The entire main questline is skippable by simply using the orb of the moons to warp directly to the gargoyle world. Thus making the goal of the game: Get moonstones (via runes), Make two lenses, Get Cube, Make Balloon, do gargoyle dungeons, win.
That is just the coolest thing, imo. It's not like the cube only "triggers" into existence when a gargoyle mentions it or something - the entire progression is built around the player learning this world (and not around the world changing and warping around the player).
Of note is that Seggallion comes from a land that belongs to a different game: Knights of Legend, a cancelled franchise from Origin that got cancelled after only 1 episode (and had some interesting mechanics such as custom spell creation).
2:20 "he's well off in his apartment'. I recently remodeled all this for my ultima vi fan recreation project #AgeOfSingularity, and when I did the video about the intro I started researching the likely exact models of record player, audio mixer, etc. that he has. and yes, he's doing decently money-wise! this is some high end gear on his tv console. even just having a cd player system like that in the late 80s, meant he was doing pretty decently.
Dang, these are some great videos. Some of the best Ultima videos on the site, period. YT just now recommended them to me, and I see unfortunately no new videos for a year. Hope this guy didn't quit.
Needed a video to put on in the background while I did work so I came here and HOLY SHIT your channel has grown a lot since I last stoped by, keep up the great work man
Great to see you again! And thanks :D I sort of had to slow down (I mean... even more than usual) because of some real life problems, but I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't make me happy to see the channel grow. The idea of making the U7 video keeps me going through the dark times :)
It’s been 10 months, I’m ready for my next dose of Ultima. Edit: P.S. thank you for making all these videos, found your channel while looking for old video game retrospectives and I’m loving them all! Ultima always held a special place in my heart since I was too young to experience them first hand (I had to play the dirty NES and SNES ports when they came out) but it’s always mystified and excites me to hear about them. They’ve done so much for gaming in general, it’s always wonderful to see the original DNA of so many features we enjoy in modern gaming. I also really love how you keep it based with Seal being the more cynical/ realistic side of things. You just do a great job of going over the little details and philosophy of game design, A++ stuff! Keep up the good work bud!
It warms my heart to read a comment like this. From the bottom of it: Thank You! It truly means the world to me. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the next video is... not even remotely ready. There is some real life stuff (I mean, more than usual) that demands all of my time, including the free type. It feels quite terrible, not going to lie, for there's, pretty much, nothing I enjoy doing more than making those videos. So the only reassuring thing I can say is that I am - at a snails pace - working on it whenever I can (and I have no intention of stopping). I hold the hope of one day being able to dedicate even more time to this channel than I could back in 2010-s, but this is not that time.
And thank you for watching! I do feel that I'll get to those and other side Ultimas eventually. Covering the entirety of the Ultima series has, essentially, became a quest of mine :)
Check out MrEdders123's channel. His style is more dry and analytical than Georg's IMO (who is much more entertaining), but he just did a 2-hour long analysis video of The Savage Empire, including analysis of the literary genre that inspired that game and the meaning it holds today. His other videos are great as well!
Thanks for the tip, I'm following Mr Edders and his savage empire video was very interesting to watch for me as an Eastern European. I agree that despite some similarities (the video is long and the emphasis is on rather obscura games), the authors have a very different approach to writing scripts. George is very good at deconstructing a work that allows you to look at your favorite game from a new perspective. Mr. Edders, on the other hand, rather catalogs and preserves old half-forgotten games and the discourse around them at the time of release and now.@@robinmattheussen2395
Thanks for another enjoyable review. Your distinctive mix of informative in-depth description, well-analyzed personal impression, and subtle humor was worth time spent every time so far. That seal truly turns into the seal of quality.
Oh man... I am bursting with feelings right now. You've been subscribed for 8 years now! Have you commented before? When youtube switched the profile names from original you may have changed. 8 years... this has been a journey, hasn't it? :_)
Dude... I clicked on the channel and I realized who you were, sorry (^_^') I knew this would happen because of the "name change" that youtube did a while back. Needless to say, it's great to see you :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Yes, it has been quite the journey :D It always makes me happy to see you still making videos. I check your channel every now and then, because I am on youtube too infrequently to catch all the things I want to see in the timeline ^^ I wish I would still get arount to making videos... but life kind of got in the way... though I haven't given hope up entirely ;) Anyway, keep at it. Your videos are phenomenal and with ever increasing quality.
Thank you so much! I know too well about life getting in the way... I mean it's almost 2 years since my last video, even though I'm putting as much time as I can allocate. It would be awesome to see you make some new videos! I still have you in my featured channels on the homepage, in the category great channels ^_^
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews That's great to hear! As I said: I haven't given up hope yet ;D I have a few very hecktic month coming up at the end of the year... but maybe after that :)
Since the video had 69 comments at the time I am writing this I thought maybe I should not but I had to say: Excellent review as always! Love your videos man! Looking forward to the next one!
Never having played this nobles elders games, but couting too many hours of my youth on Morrowind, Fallout, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Gothic, etc. this Ultima review serie is a great joy.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews but you, sir, have the game time, erudition and incisive mind to convey me what it would have been to discover Ultima in its time. Thanks you !
I love Ultima 6. I remember it being on a dual game CD with Wing Commander back in the 90s. I really should go back and play it again. I bought it from GOG, and I haven't bothered to finish it. I really enjoy the soundtrack, and the Zebra Centaur poster is peak late 80s, which is awesome.
Wing Commander is such a cool game - came out the same year as U6, coincidentally, and under the same company (which explains them being on the same disk, I guess). But yeah, I low-key love that poster. That whole opening sequence was freaking awesome, imo.
I played these games as a kid in the 80's and 90's. I think something that often gets forgotten is that we didn't have the benefit of decades of gaming experience, the internet, or TH-cam to draw on. A lot of things that seem obvious to an experienced gamer in the 2020's wasn't so obvious to 9 - 12 yr olds playing these games for the first time, when our parents weren't screaming at us to do our homework. I am learning things about these games I never knew watching these videos, and they are some of my most beloved games. Still, it's awesome to see so much interest in them after nearly thirty years! Ultima was the best!
It's definitely true about the childhood gaming experience. There are games, which seemed so huge and mysterious to my childhood self, that nowadays I can finish in a single weekend once I recall one of them and decide to give it a go. And thank you! It's an honor to hear that from someone who grew up with those games. Ultima is, absolutely, the best! :D
I can see why. One of the reasons I linger on it in the video is because I just liked it a lot :) There's something striking about Avatar's framing in front of this blazing TV accompanied by such an unusual soundtrack
Great video, and very interesting analysis of the game dynamycs of this great game. Ultima VI has a special place in my heart, being the second Ultima I played (the first being Ultima VIII). I personally prefer it over his younger sibiling Ultima VII, which is however a good game. Comparing the two, I think that Ultima VI combat and dialog systems are far superior to the ones in Ultima VII. Combat in Ultima VI is very fun, while in Ultima VII is a complete chaos. I also love very much the dialog system of Ultima VI, and I think is one of the more immersive ever. Ultima VII dialog system is on the other hand so cold... but, on the other hand, doesn't allow you to skip entire plot points just because you already know the right word to use! :) So, in a certain way, it's an improvement. One ending note: There's an excellent open source game engine, called "Nuvie" that allows to play Ultima 6 and his World of Ultima "spin-off" bypassing their original limitations, both in therm of visible area (making it waaaay bigger) and inventory management (making it more modern, like U7, with drag and drop). It massively improve the game experience, and I higly suggest it to anyone who wants to play these games today. Here's a screenshot I took of Ultima VI running on Nuvie: i.imgur.com/rKZxPN5.png I assure you that playing the game with a so wide view area makes it impossible to go back to the original tiny window :)
Thank you! And thanks for mentioning Nuvie! The low visibility is one of the biggest annoyances of U6, so that alone makes Nuvie seem extremely appealing (I believe you 100% on never wanting to come back :D), even without taking into account other stuff.
