I want a modern take on Ultima II. Why doesn't anyone make games like Ultima II anymore?

[Silly Germans]

How about the SNES game Secret of Evermore( or was it Secret of Mana ?) I think that also mixes different timelines and has areas where each one corresponds to a "epoch". I liked it as a kid but that was some 25? years ago. I also doesn't feature the stereotype anime design from nowadays if i recall correctly.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It's got literally everything. Magic! Monsters! Swords! Guns! Sea travel! Time travel! Space travel!

Why doesn't anyone make games like this anymore, where everything is mashed up with everything?

It's too bad Ultima II is so archaic, with really simplistic graphics and gameplay. Goddamn, I'd pay 1000 eurobucks for an RPG with 90s to 00s era graphics and... honestly I don't even care about the RPG subgenre, it can be a Fallout-like, a dungeon crawler, an Elder Scrolls-like, a Baldur's Gate-like, whatever.

Just give me a proper complex RPG with decent graphics with a similar setting and story as Ultima II and I'm happy.

But even back in the 80s this kind of absolute clusterfuck of a setting was rare. Guess there's just not that much interest in it.

JRPGs, though, still do some blend of swords and airships and magitek, and so might be your best bet.

It's because of the game designers inspiration and what's acceptable for the suits.

Back in the 80's up until the early 2000 (for Wizardry 8), the source inspiration was Jzck Vance, Philip Jose Farmer, Van Vogt, Metal Hurlant, ...

Now, it's only TV shows for 95% of the "cRPG" game designers because the new generations are illiterate and can't read so they're inspired by Dark Matter, GoT, Tolkien's movies adaptations for the oldest ones and worse like new star wars or even worse like new star trek.

Clearly, we had source material which showed an immense amount of imagination until it didn't and video games took a nosedive in inspiration and imagination as well.

KotC 2 has psionicists like in Dark Sun though.
So maybe there's hope...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Man, even in the 80s there were far more authors than that one could draw inspiration from. Hats off to Ultima 3 & Fuzzies. I had no idea H. Beam Piper was their origin.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I just want to make sure I understand this. You basically just want someone to do a sci-fi/fantasy kitchen sink game, and whether or not its actually inspired by Ultima 2 is completely irrelevant. Say someone was working on something that might be like that, are there any other bits you'd be interested in seeing in such a game?

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Ultima 2 is one of the more coherent RPGs experiences ever made, since it's just a Time Bandits unofficial game adaptation, which was a wacky movie about a child's fantasies and concerns. Such a game needed the biggest manchild available.

 

[d1r]

I just want to make sure I understand this. You basically just want someone to do a sci-fi/fantasy kitchen sink game, and whether or not its actually inspired by Ultima 2 is completely irrelevant. Say someone was working on something that might be like that, are there any other bits you'd be interested in seeing in such a game?

He just wants to see the Enchantress' feet in 3D.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Go play Wizardry 7.

I haven't gotten around to playing this one yet but this answer sounds correct to me.

 

[JarlFrank]

I just want to make sure I understand this. You basically just want someone to do a sci-fi/fantasy kitchen sink game, and whether or not its actually inspired by Ultima 2 is completely irrelevant. Say someone was working on something that might be like that, are there any other bits you'd be interested in seeing in such a game?

Yes I basically want a kitchen sink clusterfuck setting in an RPG. Swords! Magic! Lasers! Tanks! Spaceships! Elves! Dwarves! Aliens! Guns! ALL OF IT!

 

[Darth Canoli]

Yes I basically want a kitchen sink clusterfuck setting in an RPG. Swords! Magic! Lasers! Tanks! Spaceships! Elves! Dwarves! Aliens! Guns! ALL OF IT!

All of the above but tanks please in a party-based, good turn-based engine with the best encounter design ever made and a great* character creation/dev.

*Wizardry 8 or KotC 2 like.

 

[V_K]

Yes I basically want a kitchen sink clusterfuck setting in an RPG. Swords! Magic! Lasers! Tanks! Spaceships! Elves! Dwarves! Aliens! Guns! ALL OF IT!

Dwarf Run - stays regular fantasy for most of the game until your party is abducted by aliens.
West of Loathing - Wild West, necromancers, demon cows and ruins of ancient alien civilization.
Dark Disciples - also mostly fantasy, but there are (large) quests where you encounter aliens and spaceships. I thin more so in DD1 than DD2, but I don't remember exactly. You can also detonate an alien nuke in one of them, obliterating all life on several maps.
Aeon of Sands - postapocalypsis with magic, people living in cities on giant trees and other madness. Not sure about aliens, haven't played far enough - but there are high-tech ruins and some cyberspace.
Shadowrun Returns - the obvious answer.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Dwarf Run - stays regular fantasy for most of the game until your party is abducted by aliens.
West of Loathing - Wild West, necromancers, demon cows and ruins of ancient alien civilization.
Dark Disciples - also mostly fantasy, but there are (large) quests where you encounter aliens and spaceships. I thin more so in DD1 than DD2, but I don't remember exactly. You can also detonate an alien nuke in one of them, obliterating all life on several maps.
Aeon of Sands - postapocalypsis with magic, people living in cities on giant trees and other madness. Not sure about aliens, haven't played far enough - but there are high-tech ruins and some cyberspace.
Shadowrun Returns - the obvious answer.

