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I wrote this in LibreOffice and it was miserable. Ultima SUCKS?!â„
That's not completely true, but it's true enough. Still, theeeeeâyre pretty neato. I'll talk at you now about Ultima IV, VII, and Underworld. I'd like to start by saying that Ultima 4, widely regarded as one of the most important RPGs of ALL TIME, is an EXPLICITLY Christian game đ±How? I'll tell you: during the fictional "Satanic Panic", a term invented by Antireligious Journalists(đ€) to complain about people in the 80s being critical of Satanismâsomething not unique to any time period everâChristian parents were unappreciative of virtueless addictive video and tabletop gamesâdigital and paper drugs, basicallyâbeing peddled to their children. Especially games centered around killing and plundering. For some WEIRD reason that no-one can wrap their heads around, Christian parents didn't want their children hunched over computers and tables for 16 hours a day growing fat and mentally ill pretending to be on magical journeys. What a bunch of irrational Nazis, right? If you've ever seen YouTube channels of serious Dungeons & Dragons players having meltdowns when something happens to their characters, you know that Father Time has proven, as he tends to, that the "Hysterical" Christians of the past were right. Ultima 1-3 were an example of the games being criticized, and having taken the feedback of angery Christian parents to heart, the developer of Ultima, Richard Garriott AKA Lord British, decided to make Ultima 4 about cultivating virtue: Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility. It worked, received rave reviews at the time, and came to be known as one of the must-play Ultima games. In other words, âreligious extremistâ feedback made Ultima 4 one of the best RPGs in the world at the time. There's no arguing this, Garriott explicitly says it was that feedback that made him reevaluate how to make games. The "Virtue" system Garriott developed specifically from sources like Hinduism, but it's Christianity that broke the mold. The editor of the now-defunct vidya website 1UP, Jeremy Parish, ignorantly suggested the game was "a direct barb at the self-appointed moral crusaders who sought to demonize RPGs" What does Jeremy believe the word "barb" even means? It seems like he thinks Ultima 4 was developed out of spite, the way that crappy artist redesigned Xenomorph eggs to have cross-shaped openings after people complained about the original ones looking like vaginas. What was it that "artist" said⊠something like "Hehehehe you Christians love looking at crosses so much, well here's THIS! Da alien egg slit is CROSS shaped now!! Bleeehhehehehehhh!!" Does anyone believe that's how Richard Garriott developed Ultima 4? Sure Jeremy, when I was playing Ultima 4 and I was told by Garriottâs in-game character "Pride is an anti-virtue, it is the absence of Truth, Love, or Courage" I really clutched my Rosary and cried, that's such a BARB against Christianity! Garriott was probably dancing naked with a goat when he wrote THAT! If Jeremy forgot that quote was from Ultima, and he saw some random person post it on Twittâexcuse me, probably BLUESKYâif he saw a post saying âPride is not a virtueâ heâd call them a Fucking Nazi. (A guaranteed cope for this is that the meaning of the word âPrideâ has evolved over the years to make it more positive, at least for certain people with certain aberrant proclivities, but you and I know thatâs not realityâit is what itâs always been) Jeremy went on to say "the irony in seeing an 'evil' RPG better present the Christian admonition to back faith with works in quiet modesty than the Bible-waving watchdog decrying the medium seems to have been lost" Lost on WHOM? He doesn't say, for some reason. The answer is obviously the imaginary Christian Strawman Jeremy hates, that he wanted to come out and cry "WE CHRISTIANS WERE WRONG ABOUT RPGS!! WE'RE SORRY!! WE'LL NEVER CRITICIZE THE PRODUCTS YOU SELL TO OUR CHILDREN AGAIN đą" Itâs such an absurd thing to say, too. Even if the âironyâ truly was âlostâ, the point of this quote would be to what, complain about Christians enjoying the game? Like the same way Leftists get upset at Right Wingers for enjoying Starship Troopers? Thatâs the only way the non-existent irony could possibly be lost, since it wouldnât make sense to suggest that Angery Christian Parents who didnât even play Ultima 4 would know about the gameâs attempts at making the player be virtuous in the first placeâthe irony canât be lost on them if theyâre not exposed to it in the first place. Iâm thinking about it way more than Jeremy did, never mind. The reality is that Christians were literally right