Ultima – Britannia Kingdom Crisis

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Japanese Ultima 3 week continues apace with another Ultima 3 gamebook, Britannia Kingdom Crisis. This one was published in 1987 by Keibunsha:-

Ultima - Britannia Kingdom Crisis

Once again my lack of Japanese prevents me saying too much about this but it was number 31 in the Adventure Hero Books series and based on the world of Ultima 3. As with all of these, I’m reduced to looking at the pictures which I’d hope aren’t this books strong point. While the artwork is less cartoony than Cabal Of Zola The Mage, the quality is nowhere near the same standard. Good or bad, there is easily enough of it to warrant a gallery:-

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As ever, the full book is now scanned in and available to download. I’ve one more item left to finish the week off and have been saving the best for last.

As an addendum, I’ll like to wish a belated happy birthday to both Ultima Aiera/The Ultima Codex and the Wing Commander CIC and give a big thank you to all involved for flying the flag all these years.

Ultima Vol 1 – Cabal of Zole the Mage

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Japanese Ultima 3 week continues with the first in a series of 3 gamebooks published in 1988 by Futabasha. I’ll take the word of The Ultima Collector’s Guide that this is based around the storyline of Ultima 3 but I have no idea how closely it follows the plot. Confusingly for us Westerners, it is printed in reverse with the cover and page 1 being at what I would usually consider the rear of the book:-

Ultima Vol 1 - Cabal Of Zole The Mage

For those too young to remember, gamebooks were something of an 80’s craze and typically worked by giving the reader a choice to make at the end of each passage. Each choice would give the number of another passage which they would turn to and so on. Some form of stats and dice rolling was usually involved as well but most people I knew ignored this and assumed they won every roll. I read dozens of these things as a kid with my favourites being Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery and Grail Quest.

Unfortunately I can’t read this one, as much as I would like to, given the language barrier. It does have plenty of full-page black and white drawings scattered throughout at least which I created a gallery of below:-

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I’ve scanned in the full book which is available in the downloads.

Ultima 3 – Knife Of The Eye/Magnet Of The Heart EP

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I’m continuing the Japanese Ultima 3 theme with one of the more unlikely pieces of merchandise to find its way into my hands. This is an EP published by Canyon in 1987 featuring a couple of tracks from the NES version of the game These have been rearranged to the point of being barely recognisable and have added vocals sung by Noriko Hidaka who I gather went on to become reasonably famous on Japanese TV.

Ultima 3 Japanese EP

I have to say it was worth tracking down a copy of this just for the photoshopped cover art. As for the music, Knife Of The Eye played in Ultima 3 when Lord British levels up your character and Magnet Of The Heart when exploring his castle. Both of these also featured on an Ultima Mix CD which had another 9 tracks from the game but without vocals.

I dug out my long disused record player to see if I could play this and it still worked much to my surprise. The sound only came out in mono so it needs a connection sorting out somewhere but you can download the results below:-

Knife Of The Eye
Magnet Of The Heart

The best I can say about the music is that it is very 80’s complete with synthesisers and the obligatory guitar solo. I’m not about to recommend listening to any version but the adventurous listener looking for the full high-fidelity experience will find the Ultima mix CD available to download in all it’s glory at The Rabbit’s Lair.

Ultima 3 Perfect Solution Technique Final Revision

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It’s going to be yet more Ultima 3 Japanese collectibles on here this week. I’ve already scanned in several U3 NES guides but there is always room for one more:-

Ultima 3 Perfect Solution Technique - Final Revision

This is the final revision of Ultima 3 Perfect Solution Technique published on December 30, 1987. This only puts it 7 weeks after the first version, but it has changed substantially with half as many pages and a completely different layout. In terms of artwork, it has less going for it than all the other guides so far but the end of the book does feature a 2 page cartoon of the ending sequence of Ultima 3. I doubt it will look quite like most players imagined it.

As with all these U3 guides, it is too small to scan in well without flattening the book but my attempt is on the downloads page for anyone interested.

Ultima 5 Press Releases

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I’ve a couple of press releases relating to Ultima 5 to share today. First up is this two page news release from September 1988, proclaiming the release of Ultima V on Commodore 64/128:-

Ultima V Press Release Ultima V Press Release Page 2

Two weeks later, Origin also produced one of their regular press releases for the game with the summary on one side and the product fact sheet on the back. I’ve not got the final version of this but I do have the constituent parts. This first page below would have been printed on Origin headed paper when it was sent out:-

Ultima V Press Release Front

This mentions the soundtrack support on the 128 version although the majority of people who only had C64’s might not have seen this as much of a selling point. As an aside, there was a largely forgotten PC sound card (the Innovation Sound Standard) which used the same SID chip as the C64/128. This came out around the same sort of time as Adlib & Roland cards, but perhaps not surprisingly never took off against the competition. It’s got an Ultima connection though as Ultima 6 was one of only 15 games (according to Mobygames) that ever supported it. Getting hold of an ISS card is a near impossibility these days but there are versions of DOSBox around with emulated support if you want a C64 style soundtrack with your Ultima 6. This also applies to Bad Blood and Windwalker.

To get back to the matter at hand, I’ve two versions of the product fact sheet which would have been on the back of the page above. Both are design documents prior to the final version, with the first not having any graphics and the later second version having been rearranged to accommodate the appropriate box image and logos but these logos have been stuck on afterwards by hand:-

Ultima 5 Product Fact Sheet Mockup #1 Ultima 5 Product Fact Sheet Mockup #2