He probably asks for good ones, you know...

Dwarf Run
West of Loathing, don't know but i don't like south park to begin with and i'm guessing character dev is retarded too...
Dark Disciples, released in 2004, looks like a showelware from the 50's
Aeon of Sands, RT hipster shit with a 20x20 pixels game windows to mimic old skool koolness
Shadowrun returns ... Do I really have to? Dumbed down combat, character dev, even dumbed down city hubs, mobile garbage

 

[JarlFrank]

Yes I basically want a kitchen sink clusterfuck setting in an RPG. Swords! Magic! Lasers! Tanks! Spaceships! Elves! Dwarves! Aliens! Guns! ALL OF IT!

Dwarf Run - stays regular fantasy for most of the game until your party is abducted by aliens.
West of Loathing - Wild West, necromancers, demon cows and ruins of ancient alien civilization.
Dark Disciples - also mostly fantasy, but there are (large) quests where you encounter aliens and spaceships. I thin more so in DD1 than DD2, but I don't remember exactly. You can also detonate an alien nuke in one of them, obliterating all life on several maps.
Aeon of Sands - postapocalypsis with magic, people living in cities on giant trees and other madness. Not sure about aliens, haven't played far enough - but there are high-tech ruins and some cyberspace.
Shadowrun Returns - the obvious answer.

Played all of them.

They're all pretty limited though. None of them are Ultima or Gold Box style exploration-heavy RPGs.

 

[V_K]

None of them are Ultima or Gold Box style exploration-heavy RPGs.

Wut??! I can get that about Dwarf Run or SSR, but in what world are WoL or DD2 not exploration-heavy?

 

[JarlFrank]

None of them are Ultima or Gold Box style exploration-heavy RPGs.

Wut??! I can get that about Dwarf Run or SSR, but in what world are WoL or DD2 not exploration-heavy?

Oh wait I haven't played WoL yet.

The DD games are exploration heavy but they're still not quite there. 90% of them is pure fantasy, with the mashup elements only coming in later in the game.

 

[Duraframe300]

How about the SNES game Secret of Evermore( or was it Secret of Mana ?) I think that also mixes different timelines and has areas where each one corresponds to a "epoch". I liked it as a kid but that was some 25? years ago. I also doesn't feature the stereotype anime design from nowadays if i recall correctly.

Thats because it wasn't animu. US product.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

There is a cruel lack of Sword & Planet type vidya RPGs.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

There's a cruel lack of anything & planet RPGs. The only thing in the last decade was Mass Effect, and we all know how that turned out in the end.

How about the SNES game Secret of Evermore( or was it Secret of Mana ?)

It was Secret of Evermore. Secret of Mana is straight sword & sorcery.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Exploration heavy? Want crazy shit? Try the Earthbound series.

Honestly, Ultima II seemed like a step down from 1. Oh you had "time" doors that were really little more than timer doorways to another x,y,z coordinate(map). Space was lame as it was just typing in coordinates to find the planets then while rocketing around trying to land on grassland. Nothing special. You couldn't even get better spacecraft. More tech in Ultima I tbh. No enemy spaceships meh. The grinding was 10x worse or more in ultima II than I. I didn't care for some of the bugs like items, hp, stat rollovers either. From AK to II i hated the 0 food (instant death rule). Just bleh. Hp loss would have been fine.

Hi mom. I got home from school early what's for lunch?

Sorry dear, I didn't go to the store and now we're out of food. Oh dear.......

MOM!!! Nooo..... god... I'm hungry....

Honey! Got home from work. Where's lunch? Oh god noooo! I hate this world.

 

[EldarEldrad]

Yes I basically want a kitchen sink clusterfuck setting in an RPG. Swords! Magic! Lasers! Tanks! Spaceships! Elves! Dwarves! Aliens! Guns! ALL OF IT!

While not exactly what you want to see, but Eschalon series have something like this. It's not clusterfuck as early Ultima though, more like subtle as M&M sci-fi elements.

Also, Ultima ][ is a piece of shit for people with 12 years old mentality.

 

[Cael]

Exploration heavy? Want crazy shit? Try the Earthbound series.

Honestly, Ultima II seemed like a step down from 1. Oh you had "time" doors that were really little more than timer doorways to another x,y,z coordinate(map). Space was lame as it was just typing in coordinates to find the planets then while rocketing around trying to land on grassland. Nothing special. You couldn't even get better spacecraft. More tech in Ultima I tbh. No enemy spaceships meh. The grinding was 10x worse or more in ultima II than I. I didn't care for some of the bugs like items, hp, stat rollovers either. From AK to II i hated the 0 food (instant death rule). Just bleh. Hp loss would have been fine.

Hi mom. I got home from school early what's for lunch?

Sorry dear, I didn't go to the store and now we're out of food. Oh dear.......

MOM!!! Nooo..... god... I'm hungry....

Honey! Got home from work. Where's lunch? Oh god noooo! I hate this world.

The whole food thing was a big problem in the early Ultima. Food basically disappeared on you faster than you can say boo, and that is no fun in the slightest.