Ultima IV: The Path to Virtue

It's been a bit, thanks to holiday hubbub and an impending move, but there's been a little time for Ultima IV, so time to type up another chapter. Also hey, apparently my first post was around this time last year! Huzzah for me. Although at this pace I'm going to be at this for a very long time. Hopefully I can pick it up a bit once the dust settles after my move.

No need to be rude...

Anyway, after some deliberation with Iolo, we decided to head for Trinsic, taking Lord British's advice to stick to the towns early on, rather than go sailing in search of answers concerning Mondain's skull in Buccaneer's Den. We needed to build up some experience as far as fighting went, though, and since we'd both armed ourselves with fancy new slings from Britain's armory, we thought we'd walk, rather than take the moongate.

The journey went rather better than my doomed solo flight from Yew earlier. We made a pit-stop along our way at Paws, where we rested up a bit and poked around for some further clues. I stocked up on reagents, learned about a secret dungeon entrance hidden somewhere in Lord British's castle, and made a note to talk to Mentorian in a village by Lock Lake to learn about the gate travel spell, which would certainly come in handy. A lot of folks in Paws seemed like they were keeping secrets - Sir Simon and Lady Tessa both told me they were the keepers of what they could not say - but I suspect I'll have to learn more in my travels before I can get more out of the townsfolk of Paws.

After loading up on food, I continued on my way to Trinsic, chasing off the bands of orcs and rogues that pursued us on the journey. The city itself had much to offer - the money I'd accumulated from my fights meant I had enough to get Iolo a new bow, and I gave his sling to Dupre, who I'd asked to join my party. There was much to learn on the subject of honor, both of a life with and without it, and what was necessary to keep honor. I found the rune buried in the southwest corner of town on the advice of a scared child named Terrin, and with the mantra given to me by Winthrop, I thought I'd pay a visit to the shrine, which was just a short walk away through some marshes. And that made me glad I'd bought some reagents, as I had to cure a few poisonings as a result after the venture!

Worthiness precedes reward... wait...

I purchased some more bows after a few more fights, and a friendly fighter at the next counter over informed me that it might be worth my while to ask at the pub in Jhelom about sextants. I also learned from a rattling skeleton that the purple stone was to be used on two altars, and I'd need to obtain items from those altars. More threads to follow up on!

I walked back to Castle Britannia, again buying some reagents in Paws, then considered my next steps after conversing with Lord British. He'd confirmed the importance of the stones, that I should seek out eight from the land's dungeons, and to know their uses. As I spent some time donating blood, I considered the matter. I hadn't visited Jhelom yet and had a lead for information there, so that seemed like a pretty good bet. But the fastest way to get there would be by moongate, and to do that... well, the quickest method would be to go from Britain to Yew, and then use Yew's gate to drop by Jhelom. Which meant a visit to Yew would be necessary after all.

It was with trepidation that Dupre, Iolo and I entered the city deep in the forest, and nearly everyone I talked to expounded to me on the nature and value of justice, which only deepened the guilt I felt for Aric's past deeds here. It all came to a head when I was directed to talk to Talfourd about the rune, and he asked me a question: could I honestly claim to never have been guilty of any crime whatsoever?

I know I'd definitely appreciate a little understanding here.

I'd committed many within the boundaries of this very city. I told him the truth, and he sent me to do some time in a cell with the felons. And yet, there in the depths of my despair as I contemplated the nature of justice and how appropriate it was that I found myself here... there it was, right within the cell, the Rune of Justice. Perhaps there was hope for Aric yet.

So heartened, I left Yew behind to make my way to Jhelom, where I did indeed ask about sextants at the pub, and was informed that I could purchase them at guild shops - so long as I asked the proprietor in the right way. I made a note to do so at the earliest chance I got, one of those would certainly come in handy. While I managed to discover the mantra of valor, I couldn't find anything out about the rune just yet - I'd have to come back later. A ranger on his way to Yew expounded on the finer points of his native Skara Brae, so I made that my next destination.

Once there, I asked Shamino to join me, which he was happy to do. My typical rounds of the town gave me a lot of things to follow up on, and I pondered them while I bought a few more reagents. The rune of spirituality was hidden back in Castle Britannia, I was told, and it seemed I'd have to do a lot of clue hunting afterwards, too - there was a word of passage that I'd need at the last gate of the abyss, and I was told to talk to Zair the Wise about it, who I remembered meeting in Paws. The white stone was no longer in Hythloth, either, and apparently someone in the tavern back in Trinsic could point me the right way. And finally, I heard through the grapevine that those seeking nightshade should ask at the pub in Vesper about where it could be found.