Me and a buddy of mine are really hyped whenever you bring out a new video. Can't wait for the next Ultima games from you. Do you ever plan on doing Gothic as you reference it quite often? Would love your take on it.
Thank you both! I highly appreciate that :) I've long had this crazy idea of doing a marathon/retrospective on basically the whole Gothic/Piranha Bites saga (meaning all Gothic, Risen and Elex games). Let's just say, I'd really love to do it one day!
Can't wait to see the black gate video first. Black gate is one of my all time favorite rpgs and has so much depth and interact ability for 1992 its insane nothing else's is like it untill ultima online. I'd also love to see a baldursgate or planescaoe video as these two infinity engine games are my favorite rpgs hands down.
Yeah, the interactivity of U7 is staggering (slowly, but surely this video is being made). I'd love to, one day, cover those two on my channel. They are fantastic :)
This game came with about 6 3.5 inch floppy disks. Some different files were corrupted so I had to return the game 3 times to piece together a proper installation. Enjoyed the game, though.
Damn, dude. You're the first to comment about a video of mine being good for napping! It's, like, a sign of a llegit youtube channel. Now if I can get to a place when my videos would be good for a full-fledged sleep, I will feel like I'd truly made it :D Thank you, man! Means a lot!
Thank you for both the sub and the kind words! Ultima 7 sure is coming - the next video will cover both it and the Serpent Isle :) It will still take some time to finish it, but I'm making progress ^_^
Great to see the Ultima series continue! Great job Georg. Looking forward to Ultima VII since that was my first Ultima (and I still have the black box with the cloth map).
Great to see you too! And thank you ^_^ I'm looking forward to it too, and hey - that's awesome that you still have the actual map! I typically use a tablet to look at the map while playing those games.
IT was good watching this. Thanks for looking in depth at this extremely playable game. Spent weeks, months perhaps engrossed in this game when I was a kid. Classico!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews The ONLY things I remembered about UVIV was the basic graphics, the clothmap æ... Oh AND that IT was up there with Elite in the pure playability.. I was just taken aback by you video, because I did not remember anything about the character creation questions and The philosophical backbone its built around. Even as these are topics I have relished delving into over the decades hence... Perhaps Lord Britain has some part in that o n a subconcious level? Thanks 🙏
I was somewhat taken aback myself - you don't see a profound 80s game everyday, after all ^_^ And yeah, those game very well might have played a hand in shaping your growing interest in philosophy. I know I've played/watched/read some stuff as a kid that only now I can see the subtext of, and yeah, without experiencing them back in the day, I'd probably not be into this "deeper meaning" shenanigans :D
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Hehe, you and your heckling friends have refreshingly nonstupid vanter. Love to see sigma of intelligente when doing these kinds of deepdives. The Bards Tale and Phantasie series and later Dungeon Master too opened up some undisvovered alleys of our minds in their own ways.
Finally here! I hope seal can forgive my late arrival. This game broke my love of Ultima. I got it on the C64 and it was the first game I ever pre-ordered, though I'm not sure I understood I was preordering it. Parts of the game weren't finished being coded, so you had to read the clue book they included with the C64 version, and the errata for the cluebook on all the things that didn't work in the clue book for the C64 version. That horrible port aside, other things drove me nuts. The flat world, the weird new takes on the virtues (stealing from someone with the spell solves a quest), the ending's forced solution. It just felt like a cardboard front of the Ultima series. The dark tone of Ultima V was replaced with this colorful story book version. The scaling of towns on the overworld map made the whole thing feel smaller and the portraits made it feel cartoonish. Juxtaposed with a story about racism and genocide it feels completely disconnected from the vibe it was trying to tell. Probably how you felt about the music of Ultima V vs the story, is how I felt about the graphics of this game.
Damn, that's harsh :D But I can see where you're coming from. My personal gripe with the game was the inability to complete several quests due to them being left unfinished, like the Skara Brae ghost mystery. I mean, I'd enjoyed the game despite its flaws, but the flaws are definitely there. In any case, I think we can all agree that this one isn't as strong as U4 or U5
Yeah I agree the tone in U6 just feels lost. I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to feel most of the time, as most of the people seem to not even care about the gargoyle invasion or the "war" that's supposedly going on. With U5 you felt Blackthorn's influence everywhere, the problem you were solving felt very real and oppressive. This is also true in U7 with the Fellowship/Guardian, but with U6, it's like the common folk are oblivious to what's happening and this whole thing is a covert action by Lord British. All 8 shrines have been taken by hostile forces, and the villagers... don't really care at all. Isn't this supposed to be the central religion in Brittania? Wouldn't they care that their holy sites have been taken by invading "demons"? Does anyone actually go meditate at the shrines other than the avatar? Another big gripe is the U6 game engine. It felt like you never saw enough of the world, as if the viewport was tiny, and there was way too much micromanagement required with all the items. It took all the tedious looting problem of U5 and then added individual inventories and encumbrance, so it created something many time more annoying. Often enemies would drop this big pile of loot, with the stuff you wanted on the bottom, and there was no way to just take the stuff on the bottom, you had to meticulously move each and every item on top. And you couldn't just mindlessly take it all like you could in U5, because now you'd hit the carrying limit.
Just finished Majuular and now I want to see your opinion of Ultima 6. You two have very interesting perspectives. Thank you for commenting on Majuular's video so that I knew you also made videos. You didn't do it in a advertisement way, you were mentioning your interest of his take on the same game you reviewed and I respect that. You praised him while humbling yourself (almost like the virtues ) ;)
Thank you :D Majuular is one of my favorite content creators, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him do an Ultima thing. U4 is my favorite one, so I was kind of overcome with emotion at seeing it get so much attention and from a youtuber that can do it justice. It all... kind of rekindles my faith in humanity a little (^_^')
@GeorgGreat_GameReviews U4 was definitely ahead of its time, and I'm surprised at how it didn't technically have a BBEG. Enlightenment as the goal is so unique that I'm not sure if there's another game like it. I hope you still upload videos, but if you don't, I'll still be a fan and slowly watch your older videos.
Yeah, I'm slowly but surely working my way through the Ultima 7 video. The real life shenanigans take up most of my day, but there's absolutely no way I'm stopping making those videos any time soon. They mean too much to me. But yeah, my upload schedule is non-existent -_-
This video gave me new appreciation for Ultima 6's writing. I used to find it kind of juvenile and unfunny, but it's smarter than I gave it credit for.
It is kind of juvenile, though, I'd have to admit. Deceptively simple, I guess you might call it. But hey, thank you for watching! Hope it lived up to the expectations :)
@@juliedunken1150 Yeah, I guess it's all a matter of perspective, really. One thing's for sure is that this game isn't afraid of having a little fun with its dialogues :) I mean, those humble magincians are quite something!
Great review of a great game. FYI you only have to type the first 3-4 characters of the keyword highlighted in red in the dialogue, not the whole word.
Since this video dropped, I've been hanging on to the edge of my seat, knowing that the next one is finally going to be the BIG one (Ultima 7)... and Boom, welcome to the longest upload hiatus in the series 😂 I really hope you're doing okay and haven't abandoned the channel, man 😅
Trust me, your frustration is mirrored by mine :( If it was up to me, I'd have already finished the video by now, but stuff came up in my life, which leaves close to no free time (I hope, for the time being). It's nowhere near ready, but I'm still trying to work, at a snails pace, on the next video. P.S. Thank you for showing such keen interest in the series :) It means a lot! ^_^
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Oh hey, so you ARE still kicking 😄 Absolutely understandable, anything that needs to be taken care of IRL should take priority over the channel. However, I hope you still manage to keep in touch with what you're doing here (no doubt you will because you obviously have a great time creating these reviews and it shows 😄). I know there's a lot of unseen work behind every video, but there's also a lot of people who appreciate that! Take care, stay as you are and see you in the next video! 👍
24:00 this is something I think about a lot, and i think the solution is "parallel rewards." like, you can finish the main quest without getting all the map pieces, BUT if you do get all the pieces and talk to the guy, you get some other reward. could be as simple as some kind of displayable trophy object, or as complex as a new room type for a base building system, or something. so you essentially have the main quest but also optional quests that encourage you to do steps that the game otherwise allows you to skip. maybe. 27:00. also... what if the map had like 48 variants, and which one, is selected at game start, and each final location is different. so you are super unlikely to dig in that square, unless you have the map pieces. could be interesting.
