TV Game

Going to tell my kids that this was Elden Ring (Ultima)

A couple weeks back, I was recovering from my COVID booster shot. That shit left me wracked with pain, exhaustion, and it gave me a cold somehow. As such, I needed to pass the time doing things where I didn’t have to move much, and sitting down watching TV and YouTube can only entertain me for so long. So, how about a retro game? How about an RPG, at that? Should I do more Wizardry? There’s Never Been A Better Time To Play Wizardry! No, no, let’s do something different for once. Wizardry isn’t the only groundbreaking RPG series responsible for influencing literally every game in its genre in the decades since. You know, I’ve played a lot of games in my life, but I have never played an Ultima. So how about I give it a shot?

I spent that week, on and off, playing the original Ultima whenever I either wasn’t passed out or unable to sit still because it felt like my nerve endings were on fire. I admit I didn’t have the highest expectations for Ultima; there’s this fine line I have when it comes to being able to accept medieval fantasy. There’s the cool, dark fantasy of things like Berserk, Japan’s take on Wizardry, and Dark Souls. On the other side of that coin, there’s Renaissance Faire Bull Shit, like post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls. The kind of bull shit where some cringe white guy puts on a ludicrous deep voice and a bad English accent and says something like “Hark! Dost thou wish to partake in a feast of mead and leg of lamb?” Essentially, being a weeb, but for the UK. Ultima always struck me as Renaissance Faire Bull Shit, and is why I avoided it for so long.

At the very least, Ultima 1 manages to avoid a lot of things I do not like about that sort of aesthetic. Instead, it’s actually a pretty charming little adventure. Playing through Ultima, it is extremely easy to see how it was able to influence the creation of games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

Ultima really is the flip side to Wizardry. Ultima is all about running solo, compared to Wizardry’s six-person part. Also, the two games are both extremely playable despite their age. Though, I must say that I am still firmly on Team Wizardry, and would consider that game to be extremely playable and infinitely replayable. But Ultima is still good: you wander around a surprisingly large overworld, take quests from kings, fight monsters in dungeons, and other things that are considered cliche in this day and age. If you have played literally any other RPG in the decades since, you’ll know what to expect out of Ultima if you haven’t experienced it yet. Once you figure out how everything works, you can knock it out in an afternoon.

The thing that really got me to like Ultima is in how creative it is. It doesn’t simply stop with fighting monsters and wizards. No, you fight monsters and wizards, but then you pick up laser guns that you can use in place of swords and bows. You can acquire a flying car that can travel over land and sea. You will eventually get access to a space shuttle (probably the same one Richard Garriott’s dad flew around in), and fly around in out space, shooting down TIE Fighters. There’s time travel. There’s regicide. All these off-the-wall ideas that go beyond “I like Dungeons and Dragons” like a lot of other CRPGs.

Space itself isn’t even an important aspect of Ultima. You simply fly around, shoot down 20 other ships, then land back on Earth. Once that’s done, you never have to fly again. It’s such a superfluous feature, but I love it for that reason. The addition of space travel was nothing more than, “space is cool” and let’s throw it in the game, why the hell not? I can appreciate that. Why are you able to pick up a laser gun and shoot skeletons and giant spiders? Because it’s cool. After all the flying is done, you go back to a castle that doesn’t have Lord British in it, kill the jester and all of the guards (the king too, if you want), and then you rescue the princess that’s in the jail. But if you become a Space Ace, suddenly she thinks that’s so much cooler than your average one-man army, and tells you the location of a time machine. Why is there a time machine? Why wouldn’t there be a time machine?

Ultima has this hyperactive energy of not giving a fuck that I absolutely adore. I like modern games, don’t get me wrong, but a lot of them feel way too “safe.” Everything has to be done a certain way, lest you be branded with the dreaded 7/10 and your company goes bankrupt. Few of these games have this wild energy that something like Ultima does. Ultima itself doesn’t even have that anymore. There’s just something about a couple of dudes throwing all their ideas at an Apple ][ and creating an entire genre from it. I think, more than anything, Ultima’s legacy is that of creativity, and going completely fucking wild in your game design ideas.

Adventures On The Lonely Frontier

Comments