Of all questions to be asked in Yew...

I considered all this as I made my way back to Castle Britannia, and after another chat with Lord British and finding the rune in his treasure chamber, I consulted with Hawkwind to see how I was doing along the path. And I must have been doing something right, as he told me I was ready for elevation in Justice, Honor, and Humility, and that I should meditate at those shrines for three cycles.

I called it a day there, but I think it left me with a pretty good plan for my next session - another journey to Trinsic to follow up on the white stone there, with a visit to Zair in Paws, then attain partial avatarhood in Honor and Justice. Then it'll be time to make my way to the ruins of Magincia to do the same in Humility.

The game begins to unfold, and there's still much more in store for me.

One step at a time.

Ultima IV: Starting the Quest

This is not what I would call a great beginning.

With my starting position of Yew too full of painful and embarrassing memories of slaughter of innocent clerics for the sake of money and experience, I decided to plunge my way into the forest and see if I could push through the brush all the way to Lord British's castle - it was he who would be able to explain my presence here and the Quest that lay before me, after all, and I was sure he would provide some useful help and advice.

Unfortunately, it seemed whatever forces were at work in the world decided to deliver its own brand of justice on me. The forest remembered what I'd done to its denizens before, and I was beset upon by several parties of orcs - no less than three, in very rapid succession. Having panicked and accidentally thrown the dagger I'd started with somewhere I couldn't find it rather soon into the first battle (how's that for an auspicious start?), I had to beat them back with my bare hands. Which I managed to do, but only barely, I was sore and very close to collapsing by the time it was all over. I made camp for the night, only to be set upon by yet another band of roaming orcs, and the weariness caught up to me.

I died.

And then was revived, in the very heart of where I'd intended to go in the first place. The universe has a weird sense of humor sometimes.

Oh, I intend to be, Lord British. I intend to be.

By the way, in my opinion, it really is a very handy mechanic to have death bring you back to Lord British's castle, at least for the early parts of the game. It's here that's kind of the hub of an aspiring avatar - Lord British can offer help and hints of how to accomplish the quest, you learn of the runes and mantras and shrines thanks to Sheila in the castle healer's domain, Hawkwind is here to appraise your progress on the path to virtue... and with Britain close by to stock up on supplies, this is a good way to bring a player to where they need to go quick, even if they don't necessarily mean to. One can die very quickly in the early stages of the game, so it's nice to get dropped off at a place where one can recover without too much of a hassle, and get a few things done in the process. I didn't mean to get to LB's place via death, but I did find it particularly amusing - it really did feel almost like Britannia itself was conspiring to make sure I felt some sort of retribution for the deeds committed in past games!

Anyway, back to the game proper. After checking in with Lord British to get a sense of my quest, I wandered the castle, talking to those I could find. They told me all sorts of things, from an admonition not to run from battle to the importance of the shrines and how to make use of them, to the advice that I should not only learn about the virtues, but how they are formed from the three principles. After a stop in at Hawkwind's to see how I was coming along, I wandered over to Britain, where I learned a good deal about compassion. I bought a sling to replace my dagger, and found the rune at the end of a hallway on the advice of Pepper the bard, while Cricket told me what the mantra was.

Pirates on the horizon! Already!!

So informed, I decided to make my way to the shrine to make use of what I'd discovered. And on the way there, I had a massive stroke of luck - the Powers that Be recognizing that yes, I intended to repent and make amends, by sending a pirate ship just over the horizon! (Yes, this is probably the earliest I've ever seen a ship appear in a game of Ultima IV. I sat there staring at my screen, then laughed as I shook my head. How many games have I run around the countryside just hoping to spot one just so I can get that last Eighth!)