Really hope life settles down for you and that we get another video one day. May life treat you well and the creative juices have a chance to flow again.
Thank you. I both hope and work towards achieving just that - I can't imagine a life in which I am *not* making a video. Even now - albeit at a snails pace - I carve away the next one bit by bit. It's simply not something I can just stop doing (^_^')
I'm really enjoying your Ultima vidoes, these are great stuff and I appreciate the thoughts and philosophy you get into with them both praising and critiquing the game. It really makes your videos stand out compared to the others I've seen.
Thank you so much! Ultima is a very interesting series to examine from a literary/philosophical stand point. Glad to hear you enjoyed it :) ... Speaking of philosophy - I can't wait to share my Ultima 7 video with you. I'll say no more ;)
That game Doctor Cat plays with you can always be won by the player who plays first. That's the catch. He lets you go first in the 'learning' rounds, but then he takes over when you bet big :D I'm starting to realize, there's a lot of virtue-lessons in even the odd characters... The dream girl warns you not to take escapism too far. Doctor Cat warns you not to get too greedy... Hm.
That's a really cool observation about characters being individual case studies about virtues! I can't help but imagine what a herculean task it would be to thematically analyze each one in such a way.
We played it on the Atari ST. We loved it that it was so open, steal, kill, hahhaha. Updated: freaking autocorrect and virtual keyboard always in Spanish in this tablet 😑
Yep, it's incredible how much freedom you'd get in those games back in the day. Almost like it was a golden age of computer RPGs or something... Also thank you watching!
Thank you! It's always a pleasure to see you ^_^ Sounds great! Tell me how it goes :D Just remember to ask everyone their "name" and "job" to get the conversations going :) Also you might be interested in a mod called Nuvie - I haven't played it, but it seems to have fixed a lot of issues from U6, such as low visibility and somewhat clunky inventory management. Might be worth a shot!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews never got around to playing U6. Some other time when I have cleared my backlog of shame some more. Waiting for the next video and I hope you do well on these troublesome times.
Excellent, excellent video as always, Georg! I have a question, have you ever played Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar? It came out a few years ago after over 20 years in development. It's a CRPG in the vein of Wizardry. To a fellow CRPG lover like you, I needed to recommend it :)
Holy cow 0_0 Twenty years?? That's insane! Thank you for mentioning it - I'll definitely check it out! And thank you for watching and liking the video! :D
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews yeah the history behind the development is quite an adventure in itself :D Keep up the fantastic work, and good luck with Grimoire, it's a tough one!
Finished this mammoth videos Incredible work. Seems like most western RPGs (story focused) take ideas from it (and U7), even without knowing it. Yet it was still doing stuff that is not fully attempted even now (social discrimination, postcolonialism). U5 still stays as strong in tone though. UI for U6 still remains terrible though, along with combat/dungeoneering. Having grown much older, it is getting harder to go back to games that hadn't figured out such stuff.
Thank you, my friend! It's fascinating to see how U4-U6 have this thematically rich narrative that builds off not just from the previous games' plot points, but off their themes and ideas. It's incredible, to be fair :) But yeah, certain aspects of their design do leave a bit to be desired. If only all dungeons here were as well-designed as the Pirates Cave!
I finished Ultima VI now too. I will have to wait with VII for some time due to a lack of time but will get into it eventually since it was the original reason for me to play (and discover) the others. I was quite amazed in how the philosophy of virtues expanded significantly. The past virtues dealt with how to behave and react to situations you encounter. The new virtues dealt with how to live, long-term and motivate yourself and others within a society. I do not think Richard Garriott had that planned out when he built the first games.
Congrats, man! Unfortunately, I'll have to wait with the U7 for some time as well and for, pretty much, the same reason of the lack of time. But hey, it's just a matter of time before we both get to it :) Yeah, I don't believe Garriot had planned all this out either, but it's still a fascinating thematic journey that those games take you on. Ultima is genuinely a great series.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews I finished Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld now as well (Ultima Underworld is short). I wont drop any spoilers in case you're messing with it, but I will tell you this. Ultima Underworld is a standalone story set between VI and VII. It has no continuity with the rest of the games. Ultima Underworld 2 is a direct sequel to the plot in Ultima VII and pretty much expect you to have played VII right prior, directly continuing the storyline for several key NPC's.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews I will try to avoid spoilers... And I want you to be able to make your own analysis. But Ultima VII is the reason I wanted to play the series and I have been hyping about it since 1992, wanting to play the rest first before sitting down with VII, and I am happy I did. To not get disappointed I had lowered my expectations to be fair, and in the end it truly lived up to its reputation. In a way I can see how Ultima VII is Ultima VI with better graphics, but it adds totally new systems and scrap others that been part of the series from the beginning. It also look and feels like the direct predecessor for the isometric rpg's that would later take over, like Baldur's Gate and I am repeatedly reminded that this is six damn years before BG, way ahead anything in 1992. Ultima VI took a big leap but VII really feels like it connects with modern contemporary games. I also think it's the first time the series tricked me and then graphically shocked me with a twist I didn't see coming, like an Ultima jump scare. Now I feel a bit sad that I played the last Richard Garriot game set in the original world and I guess VII-2 was his last own game on the series before EA made the series one of their first true victims. Ultima Underworld: Stygian Abyss is standalone and can really be played at any time as it doesn't connect with the stories of the other games. It's just 8 levels so I played it in tandem with the end of Ultima VII. I have been curious about it as well since I loved immersive sims like System Shock and Deus Ex. While it's obviously crude it is overall a competent game that keeps itself together and I pretty quickly got used to the controls. Despite the old graphics I got the feeling to be physically within the game in it's confined space just like an immersive sim should, and it is part of the reason I tend to like the Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder style of games so much - it's basically an Open World game despite lacking the ability to get out, where you can go up and down and backtrack and try other things at your leisure. Also I need to correct a previous statement I made; Ultima Underworld have a real dialogue system in 1992, which is prior to Dark Sun. I think this is the first Monkey Island style dialogue system I seen in a RPG with actual dialogue-choices (and ways to screw up conversations by being rude or saying the wrong things). But having started Ultima Underworld 2 now, UU2 runs leaps and circles around UU when it comes to story, immersion and recognition where it heavily assumes you finished VII right before. This is the first game in the series where the story of non-companion NPC's are directly continued from one game to another, at least on a large scale. You know everyone you meet. You interacted with them in VII and they will tell you what happened after your interference. Its also graphically a leap forward as it tries to show actual locations in first person 3d rather than just dungeons and caves.
@@JemyM That is exactly what I'd hoped U7 would be, so I'm happy to hear you say it delivers. Like, the way you describe how you approached U7 and Ultima as a whole might as well describe the way I approached it as well :) The descriptions of UU1&2 sound reassuring as well, especially the second one. You know, it's just so cool that its not just me that feels this way about old games, like, the way our journeys through the series have mirrored each other not just in the games we'd played, but the way we felt about them. Cheers, man!
"The Age of Enlightenment" refers to the fact that the trilogy is focused on the virtues (or on the Codex, if you will). It doesn't mean that there is no conflict or dark moments. The first (IV) is about the establishment and meaning of the virtues and the Codex aka a spiritual quest. The second (V) is about the subversion of the virtues, or how creating laws based on a strict ethical system (like the virtues) can turn out to be very dangerous. The third (VI) is about prejudice (and racism?), how the virtues can hold different meaning to others, and resolving differences peacefully. The first trilogy is called "The Age of Darkness" because they take before the establishing of the virtues, in a time when Sosaria/Britannia wasn't prospering yet.
Absolutely true. In that regard it's similar to our own age of enlightenment, which was also not without its dark moments. ... And a big Thank You from the bottom of my heart for having been subscribed for 6 years. It means the world to me.