about RPGs, which is 1- why Ultima 4 was designed this NEW way in the first place, and 2- why Ultima 4 is regarded as a groundbreaking game, BETTER than its predecessors that weren't shaped by Christian soccermoms into becoming an "RPG that presents the Christian admonition to back faith with works in quiet modesty" as Jeremy almost correctly notes. Thank you, Bible-waving watchdogs, for being directly responsible for Ultima 4's virtue. Now, were Christians in the 80s too hard on games? No. Time has proven they were not hard enough. But still, RPGs are fun and I enjoy them. And I understand how much it sucks to have something you love "attacked", literally because I'm religious. So I am sympathetic toward people who felt under fire from âreligious extremistsâ. To an extent. Personally? I think Ultima 4âs pretty impressive for an old game and as a religious extremist I think itâs probably safe to play it. Especially since itâs, again, a Christian game đ Oh, you thought that was an ankh? Donât be silly, itâs a Coptic Cross â„ But what about the GAMEPLAY?Oof⊠Well, Christians can't be blamed for the gameplay. As awful of an invention as the mouse has proven to be, in pre-mouse times, games relied on KEYS and nothing but KEYS, and for BIG FAT RPGS with TONS of stuff to do, using those key bindings were like learning a second language. Just look at this shit.
>K for Klimb. Of course, you can't use C, C for for CAST! And what's that, you want to cast a spell? I hope you PREPARED them ahead of time, like a fucking Jack Vance Dying Earth character. Mix your reagents! They're all bound to a new set of keys: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, what will you choose? ABC? BC? AEG? BCFG? CBT? CUNY? It's just exhausting. And of course you have to purchase all of those reagents, too. They come cheaply enough, but what price do you put on your own time? We're not getting any younger, you and I. You're really gonna be wasting your firebalâlook, even StrategyWiki agrees with me â
â Even if ranged weapons didn't have unlimited ammo (psh, real realistic btw) it'd STILL be more convenient to just have to buy arrows than to buy ingredients and then mix them into spells! (Now I will be fair here, and say that I can at least headcanon arrows being re-collected after battle for the sake of realism) It's too many key presses. Then God help you if you screw up and waste the ingredients you bought. And I'm just thinking about spells, nevermind the REST of the game, I can't forget that K is for Klimb! But all of it's just so convoluted. Itâs byzantine. Yeah, how about that? It's BYZANTINE. HOWEVER. I will say this:I'm POSITIVE the game originally came with an in-depth manual. And I'm POSITIVE that my GOG copyâit's free on GOG btw, go get itâI'm positive that the GOG version has a manual included in the folder. Lemme go check⊠Yes, it's got a nice manual going over everything you need to know. So that's nice. What about a map, does it have a map⊠okay, that's neat, it's got a ton of stuff
How about that? People my ageâmillennialsâmourn the end of rich game manuals in the box. I still have my manuals for Diablo and Ocarina of Time, even though the boxes are loooong gone. Those manuals are filled with great art, pictures of the equipment, maps, useful information, loooore. Of course it's nice to see that Ultima 4 has that too. So am I really going to complain about having to use an accompanying game manual for Ultima? YES, I AM. You don't NEED to CONSULT THE MANUALS to play Diablo or OoT, you can just play them. "*scoff* Ask, you're being unfair, the game was released when computers were made out of wood and powered by dreams!" Am I? What specific "technical limitation" prevented Ultima 4 from having an interaction menu with dialogue options instead of making you remember "I have to type âjobâ to ask them about their job"? There is none, which is why the Sega Master System port had menus, despite having less RAM than most home computers at the time. "It's old" is just COPE for BAD DESIGN. The time you saveâif anyâtyping out âjobâ instead of pressing down a few times on a controller to reach the Job option is nothing. No one playing video games is concerned about "wasting time". Some would say that itâs more fun to type out what you want to talk about, no matter how limited your options really are, and I get that. So how about needing MANDRAKE ROOT, THE RAREST INGREDIENT IN THE GAME, just to cast the View spell to see a map of the area? This is a world of magic, and I really can't have a MAP? Don't give me that "B-BUT THE GAME CAME WITH A PHYSICAL MAP!" Yeah I know, I know, Lord British literally demanded Sierra ship the game with freaking cloth maps. But is this supposed