So after I'd dropped by the shrine, I returned to Britain to make plans. Lord British recognized my growth and informed me I'd need to demonstrate some good leadership qualities, so I got Iolo the bard to join me on my quest. We learned that Mondain's influence had not yet left the world, and that I should ask of his skull in a place called Buccaneer's Den. I think that'll be for later, though, as I was advised by Lord British to stick close to the towns until I become more experienced. So I think Iolo and I will head to Trinsic by way of Paws and see what lessons and adventures we can find in the process. Once we get some rest, that is.

~~~

Traipsin' along with my buddy Iolo.

I feel like I've said a good many words on the game thus far while having made considerably little actual progress. I'm not sure whether that's because I have a good deal to say about the game in the first place, it being one I know so well, or because I'm trying to focus on the narrative which is making me a tad verbose. In any case, I hope I'm at least managing to stay engaging, and my next session should at least get me a decent ways further into the game. I'm actually having to force myself to remember to slow down and poke my nose into everything - since I'm trying to focus on story, I'm trying to refrain from darting around fetching everything until I've actually managed to find the proper clues that point me to them, which is really making me look at the game through pseudo-fresh eyes again. I'm rediscovering conversations I haven't seen in ages, and I continue to gleefully take down notes on what I'm supposed to "know" as I make my way around the countryside. I know I'm enjoying it, and with any luck, I hope my readers are as well.

Ultima IV: Justice Prevails

The blank slate of a new character

Considering my last post, the statement that it's taken me a while to actually get started on Ultima IV might sound somewhat paradoxical. Part of it's been due to general 'life getting a tad hectic again', but part of it's been due to my intended approach to these playthroughs - a focus on the narrative of the games and the series as a whole.

Consequently, character creation for Ultima IV took me far longer than it probably should have - but hey, at least I enjoyed myself!

One can't get far into a discussion of Ultima without at least some mention of its character creation system - it is the first thing you do in the game - and I'm no exception. This is the first appearance of the Virtue Questions, and I love the way the whole process sets the tone for the game. Games that approach character creation by a series of questions, a personality test of sorts, I find rather intriguing - a way of determining how your own personal approach might translate into game terms. It sets up your character in the game as truly a representation of you, or at least moreso than simply choosing appearance and starting stats and abilities upfront. I think that may be part of why I liked Morrowind more than Obilvion and Skyrim - the possibility of approaching character creation in such a manner was still possible in the former, but not in the latter.

In Ultima IV's case, I like the fact that it makes use of one of the game's crucial mechanics right there in the process - the Virtues. By pitting them against each other and determining exactly which ones the player favors over the others, it helps establish which ones the character in-game might already have a decent handle on, and which ones they'll need to work a little harder in order to prove their understanding.What could be a better set-up for a game that centers around a personal, philosophical sort of journey? (It's kind of interesting to see how the results I get from taking the virtue test 'honestly' has changed over the years, too. I played a fair few bards when I first got into Ultima IV by doing so, but these days I'm more prone to getting a ranger. Compassion has given way to Spirituality as I've grown older, apparently.) Couple that with the fact that the classes aren't that widely different from each other, and you can cover what you're lacking with other party members anyway, and it makes for a very nice system.

Of course, you could just simply game it, too, and choose the virtue centered around the class you want whenever it comes up. But for a story-focused playthrough, where's the fun in that?

Ain't no way I'm givin' up that money. I need it!!

So therein lay my difficulty in getting the game going - I wanted to choose my class according to my character's past actions in the last three games, which meant I had to consider the virtue questions I was given carefully in some instances - and that was harder than I expected it to be! Valor actually survived the first round of the casting (against Spirituality), which it almost never does for myself, simply because of how willing Aric has been to go hammer-and-tongs with whoever he meets. Compassion was ditched first round in favor of Honor, again something that hardly ever happens for me, due to how many prisoners in Minax and Exodus' castles that Aric simply walked by - apparently he's got little compassion for their plight? Sacrifice beat out Humility mostly based on how much money got spent in the past several games, Justice won out over Honesty partly because Aric couldn't leave a chest unopened, and the eight potential classes were narrowed to four.

Sacrifice lost to Honor, again for the sake of money (it was hard to come by in the past few games, no way he was giving up a bounty he'd get paid for), and the nod went to Justice over Valor, because I couldn't picture Aric staying silent over slurs (I mean, he'd wallop guards who said nothing but UGH, ME TOUGH in Ultima II).

Aric's perceived guilt leads him to Justice.

