Part 11: In which we almost break a side quest, visit a pirate island with no pirates, and the Guardian becomes a needy ex-girlfriend
HOLY SHIT TWO UPDATES IN ONE WEEK?! WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!?!?
I really spoil the fuck out of you guys.
Time to venture forth to Terfin, land of the
Daemons Gargoyles.
Draxinusom, Lord of the Gargoyles, randomly tells us about a magic ring lost in a dungeon that I'm sure will be
part of a quest later entirely irrelevant. He is also, perhaps, the only NPC I don't have the option to ask about the Fellowship, for whatever reason.
Oh, and see that switch and the doorway near the bookcase?
The switch moved the bookcase to reveal a hidden door, opening up the back half of the building. A fun idea - too bad there is
absolutely nothing interesting in there.
This is supposed to be a shrine, apparently:
And yes, the fire
does hurt you if you walk into it. Realism!
It just occured to me as I explored Terfin, and I know I mentioned it a long time ago, but now that I've seen this much of the game, it bares repeating - pretty much
every single building in the game has a little mini-dungeon as a basement. It's like the designers thought their action RPG didn't have enough combat and their brilliant solution was "PUT REPETITIVE POINTLESS DUNGEONS EVERYWHERE". What other game would possibly consider that a viable option?
Ah, right. Game of the
century!
The local Fellowship head lets me know where Eliza
beth and Abraham have left for next...
...and that they like, totally aren't behind any plans to blow anything up in town. Like that shrine I burned myself on earlier.
I'm sure this Fellowship-loving supply-store owner is in no way hiding something incriminating in his magically-locked basement, either.
Great success!!
Runeb, the fellow mentioned in the letter, is the assistant to the local Fellowship head.
He attacks me when I show him the note.
That...really seems to be it for this quest, if you can even call it a quest. I know it seems like I must've missed something like...you know, the
start of it...but I swear, this is all there is to it. I'm not even sure I would have realized there
was a quest, until I stumbled across that note. It's basically the cliff-notes version of the PC quest, which...I guess is an appropriate metaphor for the game, really.
After finishing the quest, I ran across the guy who was apparently supposed to
start it. I told him what I'd found and he gave me a tip about magic armor in the desert near Vesper.
Since I can magically teleport between docks on a whim, I may as well go looking for it before I just...forget.
You know, for all my bitching about the "magic boat", it sure does make this LP easier. As does the ridiculous "Again" dialog option that every single NPC in the game has.
Back in the desert. It can't take
that long to explore, considering how small all the areas in this game are.
This is where a moongate might appear, in a
real Ultima game.
In this pile of bones and cactii...
...I find this:
Now, I'm not really sure what flame armor
is, but I know it's differently-colored platemail, which in action-RPG land means it must be
fucking awesome.
Alright, enough screwing around: off to Fellowship Island.
And here we are.
Oh, see that pile of blackrock by the dock? Yeah, that was dropped by a rat who randomly spawned and attacked me. This game rules.
The fellow wandering around the docks tells us that Eliza
beth and Abraham have moved on to Buccaneer's Den.
Buccaneer's Den: home to pirates. Pirates like HOOK perhaps?!? What a shocking and unexpected connection.
The building has a two-level basement filled with the usual assortment of creatures.
It is worth noting that skeletons are pretty much the most annoying creatures to fight, because every time one dies, they drop a "bone" weapon. You can't sell the "bone" weapons, and you automatically pick them up when you walk over them. And skeletons usually attack in groups of 2-4. So, you have to constantly micro-manage your limited inventory space to keep from getting swamped by these worthless items.
Awesome. Fuck, this shit makes me miss
individually feeding my party members in the PC version.
There's also blackrock everywhere. There's blackrock pretty much anywhere the Fellowship is, actually. It's almost as though the creators were trying to imply some sort of connection between the Fellowship and blackrock.
Wait, what's the name of this game again?
I also find an entrance to another dungeon:
But I'm ignoring it for now, because damnit, I'm on a
mission.
To Buccaneer's Den!
PIRATES WOO!!
Britannia's very own Tortuga awaits!
...yeah, it looks just like every other fucking city in the game.
Sigh.
There are also trolls on the island...
...which begs the question "How the fuck did trolls get to an island with no connection to the mainland?"...which then begs the
better question "Why have I not learned to stop expecting logic from this abomination?"
A little exploration reveals the:
Gambling! Sweet! All good roleplaying games have in-depth gambling minigames.
Unfortunately, the door is locked and I can't open it. Downstairs a guard informs me:
As you might imagine, he will never in fact "deal with thee", but you also can't get past him. You can, however, select "Again" over and over and over until, presumably, one or both of them die of starvation.
