Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

The Good
Ultima V has a less original premise than its predecessor, but it has much deeper and more varied gameplay. Ultima IV was a one of a kind game that was impossible to imitate; Ultima V is a model everyone have been imitating ever since.

With all its greatness, the game world of the previous game can't be compared to what was achieved in Ultima V. The enhancements are so noticeable that it is hard to believe the game was made pretty much at the same time period and with the same technique as its predecessor. Gone are the small towns - in Ultima V every town is a large place with many houses, some of which have several floors, plenty of doors, stairs, and alike. Gone are also the inhabitants of Ultima IV, who were interesting only because they had some valuable information to share with you. Here, the inhabitants start resembling real characters.

The conversations in Ultima V are much more complex and varied than in the previous game.The text parser understands more words, and the replies are much more detailed and personal than the short exchange of greetings and information you had in the previous game (you can even swear in Ultima V; in response, you'll hear: "With a language like that, how did you become an Avatar?").

Ultima V also finally has real objects - not only important, plot-related items like Lord British' artifacts, but all kind of stuff we see every day - chairs, tables, fireplaces, barrels, beds. You think it's not such a big deal to draw a couple of objects; but the point is not the mere presence of those objects, but the possibility to interact with them. And here is where the real revolution comes: everything in Ultima V can be interacted with. You can sit on chairs, push cannons, move barrels, or try taking everything you see.

Another great innovation is the concept of real-time gameplay. In Ultima IV, the world was static, like in most games: nothing happened unless you made something happen. In Ultima V, the world lives its own life regardless of your actions. You can just walk around aimlessly, but the world around you will change. There is a precise time clock in the game, and a real day/night cycle. And it is not just a decoration: it affects the gameplay. You can't buy stuff in stores if they are closed. People have their own schedules, move around the town, go shopping, sit in taverns, and then go to sleep. Sometimes you have to talk to, or follow a certain person at a certain time in order to obtain the information you need.

Just like its predecessor, Ultima V is a completely open, non-linear experience. From the moment you start the game, you can do whatever you like and go wherever you like. There are two worlds to explore in the game - the standard Britannia with its towns, villages, forests, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, islands, and caves, and the sinister Underworld you have to visit in order to retrieve some valuable items and to access the final dungeon. There are new means of transportation - in addition to moongates, horses, and ships you can also sail through shallow waters in a skiff and fly around on a magic carpet that moves twice as quickly as the monsters, flies over rivers, and can take you through a swamp without getting poisoned.

You have to defeat the Shadowlords and bring Lord British back in order to complete the game, but you can decide whether to side with the members of Oppression, who sympathize with Blackthorn, or with the Resistance, who remain true to the rightful ruler of Britannia. There are many more choices to make in this game than in Ultima IV, where there were no real antagonists and where your only worry was your own progress towards avatarhood.

There are just so many things to do in the game and it becomes nearly overwhelming. Ultima V is an extremely challenging game, but it is also absorbing and engrossing like few others. The meticulously detailed world, the vast gameplay possibilities, the incredibly rich interaction, the clever, demanding quests are positively astounding.

The game's story is remarkably mature. Blackthorn's system of "virtues" makes him a much more interesting person than most other RPG villains. He is a philosopher, albeit an evil one. He has his own doctrine, which he imposes on people without hesitations. It is also very interesting how different people react to it; you'll witness some very realistic situations and scenes characteristic for society that exists under a tyrannical regime.

The Bad
This is truly the hardest RPG I have ever played. All the difficult and user-unfriendly stuff that its predecessor had, Ultima V has as well - multiplied by ten.

Once again, you have to visit every place in the huge game and talk to every one of its countless inhabitants in order to obtain vital information. But now the towns are much bigger, the inhabitants more numerous, and the conversations more complex. Finding hidden items is even more difficult here than in the previous game (although the items are visible now), especially because some of the most important and necessary items are located in the Underworld - a living hell on earth.

In addition to that, towns are randomly visited by the Shadowlords, who prevent you from having normal contact with people and can also engage you in a battle that is impossible to win. Very annoying are the guards who roam the towns - a meeting with them is a potential loss of money or imprisonment. The dungeons are even more tricky to navigate than in Ultima IV, and the final dungeon Doom is a veritable nightmare. As if all this weren't enough, some of the game's most important clues are written in runic alphabet, which you must decipher in order to make progress in the game.

