swamp boots which I swap for some slippers. From her and some of the pubs other patrons I learn a long history about the pub where its founder Silvernade disappeared one day. The same thing has now happened to her husband about the time Batlin was passing through. She tells me that she heard a scuffle in the basement so I head down to look for secret doors.

Sure enough there is a secret door in a suspicious looking gap between barrels. This leads me to a lever which opens the even more obvious metal door at the bottom of the cellar. How people have found this such a mystery is beyond me.

I find a treasure map to Silvernades horde which I’m going to have to look into at some point. I don’t find any sign of the missing husband though. There is a big area with loads of levers but I don’t know what they do.

Around now, I remember that I’m still supposed to be looking for traitors in Monitor. I do what everyone suggests and go ask Krayg – he’s obviously not guilty but he suggests I check out a black monilith in the woods to the north where the goblins meet up.

The wood he’s sent me to look around in is quite large and it takes a little finding. As soon as I get there Iolo points out a bottle which is just as well because I would have just ignored it. I pick it up and Shamino suggests its a clue as no goblin would have left it here so it must belong to a human.

I walk around town showing the bottle to everyone. Lord Marsten is less than interested but it does seem suspicious that he wants me to throw it away.

The pub seems like a better place to take a beer bottle and sure enough I learn that the bottle belongs to Simon who runs the inn.

After a bit of cross examination, we get a confession out of Simon. It turns out that he’s actually a goblin who has been working as a spy for years. He immediately attacks but doesn’t stand a chance against 4 of us. This is becoming a habit with Monitor’s inhabitants and this is the third that we’ve butchered now.

Simon gets quite talkative in his final moments and blames the goblin king for betraying him. He even tells me how to find the goblin village by going through an entrance near a particular tree in the forest.

I had quite a bit of trouble finding the obelisk before which for very obvious. Finding a tree in the middle of a forest is going to be trickier. I find a house who’s occupants have all been killed, presumably by goblins.

The correct tree isn’t all that obvious even when I find it. I walk into it and find myself in a dungeon though so I know it must be the right place.

I follow the dungeon through and emerge out of a hillside next to the goblin village. I hack through a load of goblins to the center of the village and we take out the chief goblin. Considering that a whole town of fighters couldn’t cope with them this isn’t that hard a battle. There is a key on the body of the goblin king.

The key opens a locked door back in the dungeon which gets me into the goblins treasure horde. The missing helmet is in here.

There are also a couple of scrolls. The first implicates Lord Marsten himself as helping the goblins.

The next implicates Spektor – the chancellor.

I head back to Monitor with the scrolls and the helm and no one seems all that interested. The leader of the bears is the only person who wants to do anything about it and immediately has both of them arrested and put in jail.

I visit them both in the jail, they confess but don’t have much to say for themselves. That makes 5 people in this town so far that are traitors which is a fair percentage of the town. Spektor mentions some sort of secret weapon. Asking around town reveal some details about this + a key. I never did find any more out about this though – I expect that I needed to have a look around the town hall.

I’ve still not explored Fawn yet so I head there next. When I get into town Iolo finds a lute created by a magical storm. One of the townspeople requests a song at which point he sings a song about Gwenno.

Everyone in Fawn worships beauty which seems a pretty questionable religion. I learn from the temple priestess that all the positions of power are occupied by woman and the best a man can do is to be one of three Great Captains. Fawn is primarily a fishing town but like everywhere else the boats are not sailing due to the storms. A ship full of people from Britannia arrived some time back but they were all expelled from town and blamed for causing the magic storms. I think this is the ship Gwenno arrived on, it also carried a load of fellowship members who are now living to the east of Fawn. The priestess also has my armour and agrees to swap it if I find her at home.

The man running the provisions shop has our food although I’m not convinced I wouldn’t rather keep the money it was replaced by. He also recognises the ring which was the engagement ring of his daughter who lost her fiance during a storm.

While exploring the rest of the town, I’m attacked by a pirate who clearly knows who I am. I presume this is Batlins doing but I have no proof of who sent him.

I find the shopkeepers daughter and show her the ring. She doesn’t actually want it back but does give me my magic gloves in return. I’m getting my possessions back at quite a rate now but the ones I really want are my spellbook and my sword which are still nowhere to be seen.

I’m told that there is an oracle in the temple which regularly gives “revelations”. These revelations are held by the people as gospel truth but there are suspicions that something has been tampering with the oracle. I agree to look into this.

Before I get much further a guard comes up to be to tell me I’ve been given an appointment with the queen of Fawn thanks to Iolo’s singing.