It's my understanding that Beh Lem is a winged gargoyle, his wings just didn't grow yet. All gargoyles are born without wings, but even from birth the gargoyle society seems capable to differentiate winged from wingless - by what means, though, the game does not tell. As for slavery, it seems gargoyle society itself seems divided on the matter. There's a NPC that tells you that wingless gargoyles should not, in fact, be treated as slaves, but as members of the family that should be guided. It seems there is an actual biological difference between the two types of gargoyles (with the wingless ones being less intelligent and unable to speak, but also being much more strong). So you can imagine that some groups of gargoyle society would see this biological difference as a pretext for exploitation and discrimination. I mean, human society has a lot of experience in this field, discrimating and exploiting their members for insignificant differences like the color of the skin.
Yeah, I wasn't sure about Beh Lem - seems like I missed the line where he mentioned that he'd grow wings. But it's still a really fascinating culture that has a lot of grey moral areas, I mean the guy who had to escape the society after his wings stopped working alone is a pretty unfortunate case.
Thank god you are still here with all that sh*tshow going on. I'm sure the next hour and a bit will be great. Or should I say 'GeorgGreat'? :) I guess this channel will go quiet again in the coming months, so I wish in advance: let your 2023 be as you planned, nice, wholesome and a bit boring! Thanks for video btw
Oh man, thank you for such kind words :_) Sometimes it does feel like the world is going haywire. I also wish you as much peace and comfort as possible - we can all use a bit of that, I feel :) P.S. It's so great seeing you again - I don't think seeing "Namco Bandai" on their games makes me as glad as seeing it in the comments now ^_^
I remember coming upon a dungeon room full of "feral children," pausing… then casting a _sleep_ spell upon them, leaving the room, locking the door, _magically_ locking the door… and walking away… ☥
Let's just imagine that - after the games credits - someone took care of them (maybe Avatar mentioned something about it to Lord British before leaving). Otherwise those kids are.... ahem, right (^_^')
Oh, that's awesome! What a creative way of using that spell! I bet even the developers hadn't intended the sleep spell to be used for that particular purpose, but it's great to see that the game allows the player to do something "unconventional" and it will work :)
I happened to find your retrospectives and binge-watched them 'cause I'm currently slogging my way through _Ultima VII._ (Walking is _so_ slow with a full party. XÞ I swear the "Test of Courage" was animating at one frame-per-second…)
I dont know why so many considered lord britsh as being the greatest rpg maker. Years ago, i got to play his lastest and greated scifi war rpg called tabula rasa. Long story short.... You play as a soldier defending the earth against space aliens. The problem? You grind killing aliens to get loot, to BUY more bullets.... To defend the earth.
I actually made a joke about Tabula Rasa in the first Ultima review - that project really didn't go well. But I mean, he did make Ultima 3, for instance, which became a template for all RPGs (especially console ones) for decades to come. And Ultima 4 really pushed the boundaries of storytelling in video games, showing what RPGs can be.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews just watched it. It was hysterical! Deff worth the sub. Did you ever watch Adventure Time? The only important episode.... Dungeon Train!
Hey thanks, man! Glad you liked it, and thanks for the sub! I have watched a couple seasons of Adventure Time, but haven't got to that episode. Is it related to RPGs? :)
Ultima 6 does set up a few interesting philosophical ideas. Unfortunately, the ending of the game is trite and ignores most of the questions and conflicts raised by all those interesting concepts. Without spoiling anything, I found the ending to be a disappointing cop out.
Yeah, I agree. The ending does fall more in line with the lighthearted, comforting nature of the presentation, rather than the thematic undertones of the later portions of the game.
the low earning with bread and the higher with cloth is about greedy, some people need bread, so it's a choice: will I do an action that brings me low income but can benefit the others?
I finished u9 some weaks ago, i used some fan patches and still had a lot of crashes and game breaking bugs i had to circle around, they also changed the end of U8. With that said is much better than u8 gameplay wise, maybe it is one of the best first 3d games; i think i liked the game.
I deeply appreciate the thought, but yeah, it would be impossible right now. Plus, it'd feel wrong of me to monetize this channel, unless I could offer more value from it to viewers and supporters - the least of which would be a more consistent upload schedule. Unfortunately, right now, this is an impossibility. But, again, a giant Thank You for your gesture - it must mean that my videos are at least somewhat decent ^_^
Great to see you :) It's alright, thankfully, there's enough free time in the day for me to work on the video at a decent (for me) pace. Hope you're doing well too!
I'm doing fine been hot as hell here 95 degrees! I do concrete foundation work, build basements for a living. So I'm down in a 10 foot to 12 foot hole dying in the sun lol. Glad your doing ok.
Ye , the great failure of Ultima 6 is the combat system ( and bad UI magement but this shit was common back then) but nothing is even close to the combat from ultima 7 , is horrifying and chaotic. I like how you describle the visual of game , it's really super charmming and I have a complete sense of space. Ultima 7 have better sprites and way more details but lost the dungeon crawler aspect.
Yeah. I wish I could play Ultima 6 and 7 properly with a controller--either on Switch or PS Remote. Thanks to Pillars of Destiny series, I have just recently found out the absolute JOY of playing CRPGs with a controller! Lol.
Just you wait for the time-travelling arc where Seal, me, my evil clone and a floating n64 controller get trapped inside an 80s DOS game with the power of friendship (aka, a dozen cameos from other youtubers) winning the day.
I mean, it's not really about catching on - making those videos feels very special to me. Like, they mean a lot to me in and of themselves... but hey, thank you for saying that the dialogues are incredible!
I love how Sherry the mouse casually picks up a huge metal shield as she loots a room. ^^
The entire main questline is skippable by simply using the orb of the moons to warp directly to the gargoyle world. Thus making the goal of the game: Get moonstones (via runes), Make two lenses, Get Cube, Make Balloon, do gargoyle dungeons, win.
That is just the coolest thing, imo. It's not like the cube only "triggers" into existence when a gargoyle mentions it or something - the entire progression is built around the player learning this world (and not around the world changing and warping around the player).
Of note is that Seggallion comes from a land that belongs to a different game: Knights of Legend, a cancelled franchise from Origin that got cancelled after only 1 episode (and had some interesting mechanics such as custom spell creation).
That's cool. I had a feeling his backstory is a bit too detailed to belong to a one-off character.
2:20 "he's well off in his apartment'. I recently remodeled all this for my ultima vi fan recreation project #AgeOfSingularity, and when I did the video about the intro I started researching the likely exact models of record player, audio mixer, etc. that he has. and yes, he's doing decently money-wise! this is some high end gear on his tv console. even just having a cd player system like that in the late 80s, meant he was doing pretty decently.
Dang, these are some great videos. Some of the best Ultima videos on the site, period. YT just now recommended them to me, and I see unfortunately no new videos for a year. Hope this guy didn't quit.
Thanks, man! This channel is no stranger for long wait times, but this one takes the cake. I'm really putting it all into the U7 video :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews I can't wait!
Needed a video to put on in the background while I did work so I came here and HOLY SHIT your channel has grown a lot since I last stoped by, keep up the great work man
Great to see you again! And thanks :D I sort of had to slow down (I mean... even more than usual) because of some real life problems, but I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't make me happy to see the channel grow. The idea of making the U7 video keeps me going through the dark times :)
It’s been 10 months, I’m ready for my next dose of Ultima.
Edit: P.S. thank you for making all these videos, found your channel while looking for old video game retrospectives and I’m loving them all! Ultima always held a special place in my heart since I was too young to experience them first hand (I had to play the dirty NES and SNES ports when they came out) but it’s always mystified and excites me to hear about them. They’ve done so much for gaming in general, it’s always wonderful to see the original DNA of so many features we enjoy in modern gaming.
I also really love how you keep it based with Seal being the more cynical/ realistic side of things. You just do a great job of going over the little details and philosophy of game design, A++ stuff!
Keep up the good work bud!
It warms my heart to read a comment like this. From the bottom of it: Thank You! It truly means the world to me.