So it came to the final decision between Justice and Honor, a druid or a paladin, which I admit I was a touch disappointed by, as I've played both classes a good deal (I like the good blend both classes have between magical prowess and combat ability) and was semi-hoping for something a little different - I don't think I've ever done a tinker or fighter run. But the question posed, whether to enact an eviction at the command of your liege lord to honor an oath, or to refuse and risk ruin in the name of justice, seemed a fitting one for Aric. I see the 'refrain from taking action to honor an oath' type questions ridiculed as no-brainers from time to time, but personally, I rather like the dilemmas they produce. Characters who take their word extremely seriously pop up a lot in my writing, and an oath such as the ones the Honor questions imply would not be made lightly by them. I've actually pulled an Honesty/Honor clash with one of them before, and that was a fun struggle to write, pitting his desire to speak the truth against his word to hold his tongue. And with the Ultima series set in a land reminiscent of a period of history where a broken oath could lead to a serious shift in status, I think these questions, approached from the right angle, might not be quite so easy to answer as a modern perspective would make them out to be.

It certainly wasn't in Aric's case. He'd done some pretty heinous deeds in order to achieve his goals - goals that were, ostensibly, laid on him, if only to an extent, by kings themselves. (I can't help but think back to Ultima I, no less than eight kings exhorting him to find a way to defeat Mondain, and killing a jester being necessary to see that done.) In the end, though, the allure of the... poetic nature of going for the Justice response, a feeling of remorse for the heinous deeds done, the ends-justifying-the-means attitude, was too tempting. And so Aric began his Quest of the Avatar as a druid, outside the walls of the city he... ran murderous rampages through... erm...

Maybe it's best he make his way to Castle Britannia. For now. To figure out what the heck he needs to do to make amends, atone for his actions, and achieve avatarhood. Yes, that sounds like a good and wise plan. He and I will get right on that.

Methinks I'll avoid the city folk for now...

Ultima IV: Opening Thoughts

I've been looking forward to this one.

Every gamer has "that one game." The game they return to time and time again, that's been replayed more times than can be counted. The game they know the best, forwards and backwards and upside down and inside out. The game where every inch, every facet, every nuance is recognizable and familiar and understood completely. The game that can be breezed through in a single sitting, because the player knows every trick in the book - and a few that aren't in the book, either. The one game that, regardless of whether they champion it as their favorite or not, is the one that, for whatever reason, the gamer knows most intimately.

For me, that game is Ultima IV.


Released in 1985, which makes my "that one game" a full three years older than me, Ultima IV took the series in a completely different direction, and never looked back. Spurred by letters with concerns over what the player had to do in order to win previous games, Ultima IV went the philosophical route, taking the player on a quest of personal development rather than one of defeating the Bad Guy through any means necessary. Killing innocents, going on thieving sprees - these were still possible, but the game would deliver consequences for this sort of thing. Since then, much has been done with the game - there's xu4, an open source engine for the game that does for Ultima IV what Exult does for Ultima VII, in essence, there's two Neverwinter Nights modules based around the game (which some part of me is hoping to mess around with post-Ultima IX), there was the now-closed modern reboot that was Ultima Forever, which I'm still rather disappointed that I never got to play around with. It's a game that left its mark on gaming history, and even now, nearly thirty years later, it's one of the most unique RPGs - and indeed, games, period - out there.

I was first introduced to Ultima IV when I was about ten, by a cousin of mine. It was also my introduction to the Ultima series as a whole, which probably explains why it's my favorite of the series, or at least goes a long way toward doing so. Not only was it my first Ultima, it was probably my first "true" computer game that I played. Up until this point, most of the games I played were edutainment - Carmen Sandiego, the Super Solvers games, and the like. I'd tried things like the Crystal Caves and Commander Keen games before, but never really got into them as much, mostly because my reflexes were bad and that just frustrated me as a kid. With Ultima IV's more turn-based combat system, though, I could slow down and make my moves at my pace, which made it a lot easier to get into.

I remember spending weeks on the game, running around the game world frantically searching for clues, emailing my cousin back and forth for hints and tips about the game, getting all excited when something finally clicked in my elementary-school brain that allowed me to solve a puzzle. I remember the sense of accomplishment I felt when I made my way down to the bottom of the Stygian Abyss for the first time, the sense of awe I felt as I watched the symbol of the Codex form as I answered the game's final questions. It was like nothing I'd ever seen in a game before, and I really felt a sense of progression, of development, of things actually happening in a game.

Even now, I return to Ultima IV often. On a long trip, sometimes I'll fire it up on my computer to see just how far I can power through the game before I reach my stop. When I've had a bad day, I'll load up my last save, run around, and pound monsters. When I write, I occasionally run my characters through the virtue quiz, just to wrap my head around what certain aspects of virtue they're liable to hold more important than others. I crack jokes over losing an Eighth, which leaves most of the people I know eyeing me quizzically except for the rare few who blink in astonishment - because they know.