She gives Iolo a diamond necklace to give to Gwenno.

She proposes a toast at which Dupre gets a little carried away and blurts out a toast to Lord British. This really wasn’t a good idea.

LB is as popular in Fawn as he was in Monitor and the queen has Dupre arrested immediately.

Dupres trial starts the next morning in the longest ingame cutscene so far.

Near much everyone in town is called up as a witness. The whole trial is a farce – all in all between their repeated attempts to kill me and their dubious moralities the inhabitants of Serpent Isle aren’t exactly endearing themselves to me. I suppose a community formed from people who rejected the virtues is likely to end up something like this but I preferred Britannia.

The trial is adjorned for the day after the prosecution finishes. Dupre appoints me in his defense but I don’t fancy my chances much judging by the way that practically everyone in town seems to want to present evidence against him. While exploring the rest of the city I’m approached again and told that Dupre is being held in a cell beneath the temple, given a key to get in and told to go there after dark.

I find Dupres cell although I can’t actually open it and rescue him.

Just beyond here I catch the leader of the great captains rigging the oracle using a series of levers. Like everyone I catch out he seems to think that attacking me is a good idea.

Once he is disposed of I’m left with a load of levers and no idea what to do with them. I flick a few around at random and the oracle starts to talk to me. I give the oracle instructions to tell the truth at the trial.

At the trial, I call a few witnesses but they don’t improve matters so I give that up quickly and call for a verdict. The oracle describes the conspiracy between the high priestess and the great captain and all is forgiven.

I’m not sure I achieved much in Fawn really – all I got out of the whole trial business was that diamond necklace which must mean its going to be significant later in the game. Having said that I discovered that the woman who runs the sleeping bull will buy jewelery at good prices so I may just have sold it to her for all I know. I’m running out of quests here so I head out to find the arrested ships captain who I was told about at the sleeping bull. He is being held at one of the guard towers just to the NW of the bull. I can buy his freedom from the guards for a measly 100 Monetari which sounds ok but as soon as I offer to pay they up the price.

At the bull, I’m approached by a woman called Lydia who has heard that I need funds and wants us to go off together on a quest to retrive some. This all sounds a bit dodgy but I don’t see I have much choice so I agree to leave my companions and the two of use set off together.

Lydia doesn’t exactly tell me where we are going but seems to regard the whole thing as a big adventure and tells me to follow the coast north then east. I can ask for directions and after a while we home in on a likely looking building. The key she has opens the door which is a hopeful sign and sure enough there are a load of gold bars just inside. The building has some sort of bizarre security system which seems to randomly teleport us around and monsters appear then change into different monsters or items when I kill them. I give up on trying to clear the building of them and just leave the building.

Once we get outside we are attacked by a load of bandits. Lydia conveniently magics herself away and agrees to meet me back at the pub leaving me to deal with half a dozen of them on my own. Thanks to my equipment from the silver seed addon, I manage to fight them off. Lydia isn’t waiting for me at the pub but I’ve got all the gold bars so I’m not too worried about this.

The guards accept the gold bars and hand over the key. I don’t think much of the legal system but I release Hawk who without a thank you heads back to the pub.

I’m sure Hawk would sail me over to Moonshade at this point but there is still the matter of the missing girl from Monitor. I’ve no idea where to find one of these bloodhound-like creatures but I’ve still not explored the area north of Fawn + the two castles should be up there somewhere. When I get to the swamp, however, my party start falling asleep one by one until I do the same. I wake up in a very bizarre place – its some sort of ruined version of Lord British’s castle. He is even here himself – he tells me how a series of earthquakes, storms and the like have hit Britannia since I left. He mentions the royal mint being struck by lightning and replaced by a lighthouse. Retrospectively, as I write this I’m wondering if that was the place I got the gold bars from with Lydia. It would partly explain the strange teleporting and random creatures inside it. I wasn’t sure whether to believe that this was the real LB but this would seem to lend credence to it if I’m right. I’m sure Britannia isn’t as bad as it looks in this dream world but it appears that the storms we are getting in Serpent Isle have spread. The dreamworld appears to be a reasonable size – I notice a big fire after some exploring, walk into it and then wake up with my companions back outside the swamp.

It appears that I will need some way to stay awake in this swamp. I carry on exploring the immediate area and find a bit red portal with a few daemons around it. Stepping through I’m teleported to a small building in the middle of a lake of lava. There doesn’t seem to be anything to do here – I find a teleport that returns me back to where I came from.