Unfortunately, I have to admit that the next video is... not even remotely ready. There is some real life stuff (I mean, more than usual) that demands all of my time, including the free type. It feels quite terrible, not going to lie, for there's, pretty much, nothing I enjoy doing more than making those videos. So the only reassuring thing I can say is that I am - at a snails pace - working on it whenever I can (and I have no intention of stopping). I hold the hope of one day being able to dedicate even more time to this channel than I could back in 2010-s, but this is not that time.
Now I'm psyched for Martian Dreams and The Savage Empire. Those games deserve some quality videos. Thank you for your work, keep it up!
And thank you for watching! I do feel that I'll get to those and other side Ultimas eventually. Covering the entirety of the Ultima series has, essentially, became a quest of mine :)
Check out MrEdders123's channel. His style is more dry and analytical than Georg's IMO (who is much more entertaining), but he just did a 2-hour long analysis video of The Savage Empire, including analysis of the literary genre that inspired that game and the meaning it holds today. His other videos are great as well!
Thanks for the tip, I'm following Mr Edders and his savage empire video was very interesting to watch for me as an Eastern European.
I agree that despite some similarities (the video is long and the emphasis is on rather obscura games), the authors have a very different approach to writing scripts. George is very good at deconstructing a work that allows you to look at your favorite game from a new perspective. Mr. Edders, on the other hand, rather catalogs and preserves old half-forgotten games and the discourse around them at the time of release and now.@@robinmattheussen2395
They do use this same engine, so they would be the next logical choice...
I loved Martian Dreams. Savage Empire was good but not great, IMO.
Always look forward to your videos. Another great review from a great reviewer!
And, as always, Thank you for your kind words! Glad to not disappoint! ^_^
Thanks for another enjoyable review. Your distinctive mix of informative in-depth description, well-analyzed personal impression, and subtle humor was worth time spent every time so far. That seal truly turns into the seal of quality.
And thank you for another wonderful comment! Seals ego is going to be even more inflated now, he-he :D
Yo I hope your channel blows up soon, subbed after only 10 minutes, you're super entertaining, keep up the good work!
Hey thanks, man! Means a lot!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews no problem, I'm just glad I found you!
Your Ultima series has truly become an epic. I'm glad I found your channel and you are still at it :)
Oh man... I am bursting with feelings right now. You've been subscribed for 8 years now! Have you commented before? When youtube switched the profile names from original you may have changed. 8 years... this has been a journey, hasn't it? :_)
Dude... I clicked on the channel and I realized who you were, sorry (^_^') I knew this would happen because of the "name change" that youtube did a while back. Needless to say, it's great to see you :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Yes, it has been quite the journey :D
It always makes me happy to see you still making videos. I check your channel every now and then, because I am on youtube too infrequently to catch all the things I want to see in the timeline ^^
I wish I would still get arount to making videos... but life kind of got in the way... though I haven't given hope up entirely ;)
Anyway, keep at it. Your videos are phenomenal and with ever increasing quality.
Thank you so much! I know too well about life getting in the way... I mean it's almost 2 years since my last video, even though I'm putting as much time as I can allocate. It would be awesome to see you make some new videos! I still have you in my featured channels on the homepage, in the category great channels ^_^
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews That's great to hear! As I said: I haven't given up hope yet ;D
I have a few very hecktic month coming up at the end of the year... but maybe after that :)
Since the video had 69 comments at the time I am writing this I thought maybe I should not but I had to say: Excellent review as always! Love your videos man! Looking forward to the next one!
He-he, and here I am, favoriting the 69th comment with a heart XD And Thank You! It's always a pleasure to have you!
Never having played this nobles elders games, but couting too many hours of my youth on Morrowind, Fallout, Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Gothic, etc. this Ultima review serie is a great joy.
Thank you! I'm similar myself: grew up with the very titles you've mentioned!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews but you, sir, have the game time, erudition and incisive mind to convey me what it would have been to discover Ultima in its time. Thanks you !
Thanks, man! You're too kind :)
I love Ultima 6. I remember it being on a dual game CD with Wing Commander back in the 90s. I really should go back and play it again. I bought it from GOG, and I haven't bothered to finish it. I really enjoy the soundtrack, and the Zebra Centaur poster is peak late 80s, which is awesome.
Wing Commander is such a cool game - came out the same year as U6, coincidentally, and under the same company (which explains them being on the same disk, I guess). But yeah, I low-key love that poster. That whole opening sequence was freaking awesome, imo.
I played these games as a kid in the 80's and 90's. I think something that often gets forgotten is that we didn't have the benefit of decades of gaming experience, the internet, or TH-cam to draw on.
A lot of things that seem obvious to an experienced gamer in the 2020's wasn't so obvious to 9 - 12 yr olds playing these games for the first time, when our parents weren't screaming at us to do our homework.
I am learning things about these games I never knew watching these videos, and they are some of my most beloved games.
Still, it's awesome to see so much interest in them after nearly thirty years! Ultima was the best!
It's definitely true about the childhood gaming experience. There are games, which seemed so huge and mysterious to my childhood self, that nowadays I can finish in a single weekend once I recall one of them and decide to give it a go.
And thank you! It's an honor to hear that from someone who grew up with those games. Ultima is, absolutely, the best! :D
So glad every time I see you release a new video!
Thank you! Glad to see you too! :)
That sprite intro is nostalgically intense
I can see why. One of the reasons I linger on it in the video is because I just liked it a lot :) There's something striking about Avatar's framing in front of this blazing TV accompanied by such an unusual soundtrack
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Yeah, it really is perfect
Yes, I‘ve been waiting for this badboy to show up! Thank you!
The pleasure is all mine! Great to see you!
Judge U6 as a kid in 90 playing it for the first time.
It would be mindblowing!
Great video, and very interesting analysis of the game dynamycs of this great game. Ultima VI has a special place in my heart, being the second Ultima I played (the first being Ultima VIII).
I personally prefer it over his younger sibiling Ultima VII, which is however a good game. Comparing the two, I think that Ultima VI combat and dialog systems are far superior to the ones in Ultima VII. Combat in Ultima VI is very fun, while in Ultima VII is a complete chaos. I also love very much the dialog system of Ultima VI, and I think is one of the more immersive ever. Ultima VII dialog system is on the other hand so cold... but, on the other hand, doesn't allow you to skip entire plot points just because you already know the right word to use! :) So, in a certain way, it's an improvement.
One ending note: There's an excellent open source game engine, called "Nuvie" that allows to play Ultima 6 and his World of Ultima "spin-off" bypassing their original limitations, both in therm of visible area (making it waaaay bigger) and inventory management (making it more modern, like U7, with drag and drop). It massively improve the game experience, and I higly suggest it to anyone who wants to play these games today.
Here's a screenshot I took of Ultima VI running on Nuvie: i.imgur.com/rKZxPN5.png
I assure you that playing the game with a so wide view area makes it impossible to go back to the original tiny window :)
Thank you! And thanks for mentioning Nuvie! The low visibility is one of the biggest annoyances of U6, so that alone makes Nuvie seem extremely appealing (I believe you 100% on never wanting to come back :D), even without taking into account other stuff.
Me and a buddy of mine are really hyped whenever you bring out a new video. Can't wait for the next Ultima games from you. Do you ever plan on doing Gothic as you reference it quite often? Would love your take on it.
Thank you both! I highly appreciate that :) I've long had this crazy idea of doing a marathon/retrospective on basically the whole Gothic/Piranha Bites saga (meaning all Gothic, Risen and Elex games). Let's just say, I'd really love to do it one day!
New video! I already know this is going to be great.
Hey thanks! It's great to see you! ^_^
Can't wait to see the black gate video first.
Black gate is one of my all time favorite rpgs and has so much depth and interact ability for 1992 its insane nothing else's is like it untill ultima online.
I'd also love to see a baldursgate or planescaoe video as these two infinity engine games are my favorite rpgs hands down.