to be an immersive game or not? I'm not losing myself in Britannia if I have to alt+tab over to a map of the world, or God forbid, return to reality completely and unfold a cloth map on my desk. Lord Britbong eventually realized how bad it was to not have an easily accessible in-game map, as Ultima 7 has an easily-accessible in-game world map. Ultima Underworld even has an AUTOMAP that you can take notes in. It's awesome. Anyway, Ultima IV is pretty good.You can get a boat. Did I mention that? I started a new game, was almost immediately attacked by pirates, and I slaughtered them and stole their ship. Then you can just sail around the world. Thatâs something thatâs really cool. Thereâs just no two ways about it! Compare that to Dragon Quest 2, where you donât get your boat until youâre several hours into the game. Ultima IV gives you a lot of freedom right off the bat. Which is really cool, but thereâs also not much to do in the world anyway. Thereâs nothing to find by exploring the overworld except for new townsâwhich is nice, itâs CRUCIAL. But the ârandom encountersâ, the non-combat events(or unique combat ones) that are commonplace now in RPGs would have been really nice and made the world feel much more alive, and it wouldnât have been very difficult to implementâthey could literally function the same way enemy encounters do (Hindsight, I know, look at me critiquing a game thatâs older than I am which can still compete with games coming out today) Itâs just that it feels like the only person traveling in the entire world besides you in Ultima IV is monsters and Rogues. And by the way, donât make the same XP-costing mistake I made and assume that the Rogues *arenât* evil just because of the gameâs kinda idealistic âempathyâ-glorifying humanist tone. Even though Ultima usually preaches a message of the virtue of Compassion at personal cost, you can indeed kill retreating Rogues without consequence. Not snakes though. Rogues are evil, snakes that spit poison at you are not. Why? âBecause the Rogues should KNOW better!â some would say. Erm, so much for Empathy, so much for Compassion. Itâs a petty little issue, I donât actually think Rogue Lives Matterâor maybe I do? In the beginning of the game, you may be faced with a hypothetical where you track down a man who murdered your friends and learn that he is the sole caregiver for a little girl. So you can kill him or spare him for her sake. He sounds like a ROGUE to me, so why is he a moral dilemma but not the countless Rogues who accost you in the wilderness and try to flee when you whip their asses? Are they all just fleeing to a cave to lick their wounds and then try to rob and kill someone else? What really separates them from stupid animals then? Just call them Orcs, youâve at least already literally classified them as evil. None of those poison-spitting snakes have innocent little girl dependents, I shouldnât LOSE VIRTUE when I kill them if I donât lose virtue when killing Rogues. To be fair though, sparing *any* fleeing enemy will net you virtue, so thatâssssssss nice... This is Too Long.Iâm not going to yapp about the other games right now, this is too long. Anyway, Ultimaâs uh, itâs neato. You might say itâs a Good Old Game.
⊠I forgot I wanted to mention⊠forget it, another timeâthe virtue of FORCING the player to be virtuous? Based but how does it, if it does at all, foster virtue for the player in real life? Hereâs
just some notes Iâve taken down about the other games, Iâll
definitely-probably get to Underworld, 7 I WANT to but itâs
really iffy frankly, Iâm not super-impressed so far Ultima 6- seems a little too idealistic. âunderstanding the âOthersââ, but the Gargoyles are basically just rational humans in monster skin? Give me a break. I guess that was mind-blowing in the 80s, but âactually bad people are good theyâre just misunderstoodâ has been taught to us for our entire lives now. A way better story of coping with âOthersâ that I recently read was in The Wizard Knight, where the humans attempted diplomacy with the Giants, who fucking hated them to the core, there was no cultural misunderstanding. They were ACTUAL Others. They understood each other and hated each other, came to a giant table together and it wasnât fun. I donât have an issue withâwell, idk maybe I DO have an issue with âmisunderstood bad guysâ, but when theyâre just misunderstood, it kinda makes the entire experiment if not pointless then at least less exciting. Ultima 7- who the fuck knows, it runs like shit and is bloated as hell â trying in Exult, will get back to it Ultima Underworld: awesome despite being old and clunky |
No
lol. Not completely anyway. But no matter how you look at it,
it's filthy Gen-X nostalgia.