I don’t find anything else of interest and decide its time to head for Moonshade. Hawk agrees to set sail as soon as I ask and I head for the boat outside. First time around, he gets stuck and doesn’t manage to walk to the boat forcing me to reload. There is no trouble second time around.

We are dogged by magical storms for the whole journey but make it to land in one piece. The captain has decided enough is enough by this point and will not sail back so I’m stuck here until I either cure the storms or find another route.

The meatloaf lookalike who came over with us on the boat tells me about some rumored passages that connect Moonshade to the other islands. I’ll look for these after I’m done looking around.

Moonshade is a city of mages. Like the rest of serpent isle the moral system here is a bit questionable. There is a definite class system between magical and non magical people (called Mundanes). In fact quite a lot of the people in town refuse to even speak to me as a non mage. The mages seem to largely live in large isolated houses and have automatons to act as servents.

I find a school for mages with a few children being taught. One of these is the child of a Monitor resident I met earlier and he gives me a note to take back to his parents. Moonshade have the policy of snatching any children from the parents who displays magical ability alegedly in the interests of public safety. I can’t imagine this policy is too popular with the residents of Fawn and Monitor – its a good job they aren’t on the same island. While I’m in here I get handed a magic scroll – when I try to use it I get to talk to one of the 3 town leaders. It turns out Batlin passed through town a while back with his tame demon and she thinks I’m in league with him somehow and wants me to reveal how to control demons. I obviously don’t agree to this, not that I know anyway.

At this point I spend quite a bit of time looking for something to do in Moonshade and not getting too far. However, meatloaf has managed to arrange a meeting with the towns lord for me. He says he will summon me at the appropriate time. A few minutes later my party is teleported straight to him.

The lord has gone to the trouble of putting on a banquet for me and seems like a reasonable guy despite the attitude of some of the townspeople.

All three town leaders are present including the one who sent me the scroll earlier. She is a bit less reasonable and decides to pelt me with fireballs before being restrained. These towns could do with picking some better rulers – they all seem to want to kill me. She teleports away and the banquet is interrupted again by a man with a message for the Lord. I didn’t learn too much from this meeting but when I leave I do find that a few more of the buildings are occupied so this was blatantly a trigger event. The towns shop is now occupied and I learn from the man there that there is a shortage of reagents especially blood moss which he also mentioned when he came in with the message during the banquet.

On this basis I head out to find some blood moss and generally explore a bit to the south. There isn’t actually much to see but I do find some blood moss with no problems at all.

When I get back to town I can’t actually give the blood moss to the shopkeeper. I guess I have to do something else first but I don’t know what. I do find a mage who specialises in spells to do with death who calls a seance for my benefit. I get a brief chat with Chrisopher who’s murder I spent the whole of the last game trying to solve. Just as he is about to tell me something useful the seance ends.

I spent a long time on this game today and have made some decent progress. I’m learning a bit about Serpent Isle but I still don’t know much about the mysterious Ophidians who lived here in ancient times. One oddity about this game is that there are only 3 cities mentioned in the manual and I’ve basically explored them all now. I’ve still got a couple of castles and monk isle to see but the implication is that there will be a lot less conversation and a lot more dungeon crawling in the later stages of this game.

I can’t say if I prefer this to Ultima 7 or not at this stage. I feel that the plot is yet to really start moving and the background details are still being filled in. The game feels a little different, I’m being led through it more and there are things that never happened in U7, like the cutscenes, characters approaching me and the even longer conversations. I’ve heard this game described as being linear, this may be true to some extent but I’ve really not noticed it so far. It certainly hasn’t affected how I’ve played the game and I’ve always had options on what to do next although I will admit they do seem to be slowly running out. As long as the world doesn’t close behind me as I go linearity won’t bother me but I do want to be able to go back and pick up loose ends. The new hotkeys are far more useful than they sound and the keyring is a lifesaver. The number of keys I’ve already seen is this game is huge and without it I’d have been hunting through my pack every time for the right one.

What I can say at this point is that Serpent Isle is living up to U7 which is high praise by any standards. My main criticism would be that there is a little too much conversation and the conversation topics can be difficult to follow when they lose their original context. It strikes me as the sort of game that would benefit from being replayed so that you know a bit more going into these conversations. I expect part of this problem is caused by playing the game with a hangover and not having had enough sleep which didn’t improve my attention levels any.

