Ultima IV!

[Saxon1974]

Continuing my quest to finish Ultima III-7, here goes my pictorial post of Ultima IV.

It starts with a warm summer day, and suddenly a blue portal!



Then we find a ren festival just over the ridge....



A Gypsy Wagon....





I ended up being a paladin after answering all the questions, which I am ok with...although I kinda like playing a ranger....

Hear is the small village of paws and then me holing up and camping for the night with my buddy Iolo...

[Rune_74]

Cool....I started ultima 6, but feel like I'm missing something since its been so long since 4, I have always been a fan of the virtues.

Do you find with the older ultimas they stayed away from the fedex quests by not refering to everything you do as a quest? I mean it feels like you have an over all quest and a bunch of things you can do in the mean time. Not this complete this and then this...

[Saxon1974]

I think I know what you mean. If I remember correctly from when I played VI it seemed like one long string of fedex type quests back to back that kind of forced you to go to a certain place, where as in the III-V game they kind of had a broad overall quest, then many different other things you could do and explore but didn't call them quests. It does feel more wide open in the earlier games.

I think III-V are my favorite, even though I still think VI and VII are pretty great games too....There is just something about the games made of the III engine that always had something special about them.

I also much prefer the C64 version of III and IV to the PC versions by far....

[Rune_74]

What is the difference in the c64 versions? I played mine on the apple 2c originally.

Are you playing the c64 versions?

[Saxon1974]

Mostly the color pallet, on the PC versions they made it too colorfull I thought and made it a bit cartoonish looking, also the C64 version has the full sounds and soundtrack music. I think there are some patches to the PC version to add the music back in though.

Some of the old C64 just have a feel to them that I like tha I can't really describe, Wasteland is another one like that. The C64 version has a dark and gritty look and the best sound, and again the PC version of too brightly colored for the setting.

IF your interested in playing the C64 versions of Ultima III and IV I would recommend the Gold versions, they have some bug fixes and small interface enhancements as well as no disk swapping.

They are located here:
http://www.paradroid.net/projects.html

And I am using the Win Vice emulator for C64 which is easy to find and use...

[Rune_74]

Actually I downloaded U4 with teh XU4 program which adds a bunch of things to the game.

So I started it up and got adruid after answering teh questions...but I end up looking for the justice rune in the jail but the guy faught me and ran away and no rune in the cell so now I'm stuck.....can't find a reason for that happening....

[Saxon1974]

Yikes, yea not sure how that would have happen, Im guessing you have already saved it with the run missing?

[Saxon1974]

Selected scenes from last nights play....

Found me a dungeon nestled aways in the crags of the Serpent's Spine mountains....



In Ultima IV you can see enemies coming, an improvement over Ultima III.

Uh Oh, look likes some bats!





I take out the bats and turn a corner to discover a fountain.



Later on I find a shrine hidden in the mountains!

[Saxon1974]

Some more moments in game.....

Visiting the forge in search for some better weapons.



The lovely town of Skara Brae.



I found that dungeons in this game are more interesting than U3, there are bridges to cross. I placed my archers to the side of the bridge and moved my swordsmen across.



Fighting some headless and mimics. I love the Mimics, once you take them out they turn into treasure chests!



I also noticed that gems don't appear to reveal the entire dungeons this time, and don't appear to reveal everything. I like that better since it makes it more fun to explore.

[mkreku]

Wow. I played Ultima IV for hundreds of hours when I was younger (and they were new games ) but I never finished a single Ultima game! I never understood this virtue thingie and I could never understand why the game wouldn't let me in at the end.

[IJBall]

Well, I finished Ultima IV (again)!
Second time in about 25 years!

(The only screenies I have from this game could be considered spoilers, so I'm not going to be posting them... )

I will not lie - I used FAQs and walkthroughs to do it. (Not using them pretty much meant I would have never have finished it.)

But the newest version of XU4 for Mac OS X from April of '08 solved the problems I had with the previous version of XU4 (I'm guessing that version was from 2007) crashing in dungeons. Without the crashing, I was able to get my characters up to snuff, get what I needed from the various dungeons, and finish the game.

Having played Ultima IV again, I forgot how annoying some aspects of the game were. In general, playing with a party of 8 was incredibly cumbersome (even playing a party of 4 would probably annoy the heck out of me after playing Eschalon). The dungeons are a royal pain (thank heavens for Eschalon's much superior version of dungeon gamplay!). Reagents for spell mixing, spell casting, and the choice of spells, all left something to be desired. And the random monster generation, especially the increased rate of such at higher character levels, did become quite irritating.

Bottom line - Eschalon: Book I is a substantial improvement over the gameplay of Ultima IV.

But being able to ride horses and travel around the world of Britannia in boats was fun. (I know BW said horses were out in Book II, but I really hope we will at least be able to sail around in boats!)

The ending of Ultima IV was kind of abrupt (no chance to play past the ending of this game, like you kind of can in Book I!)

But, anyway, I'm glad I played and finished U4 again.

Have fun with it Saxon!
Looking forward to more of your screenies!

[Sslaxx]

Sign of the times and all. Gameplay has moved on since Ultima IV's time. For what it was though it was quite a good game! I'd love to see it receive the Lazarus treatment, sometime...

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Sign of the times and all. Gameplay has moved on since Ultima IV's time. For what it was though it was quite a good game! I'd love to see it receive the Lazarus treatment, sometime...

Maybe somebody will buy the rights and hire Thomas and company to make new Ultima games.

[Saxon1974]

I actually stopped playing, might go back later on.....

Im just not a huge fan of Ultima IV, I agree it was hugely influential but I think it gets so much credit because of the way it made you quest for virtues instead of "Kill the big bad guy" like most games.

Don't me wrong, its still a classic but the Combat is almost pointless, its far too easy too early and I don't much enjoy being forced to be good. No more thief!

Anyway, I moved on but might come back someday.

I think Ultima III and V are probably my favorites.

[Rune_74]

Sign of the times and all. Gameplay has moved on since Ultima IV's time. For what it was though it was quite a good game! I'd love to see it receive the Lazarus treatment, sometime...

Maybe somebody will buy the rights and hire Thomas and company to make new Ultima games.

I can imagine buying the rights from EA would be most expensive. I have a feeling with EA aquiring bioware we may just see a new ultima.