Ultima Any games like Ultima 5

[Sykar]

Morrowind. Seriously, just don't enchant anything or make any potions or any spells. Also don't "buy" any training. Lastly get better heads/bodies and widescreen mod.

Read everything. Profit.

I wouldn't say don't do ANY enchanting, alchemy or spell making, just limit yourself to "realistic" levels.

 

[Ladonna]

I tried thinking of any other game, and like others here, I have come up trumps. I hate to parrot what others say, but The Magic Candle series is pretty much the nearest in terms of world exploration, information gathering, questing/dungeoneering and, for want of a better word, 'mystery'.

After playing Ultima IV and loving it to death, Ultima V felt like things were heading in the right direction and had more than I could have wished for. Like others here, it was all downhill (whether outright, or by degrees) for the rest of the series, at least in my opinion.

The Magic Candle was an impulse buy for me. It was sitting by itself, for sale, weeks on end. I had looked at the box a few times, and eventually grabbed it on the way out of the shop one day (no internet reviews back then, I hadn't seen it reviewed in any magazine, and nobody I knew owned it). Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised by the game, and it is still a firm favourite of mine today (I enjoyed 2, 3 and Bloodstone as well). I don't think it quite matches Ultima V, but for a developers first real stab at an RPG, it is excellent. I strongly suggest checking it out if you enjoyed Ultima V.

 

[rezaf]

Honest question: What's it to U5 that makes it so unique for you guys?

I only played it after U7, and by that point ... let's say it failed to enthrall me.
The really old Ultimas were played on my C64, with loading times and disc swapping and whatnot, and I was quite little at the time ... so I mostly jerked around. I think I finished 1 eventually, and 4, where I had a friend who was very into it and helped me along when I got stuck.
2 and 3 sounded spectacular, with travelling between world and through time, but the actual gameplay ... I never got far.
Some time after finishing 4 I got a PC, and 6 was a newly released game ... so I finished 6. At least I think I did - I played tons. Then Ultima 7 blew it out of the water.
Only after finishing U7 did I first get U5, and, like I wrote above, I never managed to get into it.

So ... go ahead and convince me why this is a must play title.
_____
rezaf

 

[MisterStone]

Honest question: What's it to U5 that makes it so unique for you guys?

I only played it after U7, and by that point ... let's say it failed to enthrall me.
The really old Ultimas were played on my C64, with loading times and disc swapping and whatnot, and I was quite little at the time ... so I mostly jerked around. I think I finished 1 eventually, and 4, where I had a friend who was very into it and helped me along when I got stuck.
2 and 3 sounded spectacular, with travelling between world and through time, but the actual gameplay ... I never got far.
Some time after finishing 4 I got a PC, and 6 was a newly released game ... so I finished 6. At least I think I did - I played tons. Then Ultima 7 blew it out of the water.
Only after finishing U7 did I first get U5, and, like I wrote above, I never managed to get into it.

So ... go ahead and convince me why this is a must play title.
_____
rezaf

Ultima V was basically the last game to match that level of interactivity and depth of plot and dialogue with what was still a very abstract presentation. Compared with U IV there are more things to play with on the town maps, and you can do stuff like push objects around, unlock stocks, play harsichords, etc. Although a bit underused, this kind of thing does play a role in puzzles and exploration. There are clever things in dungeon rooms as well, ie you grab a torch and a secret reasure closet opens, etc. There are fun events like the Shadowlords infesting a town, which is very disorienting the first time you encounter it. The underworld is a ton of fun as well, an area with no map and undocumented monsters... it was thrilling to discover stuff there.

LIke I said, I think that this was the first and last game to push this level of interactivity with an abstract presentation. The tiles were beautiful, but they only gave a very general idea of what they represent. So the world came to life through map design, writing and various design choices rather than visual fidelity. The presentation in later games became more realistic, but the world also shrank in size, so exploration became less interesting.