When it comes down to it, Ultima IV isn't just what introduced me to the Ultima series. It's what introduced me to what games are really capable of - it showed me the stories that could be told through them, the themes they could explore, the feelings they could evoke.

It's the game that truly made me a gamer.

So I'm (hopefully) understandably excited to get to blog my way through it. But before I do, there's one last order of business to discuss - the manuals! After all, the game documentation is as much a part of the Ultima experience as the games themselves. Ultima IV even recommends in-game that you read at least the Book of History! And it's well worth it - as always, Ultima IV's manuals are excellently written. The Book of History feels scholarly and sets the stage brilliantly - from the descriptions of past events that's both informative and just a touch tinged with the color of distance and artistic license, to the lay of the land and the quiet references to the less important events of Britannian history (I really want to know more about the battles that gave the Bloody Plains their name) to the descriptions of daily life and professions. The book of magic feels appropriately esoteric and mysterious, the illustrations beautiful and reminiscent of an illuminated manuscript, the spell descriptions evocative. The word "immersive" is one that I feel tends to be a bit overused these days when it comes to games, but it's one that fits the manuals very well - they really get you involved in the world itself before you even enter the game. I especially love that the lay of the land is included in this one - it's fun to wander the mountains north of Lord British's castle and remember the Serpent's Spine in the manual, realize that's exactly where you are. Moments like that... I miss manuals that really give a good sense of that.

I could go on about the character creation process here too, but I think I'll save that for a post of its own. Partly because I still can't figure out how to approach it this time around. So I shall leave that for later, and gear up for diving into the Quest of the Avatar!

Ultima III: Closing Thoughts

I think it was in Ophidian Dragon's Ultima blog where I came across the opinion that Exodus was a terrible name for a villain. And, well, yeah, I kinda agree. I mean, I can see it as some sort of ".exe-DOS" type pun or something, as a reference to Exodus' computer-esque nature, but it's just something of a strange thing to actually call your main villain.

As a name for the particular game, however, I find it somewhat fitting. An exodus, after all, is a departure, a leave-taking, and Ultima III is where the series departs from its goofier, sillier side (not that it's not still present, as many 'joke' characters in the next game will prove), and starts moving toward a more serious nature. Now out of the transitional period of Ultima II, Ultima III begins to set the tone proper for how the rest of the series will progress from here. It's a turning point, a mark that the series is ready to get down to business, move away from the jumbled mishmash that its predecessors were and start aiming to tell an honest to goodness story. And for that, I find "Exodus" a very appropriate name.

My biggest problem with Ultima II, as I mentioned in my closing thoughts for that game, was the terrible sense of pacing that it came with. For the most part, that's fixed here in Ultima III. It feels very tight, very focused, and streamlined, but not overly so. I can still run around the world and explore at my own pace, and there's enough nooks and crannies to poke into that still make that exploration fun, but it makes very good use of the space that it has. There's no vast, expansive regions that serve no real purpose other than to take up space, which Ultima II was riddled with. The only portions of the game that can really be considered redundant are some of the dungeons - and that's less a matter of redundancy and superfluousness as it is offering multiple venues for achieving the same end - namely, obtaining marks.

The game does feature its grindy moments, but as is the case with Ultima I, there's enough varied ways of going about the grind that it still manages to keep itself decently interesting. I listed my favored methods for maintaining my supplies (it's going to be very difficult to show my face in Yew in the next game... I wonder if that's why it was chosen to be the city of Justice?), but there's other ways of going about it, too. Even better is the fact that some of these methods of grinding are also conducive to achieving other goals in the game - dungeon exploration not only provides you with monsters to fight/grind for gold and equipment, but it also has its own incentives inherent to them, like finding the marks and the Time Lord. There's purpose to help drive you to tasks that help you grind, rather than the grind needing to be an end in and of itself.

I loved the puzzle aspects to Ultima III immensely. Nothing felt too obscure or obtuse or out of left field, like Ultima II's clues often felt. It was good to see clues that pointed to others, too - the remark to see out the jester in fire, a man who told me to look 'out back' where I found another man in an alleyway that would have been quite easily overlooked with a clue for me... Ultima III did a pretty job of laying out the pieces for the player, putting just enough of them together without being too obvious. They're not the sort of thing you could brute force your way through without trying to seek out answers, but those answers aren't overly obscure to find. It's a good balance.