Yeah, the interactivity of U7 is staggering (slowly, but surely this video is being made). I'd love to, one day, cover those two on my channel. They are fantastic :)
This game came with about 6 3.5 inch floppy disks. Some different files were corrupted so I had to return the game 3 times to piece together a proper installation. Enjoyed the game, though.
Yeah, there's a lot less hassle involved in playing it now - GOG made it very convenient to play it on modern devices.
Had a great nap while watching this. Good video.
Damn, dude. You're the first to comment about a video of mine being good for napping! It's, like, a sign of a llegit youtube channel. Now if I can get to a place when my videos would be good for a full-fledged sleep, I will feel like I'd truly made it :D Thank you, man! Means a lot!
Super fantastic look at this game. Well done! I subscribed to give you support for (maybe) future content..I hope.😊
Thank you for both the sub and the kind words! Ultima 7 sure is coming - the next video will cover both it and the Serpent Isle :) It will still take some time to finish it, but I'm making progress ^_^
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews that is great to hear. You have not published in a year so I didn't know if the channel was still active. Thank you 😄
Cannot wait for your review of the black gate and serpent isle! :)
Me too ^_^
Great to see the Ultima series continue! Great job Georg. Looking forward to Ultima VII since that was my first Ultima (and I still have the black box with the cloth map).
Great to see you too! And thank you ^_^
I'm looking forward to it too, and hey - that's awesome that you still have the actual map! I typically use a tablet to look at the map while playing those games.
IT was good watching this. Thanks for looking in depth at this extremely playable game.
Spent weeks, months perhaps engrossed in this game when I was a kid. Classico!
And thank you for watching! Glad you found the video enjoyable!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews The ONLY things I remembered about UVIV was the basic graphics, the clothmap æ... Oh AND that IT was up there with Elite in the pure playability..
I was just taken aback by you video, because I did not remember anything about the character creation questions and The philosophical backbone its built around.
Even as these are topics I have relished delving into over the decades hence...
Perhaps Lord Britain has some part in that o n a subconcious level?
Thanks 🙏
I was somewhat taken aback myself - you don't see a profound 80s game everyday, after all ^_^
And yeah, those game very well might have played a hand in shaping your growing interest in philosophy. I know I've played/watched/read some stuff as a kid that only now I can see the subtext of, and yeah, without experiencing them back in the day, I'd probably not be into this "deeper meaning" shenanigans :D
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Hehe, you and your heckling friends have refreshingly nonstupid vanter. Love to see sigma of intelligente when doing these kinds of deepdives.
The Bards Tale and Phantasie series and later Dungeon Master too opened up some undisvovered alleys of our minds in their own ways.
@@Audunforgard Thank you, kind sir! Hope that one day I'll get to review those games as well.
Finally here! I hope seal can forgive my late arrival.
This game broke my love of Ultima. I got it on the C64 and it was the first game I ever pre-ordered, though I'm not sure I understood I was preordering it.
Parts of the game weren't finished being coded, so you had to read the clue book they included with the C64 version, and the errata for the cluebook on all the things that didn't work in the clue book for the C64 version.
That horrible port aside, other things drove me nuts. The flat world, the weird new takes on the virtues (stealing from someone with the spell solves a quest), the ending's forced solution. It just felt like a cardboard front of the Ultima series. The dark tone of Ultima V was replaced with this colorful story book version. The scaling of towns on the overworld map made the whole thing feel smaller and the portraits made it feel cartoonish.
Juxtaposed with a story about racism and genocide it feels completely disconnected from the vibe it was trying to tell. Probably how you felt about the music of Ultima V vs the story, is how I felt about the graphics of this game.
Damn, that's harsh :D But I can see where you're coming from. My personal gripe with the game was the inability to complete several quests due to them being left unfinished, like the Skara Brae ghost mystery. I mean, I'd enjoyed the game despite its flaws, but the flaws are definitely there. In any case, I think we can all agree that this one isn't as strong as U4 or U5
Yeah I agree the tone in U6 just feels lost. I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to feel most of the time, as most of the people seem to not even care about the gargoyle invasion or the "war" that's supposedly going on. With U5 you felt Blackthorn's influence everywhere, the problem you were solving felt very real and oppressive. This is also true in U7 with the Fellowship/Guardian, but with U6, it's like the common folk are oblivious to what's happening and this whole thing is a covert action by Lord British. All 8 shrines have been taken by hostile forces, and the villagers... don't really care at all. Isn't this supposed to be the central religion in Brittania? Wouldn't they care that their holy sites have been taken by invading "demons"? Does anyone actually go meditate at the shrines other than the avatar?
Another big gripe is the U6 game engine. It felt like you never saw enough of the world, as if the viewport was tiny, and there was way too much micromanagement required with all the items. It took all the tedious looting problem of U5 and then added individual inventories and encumbrance, so it created something many time more annoying. Often enemies would drop this big pile of loot, with the stuff you wanted on the bottom, and there was no way to just take the stuff on the bottom, you had to meticulously move each and every item on top. And you couldn't just mindlessly take it all like you could in U5, because now you'd hit the carrying limit.
Just finished Majuular and now I want to see your opinion of Ultima 6. You two have very interesting perspectives. Thank you for commenting on Majuular's video so that I knew you also made videos. You didn't do it in a advertisement way, you were mentioning your interest of his take on the same game you reviewed and I respect that. You praised him while humbling yourself (almost like the virtues ) ;)
Thank you :D Majuular is one of my favorite content creators, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him do an Ultima thing. U4 is my favorite one, so I was kind of overcome with emotion at seeing it get so much attention and from a youtuber that can do it justice. It all... kind of rekindles my faith in humanity a little (^_^')
@GeorgGreat_GameReviews U4 was definitely ahead of its time, and I'm surprised at how it didn't technically have a BBEG. Enlightenment as the goal is so unique that I'm not sure if there's another game like it.
I hope you still upload videos, but if you don't, I'll still be a fan and slowly watch your older videos.
Yeah, I'm slowly but surely working my way through the Ultima 7 video. The real life shenanigans take up most of my day, but there's absolutely no way I'm stopping making those videos any time soon. They mean too much to me.
But yeah, my upload schedule is non-existent -_-
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews real world obligations always eating our time. I feel you on that!
This video gave me new appreciation for Ultima 6's writing. I used to find it kind of juvenile and unfunny, but it's smarter than I gave it credit for.
It is kind of juvenile, though, I'd have to admit. Deceptively simple, I guess you might call it. But hey, thank you for watching! Hope it lived up to the expectations :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews it’s not though… look at FF games that came before? For god sake…
@@juliedunken1150 Yeah, I guess it's all a matter of perspective, really. One thing's for sure is that this game isn't afraid of having a little fun with its dialogues :) I mean, those humble magincians are quite something!
Great review of a great game. FYI you only have to type the first 3-4 characters of the keyword highlighted in red in the dialogue, not the whole word.
Thank you! Yeah, I noticed that only near the end of my playthrough ^_^
Hey man, just discovered your channel about a week ago and I watched every single one of your videos. Great stuff.
That's so awesome to hear! A giant Thank You for finding my stuff so interesting - it means the world to me :D
You got me thinking about the intro, the Avatar's Depression, and the times to come for Sosaria...
* *Foreshadowing* *
Glad to have you again!
I love this video! You are amazing! Subscribed!
Thank you! Glad to have you onboard!
Since this video dropped, I've been hanging on to the edge of my seat, knowing that the next one is finally going to be the BIG one (Ultima 7)... and Boom, welcome to the longest upload hiatus in the series 😂
I really hope you're doing okay and haven't abandoned the channel, man 😅
Trust me, your frustration is mirrored by mine :( If it was up to me, I'd have already finished the video by now, but stuff came up in my life, which leaves close to no free time (I hope, for the time being). It's nowhere near ready, but I'm still trying to work, at a snails pace, on the next video.
P.S. Thank you for showing such keen interest in the series :) It means a lot! ^_^
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Oh hey, so you ARE still kicking 😄
Absolutely understandable, anything that needs to be taken care of IRL should take priority over the channel. However, I hope you still manage to keep in touch with what you're doing here (no doubt you will because you obviously have a great time creating these reviews and it shows 😄).