I still like the tile-based presentation of U V... I feel like the super hi-fi games of today fail to match writing and realism to their ultra-realistic presentation, and the result usually ends up looking like a half-assed puppet show a couple of hours into the game.

 

[Melan]

U5 also had a great gradual approach to discovery. First, you needed to survive in a hostile environment, gather a party and some basic resources. Then, you could gradually go around the mainland, visit cities and start gathering clues. You gained access to newer and newer modes of travel - mountaineering equipment, boats, ships, eventually flight - unlocking another level of the terrain, and with it new puzzles. You unsealed dungeons and discovered hidden areas, then found a whole underworld below the dungeons, with even more to come. Although Britannia was an open world, many of its secrets were hard to get (but also logical).

Ultima IV had a more obscure design, and it was extremely grindy; the later Ulltimas were good in their own way, but never had this satisfying exploration. In U5, buying items unlocked new subsystems, new ways of interaction and navigation getting you deeper into the game. This gradual sense of discovery is a key to its appeal.

 

[MisterStone]

U5 also had a great gradual approach to discovery. First, you needed to survive in a hostile environment, gather a party and some basic resources. Then, you could gradually go around the mainland, visit cities and start gathering clues. You gained access to newer and newer modes of travel - mountaineering equipment, boats, ships, eventually flight - unlocking another level of the terrain, and with it new puzzles. You unsealed dungeons and discovered hidden areas, then found a whole underworld below the dungeons, with even more to come. Although Britannia was an open world, many of its secrets were hard to get (but also logical).

Ultima IV had a more obscure design, and it was extremely grindy; the later Ulltimas were good in their own way, but never had this satisfying exploration. In U5, buying items unlocked new subsystems, new ways of interaction and navigation getting you deeper into the game. This gradual sense of discovery is a key to its appeal.

Everything here is quite true, but it is also worth noting that your ass could accidentally get tossed into the underworld as well, by whirlpools IIRC, or riding a skiff down a waterfall. And IIRC the only way back was to go up through a dungeon backwards, or more likely (if you were not prepared) to just get killed. The latter gave you a tantalizing peak at what you could explore later on. So it was a very open world that could mess your shit up at a moment's notice.

 

[octavius]

Ultima V is a bit like Betrayal at Krondor in that it does all the things that make up a CRPG right: exploration, combat, encounter design, puzzles, and unlinearity. Combat is not the chore it was in U4, and NPC interaction moved from quantity to quality.

 

[MisterStone]

Combat is not the chore it was in U4, and NPC interaction moved from quantity to quality.

Sorry to keep blathering on about my fav RPG, but the point about combat is a good one, combat is a lot more fun than in U III and IV. I remember that terrain, equipment loadout etc was actually more significant.

 

[Darkzone]

Sorry to be here the prophet of doom, but UIV and UV are the best. UVI was not anymore on this level, but it was still good.

 

[:Flash:]

All the technical aspects said in this topic are true, but Ultima V in addition to that also has a great atmosphere.
The signs with Lord Blackthorns laws plastered at the city gates, wanted posters for your old friends, a clandestine resistance, people who are suspicious all over the place, people who want to turn you in, and yet aren't just cardboard evil guys, no they think they are truly doing good. I don't know any other RPG that tops Ultima V in the atmosphere department.
And then entering a city with Shadowlords tops it off. In this situation we can also see a great advantage of the more abstract graphics style: All the trees have lost their leaves, when Shadowlords roam a city - a chilling effect that has not yet been recreated.

I'm convinced that Ultima V is the point of reference where we have to start if we ask "what would have been, if all the efforts that went into making better graphics had gone into the other aspects". Ultima V's graphics are good enough, and everything else is better than in modern games. Consider the graphical difference between Ultima V and Skyrim, and then imagine a game with Ultima V's graphics, but with an equal difference in AI, quest systems, world reactivity, etc.