After
leaving the building, the Grand Muppet shows up to offer some great advice.
Of course, unlike the PC version, there's no option to actually tell anyone inside that. So it's like the developer just had a checklist of items from the PC version they had to include, regardless of whether or not it had
any relevance to the version of the game the player was actually playing. It's the last-last-last gen version of seeing X-Box controller buttons in PC gaming menus, I guess.
This is the pirate tavern, the Jolly Roger.
Notice the distinct lack of pirates. Or employees. Or anything that would differentiate it from the other dozen taverns in the game.
In fact, the only other NPC I can find in all of Buccaneer's Den is the Fellowship branch head. That's right: there are no dragons in the dungeon of dragons, and no pirates in the city of pirates. I'm honestly surprised the city of Gargoyles had fucking gargoyles and they didn't just cut the two gargoyle sprites out of the game entirely in order to save space on the catridge or some shit.
Ah. So when King Muppet said "Go inside. Tell them you are the Avatar.", he actually meant the building that was a bit to the north of me, not the one I was actually standing in front of. Logically.
As the Guardian suggested, we tell him our true identity!
No, not that one.
Yeah, that's the one.
Wow, that accomplished a lot. I like how he's also apparently the only person in Britannia who not only doesn't
know I am the Avatar instantly, but also
doubts our identity. The whole "doubting you are the Avatar" thing is an entire sub-story in the PC version of Ultima VII, but apparently for this version, they decided one dude in one town would cut it. Nice.
I ask about Eliza
beth and Abraham...
...finally! Though, as one would expect, they are in the one building I can't actually explore yet.
Fortunately, this dude will sell me a key...
...because that's what the Fellowship does now, apparently.
Inside the House of Games, which unsurprisingly, looks like every other dungeon/basement/tavern/spaceship in the game, I am again granted a vision.
A little bit more exploration and he shows up again:
Angry muppet is angry.
I enter this room:
And am greeted with:
Wow, the Guardian barely shows up for half of the game, and now suddenly I'm getting spammed with his messages every 5 feet.
I'm not even sure why he was taunting me. The chests were empty, and I was attacked my two mongbats who randomly spawned, but that's it.
Worst trap ever.
And again...
WOULD YOU KINDLY SHUT THE FUCK UP. At this point I feel it's worth mentioning that the same "overworld" music that plays over 90% of the game is playing this entire time, and kind of ruins any sort of "menacing" mood the creators were going for.
Another trap:
Another taunt:
And then I realize it. They actually turned the
House of Games into a fucking DUNGEON MAZE.
Yes, that's right. This place:
Is now a fucking
dungeon. Awesome.
Now, in the original game, there
is a hidden passage
connecting the House of Games to a cave hidden in the mountains. But the
House itself is not a dungeon.
Also: so far the 'theme' of this little maze seems to be that all the boxes in the place are empty, so I guess I'm supposed to try and find one that's not? I am not sure
why I'm doing this, though, since I thought I was looking for
Elizabeth and Abraham and I'm pretty sure they can't
fit inside a fucking box.
We finally hit a dead end, so back to the beginning to try the other direction.
I find a couple of boxes that have gold in them and get...
...WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Where are Eliza
beth and Abraham? Where is
anyone else? Is this how they decided to implement the House of Games? No time left for gambling mini-games, so here's a dungeon where some rooms have gold and some rooms have traps!
So I continue to follow the chests that have gold in them, until I eventually reach an exit and get one final message.
I'm "truly an Avatar"? Really? Because I navigated a "maze" that took all of 5 minutes? Wow, I never knew being an Avatar was so easy - or had so much to do with basic navigation skills!
Just beyond the door:
Wow. So the Guardian is the personification of all of the Avatar's ex-girlfriends, apparently.
Looks like the "listen to the Guardian" theme of this dungeon is still going strong:
So again I follow the Guardian's advice, only to be confronted with this:
And this:
...this is the worst casino ever.
So I go the other way, and am at this point seriously being interrupted every five steps by Captain Muppet telling me I'm going the wrong way. I'm not exaggerating, either. I have to close out of his taunts like a dozen times. It's almost the most annoying thing I've done so far in this game, and as you know, that says a lot.
This exit leads to:
The entrance!
So...yeah. That was the House of games. No Eliza
beth. No Abraham. Just a whole lot of annoyance, and a bit of gold. What the fuck? Regardless, I guess that's the end of the Eliza
beth and Abraham quest, for now.
Next time, we follow our only other lead: the wisps and the emps in Yew.
Kill me.