I’ll continue exploring the town next, and see if I can’t manage to give this blood moss away one way or another. I also need to have a look at the northern part of the island where there is some sort of dungeon called the mountains of freedom which the mages use as a prison. There is no mention of it yet, but this being an Ultima, I would be highly surprised if I don’t have to rescue someone/something from there in the near future.

I accidently walk through a curtain in the first building I enter and find a crypt behind with all the town leaders in it.

They are here to entomb the ashes of a pikeman who lost his life in the same battle as the knight champion Astrid. It was part of the funeral ceremony that Iolo teleported into and he is now locked up in the town jail.

Lord Marsten gives me a good deal of detail about the town of Monitor. It is a town of warriors all of whom belong to three clans (bears, wolves and leopards). Everyone has to take a knight test at the age of 15, if they cannot pass it they are expelled from the town. The town was formed by people from the twin towns of Montor (from Ultima 3) when they fled the rule of “Beast British”. I don’t mention that I’m here on his request.

I find out that both Batlin and Gwenno have been through town. Batlin has some companions with him. The details are sketchy for now but he is travelling with a sailor, some sort of demon/gargoyle and an immensly strong man. Gwenno has gone off to the island with the monks to the east.

I volunteer to take the knights test myself – it can’t be that hard if its aimed at 15 year olds. After I’m done talking to Marsten Dupre is escorted in and rejoins the party. As I’d expect hes lost all his equipment also.

Inside the crypt I find something called a serpent gate which looks significant but I don’t know what to do with it.

I get more clues about Batlin from the guy who does the cremations. He will also give me 100 coins if I find the bodies of any dead pikemen and bring them back to him.

Iolo is in the jail. There isn’t much I can do for him but he is safe enough for now. Lord Marsten will release him if I become a knight and vouch for him. A lot of people in town won’t talk to me until I become a knight so I figure I’ll get it out of the way early and head out to find the test.

The test is looked after by a solitary knight. Since I have the password from Lord Marsten he lets me straight in after removing all my equipment and handing me some leather armour + a mace.

A few people in town gave me some clues about parts of the test. The first bit involves running fast through some fireballs. Next is a creating a stairway type puzzle like the one from Ultima 7.

This stairway needs to be a bit larger (my first attempt here didn’t do the job). Its made harder by snakes hiding under some of the rocks which attack when I move them. There is also one rock too few so I have to make part of the stairway after I’m on it.

A cyclops appears in one bit. He’d be a bit tough for this early in the game but I run around the room and set off a load of fireball traps which blast him in no time.

I carry on making my way through. Its a case of finding keys to open the next locked door at each stage. I’m attacked by some sort of guy that flickers in and out of existance. I find a scroll on his body which implies that he has been sent to kill me. Whoever sent him knows that I’m the avatar so this has to be Batlins doing.

At this point in the test a scroll tells me to use some claws to draw my blood which I must then use on the ashes of a dead goblin lord. This conjures up my totem animal (a wolf) which I have to slay. The wolf turns out to be tougher than I am and I wake up on the monks island.

I’m greeted by the monk who battled Thoxa at the start of the game.

He hands me over a amulet of balance – I’m 90% sure this is something to do with the Silver Seed add-on and tells me to use it at a serpent gate. I know where to find one of those so will give it a go as soon as I’ve got my companions all together.

After I’m done speaking with him, the monk teleports me straight back into the fight which  I win this time. I take the body and make my way to the exit where the knight opens the door for me. He then attacks me himself but is an easier opponent than I would have expected.

A scroll on his body tells me that a woman was behind the plot to kill me. I have no idea who this is at the moment.

I head back to town to be made a knight. As part of the process I have to get a tattoo on my face, and get a cloak made from the skin of my dead totem animal. I get the tattoo from a woman called Lydia.

Shortly after this I suddenly go down with an illness for no apparent reason. I find the town healer asap.

She needs some Varo leaves which I can get from a woman in Fawn. I’m not done exploring Monitor yet but this can’t wait so I head straight for Fawn.

I’m stopped outside the town and a man called Ruggs asks me to deliver a message to the woman I need to see.

Fawn is a very different looking place to Monitor or indeed anywhere in Ultima 7.

I don’t bother trying to explore but look for the greenhouse. Its the middle of the night so no one is there but I figure the house next door must be a good bet so I stomp around until I wake up the occupant.

She hands the leaves straight over. While I’m here I pass her the letter. Fawn is a town which worships beauty and she obviously has problems with loving Ruggs on this basis but gives me a letter to take back to him. I didn’t see him on the way out of town (and forgot to look) so I’ll hand this over next time I’m up here.