Battles also became significantly harder. The battles in Ultima V are way more difficult than they were in the previous game. I don't quite understand the strange decision to reduce your party members' maximum hit points from 800 to measly 240 (you gain only 30 HP per level instead of 100) - it seems the monsters haven't undergone the same change: it takes a much longer time to kill them, and their attacks are much more efficient than they were in Ultima IV. The fight against two dragons, four daemons, and several sand traps in the dungeon Doom was one of the hardest ones in my gaming career. You have to rely a lot on your magic spells, the best of which you get only at high levels, and leveling up is extremely tiresome in Ultima V.

The PC version doesn't have any music! Luckily, there is a patch that adds the charming music from the Commodore version to it.

The Bottom Line
If you can accept the unbelievable difficulty level, you will be rewarded with an outstandingly rich and rewarding RPG experience that was way ahead of its time. Ultima V had a huge influence on RPG development; all later Ultimas were modeled after this one; all great Western fantasy RPGs of our time (like Baldur's Gate or Arcanum) are its descendants. Ultima V is an awe-inspiring timeless classic.

The Good
Ultima V was a Christmas present. Boy am I glad my parents saw me reading the box cover while at the Games and Gadgets.

What I liked best about Ultima V at the time that I was a 13/14 year old playing it, was just how compelling and immersive the plot and gameplay were. I can still remember the worry and fear that I had the first few times I walked into a town occupied by a Shadowlord, or first stepped into Blackthorn's castle. I lived this game. I even dreamt this game.

The second best thing I liked, though it dovetails into the first, is how smart the game was. As a 13/14 year old, I never before heard the words Avatar or Codex or Stygian or Mandrake Root, or mantra. Nor did I ever stop to think about the importance of virtue. This game challenged and enlightened me. I'm grateful for that.

Now, 10-11 years later, what do I like about it? I like the top-down point of view. I like the icon-based combat. An icon-based--wait-for-your-turn-to-attack gameplay has the advantage of building tension as you wait to see whether you will have enough time and luck to manuever your badly wounded party member out of the battle field. Tension/atmospherics--they are part of what made this game so great. The, um, "live action," swordplay of today's games just doesn't do it for me. I don't so much enjoy to fight as I do to think and manage. Ultima V understood that and took advantage of that.

Lastly, I'd like to say that I really wanted to help the people of Brittania. This game was compelling, immersive, smart and taut. But most of all, it was the greatest video game I have ever played.

The Bad
What didn't I like about Ultima V? Ultima VI, Ultima IX and any other RPG I have since played or tried to have played. This game spoiled me. It was my first real RPG experience, and by far it has been my best. Nothing compares.

Graphics? Well, I'd trade in my video cards etc for my C64. The graphics were clean and just fine, thank you. What's more, by not having today's wizardry, the player was allowed to actually imagine the world for himself, to fill in the world's missing pieces with his own imagination. In that regard, the game was allowed to be personal and the player interacted instead of just having all the cliffs and waterfalls etc. laid out for him to see.

Typing in responses? Again, this is not a knock, but a positive. Beyond routinely asking for a character's name and job, you were required to at least put some thought in picking out what were the key words in the conversation that would unlock more information. The game kept you active. It didn't just ask you to select one of three possible responses, then read the character's response, and then repeat the process for the other two original responses.

I loved this game. It's only fault was that it made every other game I have played a disappointment.

The Bottom Line
I would describe Ultima V as an involved RPG that pulls you in because the characters are interesting, the plot is smart and challenging, and the gameplay let's you think. Ultima V is my favorite game of all time. I CAN'T RECOMMEND IT HIGHLY ENOUGH.

The Good
This game is the finest roleplaying game that Origin Systems ever released, period. The story world is both extremely large and well developed and the Uber-plot of the game is interesting and fun to watch unfold. The puzzles are hard without being confusing and the game systems, such as combat and inventory are well designed. This is also one of the last games I remember where it is neccessary to TYPE out your questions to people. The conversation manager is a slightly improved version of Ultima IV's, which requires that you ask the right questions of NPC characters, rather than getting a series of menu selections. Overall this game is a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone.

The Bad
The graphics are a bit dated looking these days which can be distracting, but other than that I have nothing bad to say about this game.

The Bottom Line
The "Ultimate" computer role playing game.

The Good
The storyline is spectacular....and it immediately pulls you in. Also, after playing Ultima IV for months the new graphic interface in Ultima V is a nice addition. This game has a great storyline, characters and was really a step up from the revolutionary Ultima IV.....you need to play this game if your an RPG fan, but make sure you take into account the dated graphics etc. since this is an old game.