I know there's a lot of unseen work behind every video, but there's also a lot of people who appreciate that! Take care, stay as you are and see you in the next video! 👍
NEW ULTIMA VIDEO!
Hell yeah! :D
24:00 this is something I think about a lot, and i think the solution is "parallel rewards." like, you can finish the main quest without getting all the map pieces, BUT if you do get all the pieces and talk to the guy, you get some other reward. could be as simple as some kind of displayable trophy object, or as complex as a new room type for a base building system, or something. so you essentially have the main quest but also optional quests that encourage you to do steps that the game otherwise allows you to skip. maybe.
27:00. also... what if the map had like 48 variants, and which one, is selected at game start, and each final location is different. so you are super unlikely to dig in that square, unless you have the map pieces. could be interesting.
Really hope life settles down for you and that we get another video one day.
May life treat you well and the creative juices have a chance to flow again.
Thank you. I both hope and work towards achieving just that - I can't imagine a life in which I am *not* making a video. Even now - albeit at a snails pace - I carve away the next one bit by bit. It's simply not something I can just stop doing (^_^')
I'm really enjoying your Ultima vidoes, these are great stuff and I appreciate the thoughts and philosophy you get into with them both praising and critiquing the game. It really makes your videos stand out compared to the others I've seen.
Thank you so much! Ultima is a very interesting series to examine from a literary/philosophical stand point. Glad to hear you enjoyed it :)
... Speaking of philosophy - I can't wait to share my Ultima 7 video with you. I'll say no more ;)
That game Doctor Cat plays with you can always be won by the player who plays first.
That's the catch. He lets you go first in the 'learning' rounds, but then he takes over when you bet big :D
I'm starting to realize, there's a lot of virtue-lessons in even the odd characters...
The dream girl warns you not to take escapism too far. Doctor Cat warns you not to get too greedy... Hm.
That's a really cool observation about characters being individual case studies about virtues! I can't help but imagine what a herculean task it would be to thematically analyze each one in such a way.
We played it on the Atari ST. We loved it that it was so open, steal, kill, hahhaha.
Updated: freaking autocorrect and virtual keyboard always in Spanish in this tablet 😑
Yep, it's incredible how much freedom you'd get in those games back in the day. Almost like it was a golden age of computer RPGs or something...
Also thank you watching!
U6 looks delightfully retro but not too retro like U4 and U5. I should give this a go during the christmas holidays. Great video as always, Georg!
Thank you! It's always a pleasure to see you ^_^ Sounds great! Tell me how it goes :D
Just remember to ask everyone their "name" and "job" to get the conversations going :) Also you might be interested in a mod called Nuvie - I haven't played it, but it seems to have fixed a lot of issues from U6, such as low visibility and somewhat clunky inventory management. Might be worth a shot!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews never got around to playing U6. Some other time when I have cleared my backlog of shame some more. Waiting for the next video and I hope you do well on these troublesome times.
Great work as always!
Thank you! Cheers!
Excellent, excellent video as always, Georg! I have a question, have you ever played Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar? It came out a few years ago after over 20 years in development. It's a CRPG in the vein of Wizardry. To a fellow CRPG lover like you, I needed to recommend it :)
Holy cow 0_0 Twenty years?? That's insane! Thank you for mentioning it - I'll definitely check it out!
And thank you for watching and liking the video! :D
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews yeah the history behind the development is quite an adventure in itself :D Keep up the fantastic work, and good luck with Grimoire, it's a tough one!
Finished this mammoth videos
Incredible work.
Seems like most western RPGs (story focused) take ideas from it (and U7), even without knowing it. Yet it was still doing stuff that is not fully attempted even now (social discrimination, postcolonialism).
U5 still stays as strong in tone though.
UI for U6 still remains terrible though, along with combat/dungeoneering. Having grown much older, it is getting harder to go back to games that hadn't figured out such stuff.
Thank you, my friend! It's fascinating to see how U4-U6 have this thematically rich narrative that builds off not just from the previous games' plot points, but off their themes and ideas. It's incredible, to be fair :) But yeah, certain aspects of their design do leave a bit to be desired. If only all dungeons here were as well-designed as the Pirates Cave!
I finished Ultima VI now too. I will have to wait with VII for some time due to a lack of time but will get into it eventually since it was the original reason for me to play (and discover) the others. I was quite amazed in how the philosophy of virtues expanded significantly. The past virtues dealt with how to behave and react to situations you encounter. The new virtues dealt with how to live, long-term and motivate yourself and others within a society. I do not think Richard Garriott had that planned out when he built the first games.
Congrats, man! Unfortunately, I'll have to wait with the U7 for some time as well and for, pretty much, the same reason of the lack of time. But hey, it's just a matter of time before we both get to it :)
Yeah, I don't believe Garriot had planned all this out either, but it's still a fascinating thematic journey that those games take you on. Ultima is genuinely a great series.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews I finished Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld now as well (Ultima Underworld is short). I wont drop any spoilers in case you're messing with it, but I will tell you this.
Ultima Underworld is a standalone story set between VI and VII. It has no continuity with the rest of the games.
Ultima Underworld 2 is a direct sequel to the plot in Ultima VII and pretty much expect you to have played VII right prior, directly continuing the storyline for several key NPC's.
@@JemyM Congrats! And thanks for the heads up. How are those games, btw? Live up to their reputation? :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews I will try to avoid spoilers... And I want you to be able to make your own analysis. But Ultima VII is the reason I wanted to play the series and I have been hyping about it since 1992, wanting to play the rest first before sitting down with VII, and I am happy I did. To not get disappointed I had lowered my expectations to be fair, and in the end it truly lived up to its reputation. In a way I can see how Ultima VII is Ultima VI with better graphics, but it adds totally new systems and scrap others that been part of the series from the beginning. It also look and feels like the direct predecessor for the isometric rpg's that would later take over, like Baldur's Gate and I am repeatedly reminded that this is six damn years before BG, way ahead anything in 1992. Ultima VI took a big leap but VII really feels like it connects with modern contemporary games. I also think it's the first time the series tricked me and then graphically shocked me with a twist I didn't see coming, like an Ultima jump scare. Now I feel a bit sad that I played the last Richard Garriot game set in the original world and I guess VII-2 was his last own game on the series before EA made the series one of their first true victims.
Ultima Underworld: Stygian Abyss is standalone and can really be played at any time as it doesn't connect with the stories of the other games. It's just 8 levels so I played it in tandem with the end of Ultima VII. I have been curious about it as well since I loved immersive sims like System Shock and Deus Ex. While it's obviously crude it is overall a competent game that keeps itself together and I pretty quickly got used to the controls. Despite the old graphics I got the feeling to be physically within the game in it's confined space just like an immersive sim should, and it is part of the reason I tend to like the Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder style of games so much - it's basically an Open World game despite lacking the ability to get out, where you can go up and down and backtrack and try other things at your leisure. Also I need to correct a previous statement I made; Ultima Underworld have a real dialogue system in 1992, which is prior to Dark Sun. I think this is the first Monkey Island style dialogue system I seen in a RPG with actual dialogue-choices (and ways to screw up conversations by being rude or saying the wrong things).
But having started Ultima Underworld 2 now, UU2 runs leaps and circles around UU when it comes to story, immersion and recognition where it heavily assumes you finished VII right before. This is the first game in the series where the story of non-companion NPC's are directly continued from one game to another, at least on a large scale. You know everyone you meet. You interacted with them in VII and they will tell you what happened after your interference. Its also graphically a leap forward as it tries to show actual locations in first person 3d rather than just dungeons and caves.
@@JemyM That is exactly what I'd hoped U7 would be, so I'm happy to hear you say it delivers. Like, the way you describe how you approached U7 and Ultima as a whole might as well describe the way I approached it as well :) The descriptions of UU1&2 sound reassuring as well, especially the second one.
You know, it's just so cool that its not just me that feels this way about old games, like, the way our journeys through the series have mirrored each other not just in the games we'd played, but the way we felt about them. Cheers, man!
your vids r great and u deserve more views.