Back at the healers, I’m cured and led to believe that I got the virus from the tattoo. I’m going to have to corner Lydia about this.

I really don’t know my way around town yet and take a very indirect route to find Lydia. First off I find the furriers and hand over my animal for skinning. I need to come back and pick up the cloak in another day.

I find Lord Marsten and he tells me that I also need to hand over the wolf meat to the woman who runs the pub, so the meat can be used to prepare a banquet.

Lydia confesses straight away and then proceeds to attack me. She isn’t too tough considering this is a town of fighters. She knows I’m working for LB, I’m glad I didn’t tell this to Lord Marsten if this is the reaction.

I head off to the banquet for my knighthood.

The knights ask me about the test, apparently all the magical creatures I had to face should not have been there. Lord Marsten says he will speak will Shmed about it which hes not going to find easy since I killed him at the end.

A woman bursts in to report that her daughter has gone missing. Everyone immediately blames the goblins then start accusing people of being traitors.

A fight results….

After the meal everyone disperses. I take the opportunity to tell him about the two of his people I’ve had to kill. He’s surprisingly understanding about it and assumes that I’ve killed off the two traitors. They still want to blame the goblins for everything when clearly Batlin has more to do with this. There is probably another traitor in town I need to hunt out. He agrees to let me release Iolo – I just need to go and pick him up.

At the pub, its suggested that I should try to become the new champion knight. I’m not 100% sure that the old one is dead actually since they never found a body. I’ll need to hunt out the helmet which is supposed to be at the goblins camp. She also invites me to a late night rendevous.

A lot of waiting around and I meet up in the early hours of the morning. She isn’t much for small talk..

Sex in an RPG. This has to be one for the history books. I’m rewarded with a cape which belonged to her grandfather who was a former champion knight himself.

I head to the serpent gate to try out my amulet next. I’m not sure its working as I keep disappearing then appearing again looking different but in the end we teleport out.

I find myself on another gate. Shamino remarks that the ruins here are not ruins and look brand new. This bit of the game must be the silver seed add-on which I’ll start tommorow.

I’m far enough into the game now to get more of a feel for it. I’m not being sent on endless quests this time although I do have quite a few things to be looking at. Batlin and his companions went to Fawn so I need to chase them up, I’d like to attempt to be made champion knight so I will want to find the goblin camp and get the helmet back. Gwenno is on the monk isle as far as I know – I need to get myself a ship to get there which I also need to go to Fawn for but there aren’t many sailors around with the storms putting them off. Finally there are all my lost items. I’ve not seen any signs of these in Monitor so I guess they must be elsewhere, although it occurs to me as I write this that one of the knights was rumored to be using a magic shield. I’ve been challenged a few times to combat in the arena but I’m holding off until I’ve played the silver seed and upped my stats.

The game really does feel little different from playing Ultima 7. A lot of the music is the same as well as the graphics and the engine. Ultima 7 didn’t outstay its welcome unlike Strike Commander though so this is actually a good thing – I’ve been able to get straight into the game with no fuss. The lack of side quests so far is certainly a change, and the banquet amounted to an in game cutscene which I can’t think I’ve seen in any Ultima before now – it reminded me more of the sort of thing you would get in a Final Fantasy.  

All in all, this has been possibly the easiest game game of the series to get started on and I’m definitely hooked.

I’m going into this game with very high expectations. Its an Ultima which is reason enough but its also the first game in quite a while that I have practically no knowledge of at all. I never got around to finishing Ultima 7 before so I never played this. Why an Ultima/Origin fan like myself never got around to playing these games for all these years is hard to explain but I think I basically wanted to play the series through from the start some day which I’m finally get around to now.

Starting a new Ultima is always slightly daunting as I know the game will be huge and figuring out what to do next isn’t always easy. Typically, I don’t really get into an Ultima until I’ve been playing for a good few hours. Its also the first time in the main series that I’m not in the familiar setting of Britannia since Ultima 3 which may not help. Having played the rest of the series to date, I’m well prepared this time around though and the engine should be instantly familiar since it uses the same one as Ultima 7.

The intro is brief but impressive for a disk based game. It has the now obligatory bad acting especially by LB who should have been kept well away from a microphone for these games. It was edited to fit onto fewer disks and the original version is on Denis Loubet’s website. The edited version is actually a good compromise and as I remember just removes a lot of wave animation from the sea replacing it with static ice instead.