 

[kain611]

Ok i've tried installing and getting the updated music and graphics versions of U3, U4, and U5 but alas have had no luck. Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find the updated pack already done?

 

[Infinitron]

Ok i've tried installing and getting the updated music and graphics versions of U3, U4, and U5 but alas have had no luck. Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find the updated pack already done?

http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/

 

[:Flash:]

Ok i've tried installing and getting the updated music and graphics versions of U3, U4, and U5 but alas have had no luck. Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find the updated pack already done?

What's the problem? These things work without a problem, these are replacement exes that simply work if you have the correct data files.
http://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?event=project&typeKeyword=upgrades

 

[BigWeather]

Gah this thread is making me want to do an insane pet project I've wanted to do for years -- re-work Ultima IV and VI with Ultima V sensibilities (tiled graphics, maps, combat, time-of-day, spell system, etc.). Crazy because the amount of time it'd require and fear of The Lawyering.

Also, one thing I LOVE about Ultima V are the four lighthouses. Lighthouses that conveniently got destroyed prior to Ultima VI. I loved their beam cutting through the night (and man, night was scary in Ultima V -- just one tile visibility around your party).

 

[Jaesun]

Ultima IV in the DungeonCraft engine.........

 

[lurker3000]

Also, one thing I LOVE about Ultima V are the four lighthouses. Lighthouses that conveniently got destroyed prior to Ultima VI. I loved their beam cutting through the night (and man, night was scary in Ultima V -- just one tile visibility around your party).

Yeah I remember that being incredible cool. I also thought the roads were pretty awesome the first time I played the game.

 

[MisterStone]

Also, one thing I LOVE about Ultima V are the four lighthouses. Lighthouses that conveniently got destroyed prior to Ultima VI. I loved their beam cutting through the night (and man, night was scary in Ultima V -- just one tile visibility around your party).

Yeah I remember that being incredible cool. I also thought the roads were pretty awesome the first time I played the game.

Dayum, I forgot all about the lighthouses.

One thing that freaked me out when I played the game was when I found a wrecked ship in the underworld. From the underworld world-map it looked like a tower, so I was like, HOLY SHIT SOMEONE LIVES IN THE UNDERWORLD. Turns out that it is a wrecked ship that fell through a whirlpool or something, but they did not have a dedicated world-map tile that looks like one. I don't think that one actually gave out light, or did it?

 

[Gragt]

Ultima IV in the Divinity: Original Sin engine.........

 

[rezaf]

Thanks for the responses guys, even though most of it sounds a bit vague and has that air about it people generally summarize with the term "rose colored glasses".
I know how it is, often facing the accusation when talking fondly about Master of Magic or X-COM.

AFAIR I tried the U5 remake in the Dungeon Siege engine a few years back, but even that (DS) has aged quite poorly. Early 3D...
For it to really grab you when it needs to, I think you need to feel the familiarity from having faced the same things many years back in a different engine. I was familiar with the places (and some people) from having played other Ultima games, but tramping through these forests, sifting through houses in Britannia, having sometimes interesting, but largely boring conversations with strangers and fighting enemies that were either a cakewalk or would obliterate me almost instantly, all in the aging low-polygon and somewhat quirky UI environment of the DS engine ... I can't say I had much fun. I'm sure the team that created the mod deserves a ton of credit for pulling it all off, but still...

With these old games hold in high regard, it's usually a combination of the actual gameplay and "side effects" of how they made games, UIs or even how they approached graphics in that day and age (or even just that specific title), or so it seems to me.
But when you play them without fond memories of doing just that years back, the older a game, the higher the chance you won't be able to get into it. Knowing how U7 looks and plays, I have a hard time going back even to U6.

I'm quite fond of the D:OS engine (even though it stinks that their editor appearently sucks so hard, people could actually do TCs if that weren't the case), but I have my doubts the things that made U5 so adorable for you guys could be successfully replicated in such a different engine.
U7, maybe, if it was possible to change how stuff works on a massive scale, but U5? I dunno.
_____
rezaf

 

[:Flash:]

Here we go again, felipepepe just received 80 brofists for his article and people are already wanting (or trying exisiting) remakes of one of the best game series of all time.

