I finished the Black Gate this week and I have many impressions, good and bad.
+
>Open world that doesn't fall into the trap those games usually do, being too big and empty, in this one the world is just the right size where you don't have to walk for mimutes through nothing
>lovely music
>i was always excited to meet the characters of each town, they were funny and well written
>it's not afraid of censorship and has some horrific imagery, i remember saving a baby from a harpy and seeing a dismembered bloody baby and adult male on the nest nearby
>world feels very real and lived in, you can bake bread, play instruments, go to not church, sit and drink a beer
>the mystery is fun to uncover and the story moves at a good pace, with some shocking moments (like what happens when you return the notebook... holy shit)
>good graphics and unique portraits for over a hundred npcs
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>only one world map, no auto map which makes it easy to waste time searching to find the building or npc you need to go to
>food.
>the backpack is as frustrating as in real life, needing to grab around to look for the small thing you need to use
>combat. Yikes this was bad.
>spells require a whole bunch of reagents which take ages to farm, not much of a problem when you become rich in midgame but the inventory management is still a hassle
>ai pathfinding. waiting 20 seconds for the last moron to sit down on the carpet everytime is so bad
>most of the "puzzles" where you need to go through some wall or all the traps
All in all I enjoyed my time with this but I won't play Serpent Isle any time soon, it's not rewarding to do quests or search for equipment, experiment with different weapons and level up when the combat is so abysmal and unfun, it would be better as an immersive sim detective game to be honest.
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I found the game very disappointing, as a large amount of magic items have zero effect or bonus to them, and the npc schedules don't make up for the awful combat and aimless meandering you do to find more items where the mechanics weren't actually implemented. I would say the game gives an illusion of being better than it actually is but if you dig deep, you're left with a shallow RPG.
Also I found Ultima Underworld to be better in every respect.
There's no god up there.
I love this game. Don't mind the combat since it's quite easy. My biggest complaint is that the main quest can be obtuse and has you running around pointlessly a lot.
True. Half of it is a wild goose chase looking for Abraham and Elizabeth just to end up back in Britain. It's also easy to miss the need to head over to Yew. I think the gypsies tell you, but I can't remember.
Second best RPG of all time, second only to Serpent Isle. The combat was obviously an afterthought and if your thing is minmaxing/munchkinism then it's no surprise it left a bad taste in your mouth. If you can name any RPGs of that era that didn't have broken combat I'd love to know.
Define broken, I mean UUW has perfectly functional combat but it is simplistic and in a style of game completely different from U7. I'd say the first "top down" RPG with a decent real-time combat system would be Diablo, then the Infinity Engine games.
Broken as in garbage, ie. crude, rudimentary, mindless. I don't consider Diablo an RPG. IE games were some of the first RPGs that had really well executed combat. X-Com: UFO Defense had great tactical combat even earlier, but I don't consider that an RPG either.
Fire emblem 1 is really slow and some characters are unusable but i still think it qualifies as good, even the latest games have the same basic gameplay. Levelling doesnt just give you stats, but lets the characters eventually get that sweet promotion giving them a new sprite, weapon type and animations, like evolving in pokemon. Hell, the remake on ds is very faithful to it.
>leveling doesn't just give you stats
True, sometimes leveling in FE games gives you jack shit
Dark Sun? Might & Magic? Pool of Radiance? Wizardry?
M&M, PoR, and Wiz have marginally better combat than U7 but they're blobbers so combat is the main course whereas in Ultima, combat is a side dish. I wouldn't say those games have very good combat anyways, they're just big RNG grinds. Can't speak to Dark Sun, never played it.
What's a blobber? Is it like jarpig or scrimblo but for dungeon crawlers? Whence comes it?
Do you know what Wizardry is? That's a blobber.
Not him, but where does the word come from? What is the relation to the gameplay?
The idea is that your party moves as one unified blob
>marginally better
>marginally
Gold box was old by 1992
the vanilla combat is bad but once you learn how to micro-manage your party and the strategies to set its really not that bad.
just tell your party to not sperg out
The hunger mechanic is gay
agreed I had to mod to fix that shit. how can you feed your party a fine steak then they are whining about being hungry 10 minutes later?
Because time is different in Brittania you Earthcentric bigot
no, it has a day night cycle and my party demands 20 meals a day. this is ridiculous
Food is everywhere. It weighs nearly nothing. Just throw meat into Shamino's pack and eat as you need it.
>the backpack is as frustrating as in real life
at first I hated the inventory system for being too autistic, but once mastered its a stroke of genius having to rummage around in sacks and bags to find your stuff. this needs to make a comeback
I wish someone would remaster these games. Despite playing games in the 90s I just can't go back to this primitive time.
I'd be content with Ultima 7 being remade to have Ultima 6 combat.
https://www.gamesradar.com/ultima-remasters-were-turned-down-by-ea-says-series-creator-richard-garriott/
EA exists to shit on gamers' dreams
I don't trust Garriott with any of the old games. Shroud of the Avatar was an abomination and Ultima 8 and 9 were bad, too.
>Ultima 9
I just finished it and wtf did they smoke
People blamed it on EA but after Shroud, I know better than to ever trust Richard Garriott again.
I'm sure retcon 20 years of games wasn't an EA idea
I remember a lot of fans back in the day trying to rationalize it by saying that EA forced him to do that "to ease new players into the series" or something. I think a lot of people had buyer's remorse.
Richard is great ideas man but a terrible developer, he needs to let it go and hire better people.
>Richard is great ideas man
Unfortunately the great ideas that pop into his head these days are all ways to grift his dwindling fanbase.
>tfw Richard doesn't respect his own virtues system
Lord British wants to and keeps asking EA to sell him the rights back. they refuse.
Probably because even EA knows how much of a hack he is.
>what is Ultima VII Exult
>middle of a battle
>"when do we eat?"
Garriott is doing Ultima Online 2 clone as we speak, but expect microtransaction hell.
We already have that
>Legends of Aria 2.0
> no auto map
Because you're either expected to make one yourself with pen and paper or just use the one provided with the game's box. An actual cloth map.
>>it's not afraid of censorship
i'm pretty sure it was because no esrb and rpgs were niche, the terrible snes version is censored to hell
did you play vanilla or with exult?
exult fixes a lot problems but also has bugs of its own
hey guys I only play UO (started in January of this year) and I love it. I thought about trying out the Ultima series.
As someone who is new to Ultima where should I begin?
peak Ultima is IV to VII, the earlier ones may be too primitive for you now you've played UO
cool I'll start there thank you. what about VIII?
Not him but there is an alright game to be found in 8 if you can wrap your head around the absolute dog shit controls. Even if you get used to them, there are platforming sections that make you want to rip your hair out.
wait... platforming?? in Ultima?
Yeah. There is a lot of it in 8.
that's odd to hear coming from UO. Anyway I'll start with VI and go from there. thanks again!
Like this anon says
U4 through U7 are the best of the series. I'd start with U6 then play U7 and SI. U4 and U5 are very good too, but less accessible due to their age so probably not the best introduction to the series.
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Shroud of Avatar got a lot of shit and rightly so, but now after years of patching and it being free to play there is a good Ultima game in there, single player of course the MP is dead.
SOTA looks interesting. The advanced combat seems pretty cool. So the story is good enough to play it as a single player game?
Does Ultima 7 give anyone else motion sickness? I'm usually not susceptible to this, but there's something really disorienting about moving around in this game. Is there anything in the Exult settings that may mitigate this?