This is without a doubt one of my favourite pieces of gaming memorabilia. It’s a giant store poster for Ultima Underworld which is unusual enough not to have made it into the Ultima Collector’s guide first time around:-
This is roughly 4 feet tall and made of plastic rather than cardboard or paper meaning that it still looks fantastic 20 years later. It has pride of place on the wall of my games room these days.
This is an early version of the Memoir’s Of Sir Cabirus manual from Ultima Underworld. Other than the cover, I didn’t spot any changes except some minor layout alteration and a lot of the bestiary features the same drawing of a Goblin as filler. For anyone curious, the scanned pdf is available here.
Just about all of today’s Underworld posts are going to involve various Underworld relics I’ve been able to acquire. The first of these is a laminated carboard stand with one of the commonly used magazine adverts for Underworld + a little extra information around the frame. I’m not entirely certain but I think that this was probably used by Origin themselves at a trade show rather than in game stores. I’m only speculating there so if you know more than I do, I’d love to hear from you.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the North American release of Ultima Underworld and I couldn’t let that pass without commemorating the occasion in some small way. In a never to be repeated fit of organisation, I’ve several Underworld posts ready to go which will be appearing throughout the day. I’ll be starting slowly with some reminiscing and finishing off with something a little special.
I’ve often described Ultima Underworld as my favourite game of all time. It was the first RPG I ever finished and the game that got me into Ultima all those years back. I expect that any gaming veteran will hold a soft spot for their first completed RPG which may be a large part of its lasting appeal. It was never the most accessible genre, and the game that could entice any unwary youth to spend enough hours to get to the end would need to be something special.
With the amazing 3D engine Underworld clearly had a huge advantage in drawing in the uninitiated but I had to turn most of the textures off to play the game on my PC and it still managed to absorb me completely. The aspect that appealed the most was the world simulation. In fact it was even nominated by the SPA for simulation of the year, eventually losing out to SimLife. You can’t read too much into these award ceremony results. In the same year Ultima 7 along with Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Fate Of Atlantis lost out for best game to Darkseed. I’ll say no more.
Despite losing out for that particular award, Underworld was at its heart a dungeon simulator first and foremost. Everything in the game followed the rules of that world and problems presented to the player often had numerous solutions because of it. I remember that I used to be quite fond of luring creatures to the edge of a cliff, then jumping at them to knock them into the water and drown them. In hindsight this wasn’t the best way to play the game, but it worked.
I’m sure that playing it these days, my appreciation is largely nostalgia but anyone who played this at the time will recall the sheer immersion and oppressive atmosphere which far surpassed anything before it. For me it typifies what Origin games are about, even if it was almost entirely created externally. It took an amazing game engine and added layers of depth, polish, gameplay and story to create something that blew every one of its competitors completely out of the water. A year later, major releases like Lands Of Lore still looked like relics by comparison. Suffice to say, it will always remain one of my all time favourite games although I’ve played it to death over the years.
It’s a game that should have spawned a genre and perhaps in the shape of Elder Scrolls it arguably did. Arena was very clearly influenced by Underworld although massively inferior in my eyes, if more ambitious in scope. While Elder Scrolls would build momentum over the years, this never happened with Underworld itself and the series was all too short-lived. There was a single sequel which was something of a rush job being completed in about 9 months to capitalise on the success of the first. This meant the engine was largely unchanged but at least the rush wasn’t evident in the gameplay and storytelling which improved on the original all round. A further sequel was planned but never made it into development. Origin allegedly saw Underworld as something of a fad and when Underworld 2 sold half as many as the original this confirmed it. Later attempts to revive the series never got too far out of the blocks.
About a decade later, we did get Arx Fatalis which could have been Underworld 3 had the license been acquired. This game is still a spiritual successor but despite that I’ve never got around to playing it myself. If there was ever a time to put that right it has to be now and I’ll be blogging my way through it in the near future.
Less well known is that a sequel to Arx Fatalis was developed but the publishers weren’t keen on the IP and that sequel ended up becoming Might And Magic – Dark Messiah. This is a game I have played although without that bit of knowledge at the time. It didn’t strike me as being Underworld 4 when I wasn’t looking for it but there are certainly similarities and it was even worked on by Looking Glass founder Paul Neurath.
It took about another 90 minutes to finish Ultima 3. Most of that was spent filling up with gold and journeying back to Ambrosia. Once that was out of the way, I just needed to get the four marks and make sure the Time Lord hadn’t changed the order of the cards in this version.
When you know where to go and have a fully equipped party, gathering the four marks takes no time at all. I used my cleric and wizard to quickly get me up and down levels and had all four in around 15 minutes.
On my travels I met some subtantially tougher creatures in the lower dungeons but my party had no trouble with these at this stage. After a tough start the combat in this game didn’t keep pace with the progression of my characters making the game easier and easier the further I got into it. Also, it is possible to run from combat in this version by backing out of the combat map. I only ever made use of early in the game but I don’t remember this even being a possibility on the PC.
The trip to the timelord went similarly smoothly apart from some fun and games trying to go through the right moongate. The Timelord makes more of a speech in this version but the order of the cards hadn’t changed.
After that I healed up and headed for Exodus. The snake lets me pass after yelling “Evocare” and I head into the castle.
I wasn’t so sure my party was going to be up to the final battle. I’d maxed out the hit points of my two front line fighters at this stage but my spell casters were relatively weak. I needn’t have worried though. My spellcasters certainly came close to death but I would easily have been able to finish with just the two characters if it had been required. This part of the game was much, much easier than on the NES.
I did run into more invisible floor monsters than in the other versions with my first encounter being in the top left of the map. These died in a single hit without fail so it’s just a question of bunching the party and attacking constantly.
When I get that far, Exodus doesn’t look all that much like a computer. From these tiles I’m not sure I’d make the connection without the text telling me in the bottom corner when I insert a card.
One addition which I’d not seen before is a quick end cutscene where a passage opens up behind Exodus through which I run through and see a floating orb of some description. At least in this English version the text doesn’t make it too clear what this is but it soon fades and I run away under instruction from the Timelord.
The big finale cutscene is in English this time, although only barely. The bad translation doesn’t give completing the trilogy quite the air of achievement I would have hoped for with lines like “Doesn’t it look like the spine of a snake, does it?” but it’s still the best ending I’ve seen on any version so far.
I’ve enjoyed my time playing through the Ultima trilogy again for the first time since week 1 of this blog, although it certainly brought it home just how much farming is required in these early Ultimas. As a whole the FM Towns is the best version I’ve played with Ultima I & II being a big improvement, admittedly with some reservations. With Ultima III it’s a much harder call as the original music is so much better. This version probably still wins out over the enhanced PC version given the dungeon graphics and cutscenes but it’s a close call. The NES version had its good points also and is certainly another decent option although I did find it moved a little slowly for my liking. I expect that I’ve yet to play the best version as the Lairwair Mac version looks potentially the best of the bunch.
If you’ve never played Ultima 1-3 and fancy giving it a go, you could do a lot worse than tracking down a copy of this for FM Towns. The improved graphics and tweaked interface make it substantially more accessible and the Unz emulator has been rock solid with no issues at all. The trilogy is usually a crazy price on Ebay but is available at far more reasonable prices direct from Japan.
There is a certain Origin anniversary coming up tomorrow which will form the basis of a post or two on here and hopefully elsewhere. After that, I think I’ve going to have to give Wing Commander Saga a go.