In the intro a scroll from the guardian to Batlin is discovered in his belongings (18 months afterwards?). This scroll tells Batlin to follow Gwenno to the Serpent Isle if the avatar stops him coming through the black gate. The avatar + his usual companions all go through the pillars which will take us to what used to be the lands of danger and despair which I haven’t seen since the very first day of this blog nearly half a year ago in Ultima 1. I’ve read since that the Ultima 3 map was actually the four lands from the first game merged together although I haven’t tried comparing them. This possibly doesn’t help the logic any but then a whole land disappearing behind two magic pillars (which weren’t in any of the other games) doesn’t make much sense either so I’ll suspend my disbelief. Its still nice to have links like this to the origins of the series – the early games don’t have much storyline to draw on so this is a chance to go back and fill things out retrospectively.

This seems like a good point to read the manual which is something I would never have done back in 1993 before playing a game. It is written by a mage called Erstum who tells how the communities of Fawn, Montor and Moon moved through the pillars to escape the rule of Lord British who is described as hapless since he always relies on a stranger to solve his problems – he may have a point… It only gives the history of the first 3 games however as he doesn’t know how things turned out in the end. It appears as though the giant Earth Serpent from Ultima 3 also ended up travelling through the pillars and the manual mentions using its teeth to teleport around the world which sounds like something to look out for. Finally, there appears to have been settlement in these lands before the Sosarians emigrated as a scroll was found with yet another series of virtues this time based on the principles of Order and Chaos.

I’m not sure that every Ultima really needs to have an alternative set of virtues. It was a good idea once but its been near enough every game since Ultima 5. Anyway onto the game.

The first impression on starting is that it looks exactly like Ultima 7. Its even using all the same tiles. Ultima 7 looked good enough that this doesn’t bother me especially – I’m sure I’ll see some new stuff later on. The portraits at least, are much larger and more realistic in the same way as Underworld 2 which is a big improvement and gives the people a bit more character. The inventory screen also shows me wearing or holding anything equipped which is an improvement.

We’ve literally landed on the shoreline of Serpent Isle. I can’t help but notice that we are all decked out in the best equipment which is too good to be true at the start of the game. I’ve even got my black sword from Forge Of Virtue which I could have done with in Underworld 2.

I head off down the shore to look around and a multicolored lightning storm starts. It hits my companions one at a time and they all vanish into thin air.

It then hits me as well. I seem to be ok but a quick look at my inventory shows that all my nice gear has been swapped for all sorts of rubbish. I’m now wearing a woman’s fir hat…

Just down the beach a female monk teleports in . She is about to help me out when she decides to test me with the obligatory copy-protection questions.

I get the questions out of the way and she gives me an hourglass which the monks will be able to use to resurrect me + I can call upon the monks with it to resurrect my party members (if I had any left).

Next, she tells me something about a prophecy where a hero (that would be me) will come and save the land from chaos. Shes short on details but tells me to head to Monitor down the cost where I will find an old friend – one of my companions I expect.

She tells me I will need to communicate with the void (possibly with the time lord?) and will need a ring, necklace and earring to do this. Finally she tells me about a secret cave down in the South that I should look for.

After we are done talking another monk shows up.

Apparently Thoxa wasn’t supposed to be helping me out..

Thoxa surrounds me in fire so I have to keep out of it then the two of them attempt to kill each other.

Thoxa looks be out for the count but recovers and fireballs her opponent into submission.

She repeats her clues just incase I didn’t get them the first time and then they both teleport away.

Shamino appears almost straight away having heard the battle. He has also lost his equipment in the same manner but is otherwise unharmed.

I find the secret cave. This cave serves as a bit of a tutorial with Shamino basically telling me what to do – this is the first blatant in game tutorial I’ve seen in any Origin game so far. Following it through gets me a few weapons and I’m a bit better equipped than before.

Just South of the cave Shamino spots his magic bow which has swapped for a skull which was in his inventory instead. All the items we’ve lost can therefore be traced if we can figure out where their replacements came from. More than anything, I’d really like my sword back which was swapped for a pumice stone.

Monitor is just to the East. The guard has never heard of me – we are definitely not in Britannia any more.

He is still informative and tells me about a magician who appeared in the middle of town and is being held as a prisoner. This definitely sounds like one of my companions. He gives me a little information on Monitor which is the local city of courage. Their chief warrior has gone missing which sounds like a future quest if I ever heard one.

He lets me in but only with a couple of guards tagging along until I’ve gotten clearance.

This is about as far as I ever played into this game before now and its also where I’ve stopped for today. I should have a bit more time to make a real start on this tommorow.