It also hints at the differences in marketing approaches between consoles and computers at the time. The “friendlier” box art for the NES version in North America was similar to the anime art used in Japan, albeit with Westernized features. Players had to find a balance with their characters, juggling party members on the field so that no one was left too far behind. While it wasn’t a widely used character development mechanic in the genre, it did find further parallels not only in a few other CRPGs but also within console-based tactical RPGs such as Sega’s Shining Force series and many others years later. Monsters could attack in all eight directions which was somewhat strange.Įxperience also didn’t go to the whole party - only to those characters that actually dealt the killing blows. They could only attack vertically or horizontally, though. Combat, however, went from being a simple affair of attacking enemies in the tile-based overworld or mashing attacks in dungeons to a turn-based, tactical model in which the player would be able to move each party member about a top-down, tiled field against their enemies. Dungeons were still in first-person, pseudo-3D, but the wireframe walls and caves were replaced with colored-in walls (even if they could be black & white). The game used the same, overhead tile-based movement that had become a standard for the series and which a number of other CRPGs would also be compared with. Or, you could start off solo and recruit whoever you wanted from the land itself if you so chose, though this didn’t actually seem to work. Now, the “Siege Perilous” has been “widened” to allow a party of four to enter the lands of Sosaria. The first two Ultima games were solo ventures - the player as the “Stranger” would go forth and smite evil all by themselves. Manga was even created around the game.Īs a first for the series, it finally included parties, catching up with what titles such as Sir-Tech’s Wizardry which Garriott also recalls in Addams’ book. It was also the first Ultima to appear on a console and had a number of tweaks worked into it by the time it made it there in ’89 including a new end-game sequence. The Famicom label and box art for Ultima III featured anime art. The sci-fi elements were severely curtailed, the time gates of the last game were now moon gates allowing transport to locales based on phases of the moons (which both had their own names), and the precursors to the Shrines of Virtue would also establish themselves here. Ultima III, released in 1983 for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and the Atari 8-bit PC, set up elements of what would become Sosaria and the Ultima series going forward. That child was Exodus, and it was ready to finish the work its parents began. It seems that Mondain and Minax had a child that no one knew about, one that was far more powerful than its parents had ever been in both wickedness and power. And now, twenty years later, a new evil has returned. Next, his apprentice, Minax, met her end after a pursuit through time. In the first Ultima, the evil wizard, Mondain, was defeated. Box art for the Ultima series had become considerably better and game packaging wasn’t an afterthought - it and what was inside continued to double as complementary passports to the developers’ worlds of wonder. Most players, though, probably thought the box art was awesome and that the bad guy on the cover looked like it could be a tough boss to beat. Naming the main villain after one of the books in the Bible probably didn’t help, either, even though it sounded cool. According to Shay Addams’ “The Official Book of Ultima” from 1990, he writes that in addition to the droves of fan mail Garriott received for his games, he also heard from “fundamental religious extremists” accusing him of “corrupting the youth of America” with one urging him to “burn” the game. The controversial cover art for the third Ultima brought plenty of attention to the game, but also a few headaches for Richard “Lord British” Garriott. I hitched a ride with the Doctor to the UK of 1985 to find this ad in the pages of Zzap!64. All American Adventures (part of the US Gold label) was the UK outfit that distributed this face over there for Origin Systems. The illustration used in this ad was also on the big, boxed copies of the game.

Ultima iii exodus platforms