 

[:Flash:]

With these old games hold in high regard, it's usually a combination of the actual gameplay and "side effects" of how they made games, UIs or even how they approached graphics in that day and age (or even just that specific title), or so it seems to me.
But when you play them without fond memories of doing just that years back, the older a game, the higher the chance you won't be able to get into it. Knowing how U7 looks and plays, I have a hard time going back even to U6.

The first time I played Ultima V was in the early 2000s.

Ultima VI is possibly a special case, as this is as game where the new graphics engine combined with the small viewing window and the interface create actual gameplay problems. Ultima V, however, is immensely playable, and graphics-wise it just works in another way. The graphics are still abstract enough that they stimulate the imagination and don't stifle it. Ultima V works more like reading an immensely interactive book for me, than like playing a modern game. That's possibly why I like it so much. Perhaps it is for this reason that I prefer the graphics of the 16-color version of UV to the 256 color patch of UIV.

 

[octavius]

I only played Ultima V, Magic Candle and the Ultima 6 Project during the past 4-5 years, and I enjoyed them all very much, so no rose tinted glasses here.
I played U4 back in the days, but replaying it was not very enjoyable due to the random encounter frequency combined with ultra slow simplistic combat. I tried to play U6 but gave up due to the UI (very small play window and clunky item management), but thankfully the U6P remake delivered. U7 I had to give up trying to play. I guess if you are used to play only modern games, the Dungeon Siege remakes of U5 and U6 will look ugly, but being in "retro mode" I thought U6P looked good.

 

[Melan]

Thanks for the responses guys, even though most of it sounds a bit vague and has that air about it people generally summarize with the term "rose colored glasses".

Oh boy, rose coloured glasses! Haven't heard that one in a while!

They let your kind of people post on the Codex?

 

[Whiran]

AFAIR I tried the U5 remake in the Dungeon Siege engine a few years back, but even that (DS) has aged quite poorly. Early 3D...
For it to really grab you when it needs to, I think you need to feel the familiarity from having faced the same things many years back in a different engine. I was familiar with the places (and some people) from having played other Ultima games, but tramping through these forests, sifting through houses in Britannia, having sometimes interesting, but largely boring conversations with strangers and fighting enemies that were either a cakewalk or would obliterate me almost instantly, all in the aging low-polygon and somewhat quirky UI environment of the DS engine ... I can't say I had much fun. I'm sure the team that created the mod deserves a ton of credit for pulling it all off, but still...

I have yet to play a "remake" that captured the original design, feel, and style.

In my opinion you either play a game as it was or not at all. People who do remakes typically try and "enhance" the original design or some other thing. Sometimes there were technological reasons why certain things were done the way they were (for example, at the time of Ultima IV and V mice were not a common peripheral) and that gets lost in an "update."

If graphics are a must-have for you then Ultima V will probably never appeal to you unless you like the style of the original.

With these old games hold in high regard, it's usually a combination of the actual gameplay and "side effects" of how they made games, UIs or even how they approached graphics in that day and age (or even just that specific title), or so it seems to me.
But when you play them without fond memories of doing just that years back, the older a game, the higher the chance you won't be able to get into it. Knowing how U7 looks and plays, I have a hard time going back even to U6.

You are correct. Classics are classics because of their gameplay and story. The UI at the time was good and worked. On a modern system the UI would not feel intuitive unless one attempted to play without a mouse.

The graphics are dated and yet they retain their charm - IFF you like that style. I happen to like it because I grew up with it.

I think it boils down to this: From what you've written you won't ever enjoy Ultima V since it isn't your style of game. That is totally okay.

 

[procrastinator]

What about those Ultizurk games? Deuce Traveler