The Bad
Not much but one thing that was a bit annoying for me was the fact that almost every sign, street sign or scroll was written in the runic alphabet....very annoying since you have to pull out your rune converter sheet to decipher it.

The Bottom Line
Fantastic and a great sequel to Ultima IV, it has a great theme and storyline. You basically play the part of the newly attained Avatar (you), together with some familiar companions on a quest to.....well just play for yourself the plots and sublots of the game are the best things to unravel on your own........

The Good
this game is sooooo detailed. I liked the way you could type random things into communicate with other characters and sometimes you'd hit gold. I loved the hidden stuff - I'm that sort of person - in any rpg I head straight into the undergrowth looking for stuff and this game has plenty of non-plot related goings on for people who like that. did anyone else shiver when they found the jesters body in the cellars of lord british's castle - I still never found out what was going on... before I managed to get a copy on my pc I kept my atari st alive for the sole purpose of revisiting this game occasionally. I still haven't finished it.

The Bad
can't think of much - in retrospect the graphics are a tad clunky but it is old...

The Bottom Line
a many layered object that improves the more layers you investigate...

The Good
Ultima V is in my opinion the absolute pinnacle of Ultima. The system that it designed, being the tile-based system, reached perfection in this game(no, didn't think 6 was perfect). And in my opinion, the graphics still stand out as being good by today's standards - solid, not dated, and they created a motif that is still hard to bash. Everything that began in Ultima IV was made better in Ultima V, and it got me hooked. Of course no one will ever believe you when you admit these things, but just try it.... and you might just agree.

The Bad
Nothing. Absolutely nothing bugged me about this game. I have always thought, and still think, it's a perfect roleplaying game.

The Bottom Line
It's the most quintessential of the Ultima series, and shows you everything that made the Ultima worlds so detailed and made the game design groundbreaking. And the graphics are still bearable, even today. Perhaps it's not an immersive enough experience for people brought up on the 3D revolution, but for those of us who began before that time, this is a classic roleplaying game. Absolutely my favourite, and still the best of the Ultimas.

The Good
Storyline, total non-linear playability, music (sadly, not on the PC distribution), characters, and graphics (slightly more detailed than the Ultima IV tiles, but much better looking overall).

The Bad
Again, the lack of music on the PC version. Go get an Apple or Commodore emulator and play this game there to hear the great tunes!

The Bottom Line
Absolutely one of the finest games of all time. I even made a website for it!

The Good
Ultima V was the absolute best of the Ultima series. With a detailed storyline and great graphics (for the time), you actually felt immersed in the story. You would walk from town to town and encounter a land of people under a strange shadow of darkness. Although Ultima IV introduced the concept for vitures, Ultima V made you understand why they were necessary.

The Bad
Unfortunately, as with most games, the graphics do not age well. The game is great for nostaligic old-timers but new gamers may find it bland.

The Bottom Line
Basically, this game was the finest RPG I've ever played. Others have been good, but this one tops my list.

The Good
This could very well be my all-time favorite RPG.

Warning, author is biased and probably nuts

Ultima IV was supposed to have been the last in the Ultima series (never fear, if it makes money, they'll keep doing it, that is, until they get so old that they can't walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone act--admittedly, they never could do that when young either--...what?!...oh, sorry, I was on a Star Trek trip).

Back to the normal programming

So after playing Ultima IV, which has a great plot, I thought, "This is it. This is the end of the world. It can't get any better than this. There is nothing better to look forward to in my generation anymore." Then, BAM!!! Lord British dishes out Ultima V like the good bro he his and we're off to la-la-land (i.e. Britannica) again.

As good as the Final Fantasy series is, I still like Ultima IV and V better. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's the icon based combat system, which I like better than the Final Fantasy combat system. Maybe because Ultima was the first to weave an interesting plot into an RPG (IV's plot is better than V). Or maybe it was because Ultima was the first RPG where you recruited other characters in the world to join your adventuring team. Except for the combat system, a good RPG game today has all the elements that Ultima V had. So in that sense, Ultima V is probably past it's prime. But when it first came out, it was so far above every other game in its genre that Jack couldn't even get up there with his bean stalk.

The Bad
Now that I've pumped it up so much, you will hate it when you go play it yourself. Oh, well. No sense clinging on to the past when the future is beckoning. Time to do that Final Fantasy thing one last "final" time!

The Bottom Line
Ultima V was the climax of the whole series (now up to 9). Play Ultima IV first for the plot. Then play V and savor it. If you can't make yourself stop, go ahead and play VI. But from VI to VII is a huge cliff drop. Don't go there, and don't come crying to me if you do!