Other aspects of balance are where I feel Ultima III suffers a little, though. Food depletes way too fast, and when you're busy trying to gather gold for other things - weaponry, stat increases in Ambrosia, clues from the oracles - keeping your food supplies at a manageable level can feel like a sinkhole that it's difficult to climb out of. Some of the spells (okay, a lot, really) felt a bit like too high a cost for too small a result - Sanctu Mani, for instance, the cleric's more powerful heal spell, felt like way too many MP spent for not a large enough heal. It'd wipe out three-quarters of Aric's MP pool for a heal of around 100 or so HP, which was nice in the right circumstance, but made it a bear to heal my party at times, which I preferred to do through spells rather than paying for healing due to aforementioned economic issues.

I had a bit of difficulty with the interface at times, too. With each party member's inventory being tracked separately, it could make it difficult to remember who was holding what, and every time I wanted to check, it meant several keystrokes' worth of (Z)tats and scrolling. And when I wanted to pass things around from party member to party member, it meant several more keystrokes to get the commands right in order to send things around the horn. The (J)oin gold command was a lifesaver, though it only was useful so long as I kept less than 9999 gold in the party as a whole, which began to be problematic when I was saving for trips to Ambrosia. I'm looking forward to Ultima IV and V's more streamlined party-based inventory, that'll be easier for me to manage.

So, how does Ultima III's story hold up, both on its own and as part of the larger Ultima narrative? The game's story doesn't differ much in nature from its predecessors - it's still the same "here's the baddie, now take them down" plotline as the others - but it takes a rather different approach to that story. Here, it's not enough to pile on the best weapons and armor, pump up your stats, gather what you need to enter the lair, and enact the beat-down. Here, there is one very specific way to defeat the boss, and if you don't pay attention to the clues dropped, you're not winning. The past two games, the problem was getting to the bosses - once you had the resources to do so, it was simply a fight to the finish. Not so in Ultima III - here you need to be paying attention. You can do everything right, fight your way to the final encounter - and still get it all wrong. I've already gushed on the design of Exodus' castle as an excellent endgame sequence, and it's a fitting end storywise, too - it really does feel like what the game has been building up to, and the surprise twist of Exodus being a computer defeated by cards rather than another (but unique) enemy to beat up delivers that eleventh-hour scramble to readjust and recalculate that keeps the tension going right up until the end. The clues are unveiled bit by bit as the player explores, yet leaving one final reveal for the last moment. It's simplistic, yes - game stories for the era practically had to be - but it's executed that much better than the series' previous iterations.

As for its position in the series, it's with this game that we end the Ages of Darkness, and with the more serious nature of the game, we begin to properly set the tone for the way the rest of the series is about to go. I mentioned waaaay back in one of my very first posts my position that this trilogy of games, thematically, is all about setting up the scenery, defining the setting, its mechanics, its rules, and all that jazz, and now having seen the games through properly, I still hold to that. With Ultima III, these pieces finally start to solidify. We've seen Lord British, the moongates, the towns, the dungeons, a general feel for the medieval sword-and-sorcery-type setting (now that we've done away with the sci-fi elements of I and II), the multidimensional aspect of the hero (mostly from the manuals)... the seeds of the Ultima story at its core are here, and the following games will develop them even further.

Overall, I enjoyed Ultima III a lot, and I'm glad I finally saw the game through in its entirety. There were a couple hurdles to get myself over, but once I got past them, I found the game a good time. In fact, as much as I love Ultima IV and am raring to give it another playthrough, I find myself somewhat disappointed that I have to shelve Ultima III for now - there's so many other possibilities I could explore in the game! What are the other classes like? What would the game be like with an all-spellcaster party? A party with no spellcasters? There's a lot of options the game allows you to take, and I feel like I only scratched the surface. But now that I know the game's a lot more fun than I first gave it credit for, I'm sure I'll be back again someday.

For now, though, it's time to progress, and move from the Ages of Darkness into the Age of Enlightenment, to take the setting and tone established in this trilogy and enter the next one to refine them. I look forward to the journey!

Addendum: Mere moments after hitting 'publish,' I realized I forgot to say anything about the music of the game! Sheesh, there go all my claims to being a very auditory sort of person out the window. Anyway, Ultima III was the first game with music, and I of course had to patch it in - I'm glad I did! It's a wonderful soundtrack for the series' first - The main overland theme is mostly just a simple tune with a few variations as it progresses, catchy without being obnoxious Lord British's castle is regal and stately, the tune floating through the towns feels light and lilting, the dungeon theme is dank and plodding and just a touch eerie, and even Exodus' castle gives a fine foreboding ambiance as the player pushes his way toward the very end of the game. Each theme feels very appropriate to the place it makes its appearance, and as small and subtle a thing it can appear, it adds a lot to the game. Has me poking around on my piano to see how much of it I can pick out!