Game 3: Ultima: Exodus (NES) - Blundering Through

"We received word that Lord British requires help in the land of Sosaria. When we arrive, we're greeted by Lord British himself. Making note that we are the only ones to head his call, he tells us that a great devil, Exodus, will soon awaken. Should that occur, darkness would fall across all the land, destroying the world. Our task, to seal away this dreadful creature before it brings about this ruin. With no other clues to go on, we resolve to exploring the land with rumors of a fiery island being home to Exodus."

I'm excited about this game. The Ultima series is one that I never really got into until Ultima VII (in fact it was only that and the Underworld games I played). I remember the Guardian scaring me at the beginning, and hoping I'd never have to run into him. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of history by ignoring these games for so long; I'm glad to finally get around to them. Maybe I'm missing out on some things by not playing them on PC, but this is better than nothing right?

So, I created my characters rather than using any of the pre-made ones. Chosen by poll, I have a Human Ranger (Chet), an Elf Thief (Trick), a Bobit Cleric (AmyK), and a Fuzzy Wizard (CanaG). I tried to maximize my stats somewhat, and ignored the non-class specific ones like Int and Wis for Trick, Wis for CanaG, and Int for AmyK. 

*Plop*

We begin outside, a castle and a town not far off. This is Lord British's Castle, and the city is dubbed The Royal City. Visiting the castle seems like a good place to start. It houses an inn that acts as a save point, a doctor to cure what ails me (and to take my blood), and Lord British who is only interested in leveling me up. Searching the outskirts, I saw a boat floating in the water on the opposite shore. Possibly one of the locked doors would allow me access. (Thinking on it now, I only assumed they were locked, I wonder if I could just open them.)

After exploring the castle, I took stock of my equipment and found it substandard, so on to the town I went. My reasoning led me to purchase a sling for my wizard, and maces for the rest. I found that the sling I bought can't be used by my wizard or cleric. (I'll give the game credit though; it did try to warn me, but I pressed the button too quickly to heed it.) I passed the extra daggers to CanaG for extra ranged weapons. I found the armory, the weaponry, and grocery stores, but NPCs tell me there are four stores. Ignoring that for now, I stocked up on food as best I could, and prepared to fight enemies in the wild.

Looks like you're the only ones, guess you get the job

Battles are a lot of fun, and I think I misspoke in a comment regarding the first strategy RPG being Shining Force. Each enemy killed gives experience to the character that killed it, and after battle a treasure chest is left. However, most of these are trapped. It's possible to get straight damage to one or all members, have someone catch a cold (not really sure what this does), or set off a poison trap that effects everyone.

Traps are best avoided by opening chests with a dexterous character, like a Thief. Lucky for me I have one, but I still set off the occasional trap. Poison slowly drains HP, but that's not the worst part; paying to cure everyone that's the real biter. Cure poison costs 100 gold per character, chests range from 60 - 80 gold, and I need to pay for food too. Saving up is going to take a while. An interesting option does exist for the doctor; each character can give blood and get 30 gold. Giving blood means losing 100 HP, but with MP regenerating quickly it's a good deal. It certainly keeps my cleric busy constantly healing. When I do need to grind, I find it best to fight a bunch of enemies, before opening any chests. That way poison traps only affect my party once; I'm also guaranteed to have the gold to afford curing.

Cleaning up my treasure droppings. Why yes, I did get poisoned again...

After a number of fights, my stocks of food dwindled, and I noticed an issue: only Trick had gold. Being the only one opening chests, he'd need to buy food for everyone, but there's no obvious option for that. Each character buys food only for themselves. Consulting the manual reveals options to evenly disperse food and transfer gold between characters. So, I pull up the menu, and nothing. I push left and right in the menu, and nothing. Start button, nothing; select button, ah finally. (One good thing about the NES, it only has so many buttons to try.) During battles the menu is even more obtuse. There's no undo button, and no way to move the character after it's initiated. One wrong button press means skipping a character's turn.

One Undead spell, at level 1 can take out 8 skeletons... over powered much?

Learning curve aside, I've tried to explore. Yet I can't seem to stray too far from the first town and Lord British. The first time I did, Trick and AmyK died because I blindly walked into damage inducing terrain. In my defense I was walking through the forest, and could only see one tile ahead. No problem I thought, "I'll go resurrect AmyK, and grind up some money to get Trick back... what's that? Oh, AmyK just turned to ashes. Let me go explore that blue barrier looking thing next to the doctor and... okay now the whole party is dead." Strangely, CanaG gets magically revived at Lord British. This isn't very helpful though, as I'm still in a position that requires me to restart. While the thought did cross my mind of trying to continue on, I brushed it aside as an undue burden. I hadn't saved too long ago, so it wasn't a big loss.

The change in sound from *crunch*crunch* to *thud*thud* should have been a dead give away

Overall, nothing's been too detrimental (except for the whole party death thing); I've gained some confidence now, and some levels. Leveling gives a character more hit points. Chet has been raking up the experience with his Undead spell, wiping out most groups of ghouls and skeletons single-handedly. The sling was handed to Trick rather early, as I found ranged weapons are best. This was quickly upgraded to a blowgun, and some leather armor for him and Chet as well. Chet also saved up enough for a sword. As soon as Chet reached level 3, I noticed stronger enemies started appearing. I remember there being a way to increase stats later, and with stronger enemies lurking around I'm definitely looking forward to that. Next trip out I'll better prepare by reviewing the manual a second time. My plan is to explore all I can of the over-world. I hope to find some more towns, and maybe my first dungeon. I actually have some clues, but no way of knowing how to follow up on them.

Are you my ship?