Thank you so much, man :) And also Thank you for being subscribed for 2 years! It means a lot!
Damn another awesome retrospective.
Thanks, man! Cool to see you again :)
hell yea this channel is the best
Ha-ha, thank you!
Not gonna lie im kinda hyped for Ultima 7 video, which may be realized on the next planetar alignment 😂
😂😂 Yeah, let's just hope I finish the video before the Sun burns out :D
But seriously, the progress is being made (slowly, but surely)
"The Age of Enlightenment" refers to the fact that the trilogy is focused on the virtues (or on the Codex, if you will). It doesn't mean that there is no conflict or dark moments.
The first (IV) is about the establishment and meaning of the virtues and the Codex aka a spiritual quest.
The second (V) is about the subversion of the virtues, or how creating laws based on a strict ethical system (like the virtues) can turn out to be very dangerous.
The third (VI) is about prejudice (and racism?), how the virtues can hold different meaning to others, and resolving differences peacefully.
The first trilogy is called "The Age of Darkness" because they take before the establishing of the virtues, in a time when Sosaria/Britannia wasn't prospering yet.
Absolutely true. In that regard it's similar to our own age of enlightenment, which was also not without its dark moments.
... And a big Thank You from the bottom of my heart for having been subscribed for 6 years. It means the world to me.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews Haha, no need to thank me, your Wizardry VII video caused me to subscribe and I really enjoyed all your videos ever since!
It's my understanding that Beh Lem is a winged gargoyle, his wings just didn't grow yet. All gargoyles are born without wings, but even from birth the gargoyle society seems capable to differentiate winged from wingless - by what means, though, the game does not tell.
As for slavery, it seems gargoyle society itself seems divided on the matter. There's a NPC that tells you that wingless gargoyles should not, in fact, be treated as slaves, but as members of the family that should be guided. It seems there is an actual biological difference between the two types of gargoyles (with the wingless ones being less intelligent and unable to speak, but also being much more strong). So you can imagine that some groups of gargoyle society would see this biological difference as a pretext for exploitation and discrimination. I mean, human society has a lot of experience in this field, discrimating and exploiting their members for insignificant differences like the color of the skin.
Yeah, I wasn't sure about Beh Lem - seems like I missed the line where he mentioned that he'd grow wings. But it's still a really fascinating culture that has a lot of grey moral areas, I mean the guy who had to escape the society after his wings stopped working alone is a pretty unfortunate case.
Nice, new Video.
What is nice, my friend, is seeing you again! Hope you like the video ^_^
..and of Ultima Zero? Surely you will visit this? -Seal
I think I will, Seal! Although it'll be a pretty short video ^_^
Yayyyyy!!🎉
My man, I'm so happy to see you! :D
Are you going to do U7b? That was one of my favourites. Top 2 from U2
Yep, I definitely am :) Underworlds too, coincidentally
Thank god you are still here with all that sh*tshow going on. I'm sure the next hour and a bit will be great. Or should I say 'GeorgGreat'? :) I guess this channel will go quiet again in the coming months, so I wish in advance: let your 2023 be as you planned, nice, wholesome and a bit boring! Thanks for video btw
Oh man, thank you for such kind words :_) Sometimes it does feel like the world is going haywire. I also wish you as much peace and comfort as possible - we can all use a bit of that, I feel :)
P.S. It's so great seeing you again - I don't think seeing "Namco Bandai" on their games makes me as glad as seeing it in the comments now ^_^
Holy shit, yes!
My sentiment exactly! Great to see you again :)
I remember coming upon a dungeon room full of "feral children," pausing… then casting a _sleep_ spell upon them, leaving the room, locking the door, _magically_ locking the door… and walking away… ☥
Let's just imagine that - after the games credits - someone took care of them (maybe Avatar mentioned something about it to Lord British before leaving). Otherwise those kids are.... ahem, right (^_^')
On a happier note, that _sleep_ spell came in handy at Buccaneer's Den when I had to talk to someone and a bar-brawl got in the way. XÞ
Oh, that's awesome! What a creative way of using that spell! I bet even the developers hadn't intended the sleep spell to be used for that particular purpose, but it's great to see that the game allows the player to do something "unconventional" and it will work :)
I happened to find your retrospectives and binge-watched them 'cause I'm currently slogging my way through _Ultima VII._
(Walking is _so_ slow with a full party. XÞ I swear the "Test of Courage" was animating at one frame-per-second…)
Ha-ha, tell me about it! The only thing slower than that walk cycle is my upload schedule :D
1:14 mandate of heaven baby!
I dont know why so many considered lord britsh as being the greatest rpg maker.
Years ago, i got to play his lastest and greated scifi war rpg called tabula rasa.
Long story short....
You play as a soldier defending the earth against space aliens.
The problem?
You grind killing aliens to get loot, to BUY more bullets....
To defend the earth.
I actually made a joke about Tabula Rasa in the first Ultima review - that project really didn't go well. But I mean, he did make Ultima 3, for instance, which became a template for all RPGs (especially console ones) for decades to come. And Ultima 4 really pushed the boundaries of storytelling in video games, showing what RPGs can be.
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews just watched it.
It was hysterical!
Deff worth the sub.
Did you ever watch Adventure Time?
The only important episode.... Dungeon Train!
Hey thanks, man! Glad you liked it, and thanks for the sub!
I have watched a couple seasons of Adventure Time, but haven't got to that episode. Is it related to RPGs? :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews believe it or not, the simple story is about ALL of them... from the first ever made, to the last, that has not.
Damn, that sounds quite epic! I'll be checking it out.
Ultima 6 does set up a few interesting philosophical ideas. Unfortunately, the ending of the game is trite and ignores most of the questions and conflicts raised by all those interesting concepts.
Without spoiling anything, I found the ending to be a disappointing cop out.
Yeah, I agree. The ending does fall more in line with the lighthearted, comforting nature of the presentation, rather than the thematic undertones of the later portions of the game.
the low earning with bread and the higher with cloth is about greedy, some people need bread, so it's a choice: will I do an action that brings me low income but can benefit the others?
That's actually a good point. Nice observation!
Also Thank You so much for being subscribed for 5 years :D It means a lot, man!
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews thank you! love the content, keep it up!:-)
Definitely will! ;)
I finished u9 some weaks ago, i used some fan patches and still had a lot of crashes and game breaking bugs i had to circle around, they also changed the end of U8. With that said is much better than u8 gameplay wise, maybe it is one of the best first 3d games; i think i liked the game.
Great to hear! ... Reassuring at least (^_^')
Is there any way to financially support this channel? I know it may be challenging in current circumstances...
I deeply appreciate the thought, but yeah, it would be impossible right now. Plus, it'd feel wrong of me to monetize this channel, unless I could offer more value from it to viewers and supporters - the least of which would be a more consistent upload schedule. Unfortunately, right now, this is an impossibility. But, again, a giant Thank You for your gesture - it must mean that my videos are at least somewhat decent ^_^
Nice, some Rand on the shelf. Going to do U7?
Absolutely. It'll just take a bit of time due to real life shenanigans.
Hope your doing well my friend! It's been a while, what's been going on in life?
Great to see you :) It's alright, thankfully, there's enough free time in the day for me to work on the video at a decent (for me) pace. Hope you're doing well too!
I'm doing fine been hot as hell here 95 degrees! I do concrete foundation work, build basements for a living. So I'm down in a 10 foot to 12 foot hole dying in the sun lol. Glad your doing ok.
Damn, dude... That's insane. I would have been cooked alive down there. Your stamina\endurance must be on superhero level.
Ye , the great failure of Ultima 6 is the combat system ( and bad UI magement but this shit was common back then) but nothing is even close to the combat from ultima 7 , is horrifying and chaotic.
I like how you describle the visual of game , it's really super charmming and I have a complete sense of space. Ultima 7 have better sprites and way more details but lost the dungeon crawler aspect.
Yeah, U6 is not without flaws (combat being one of them), but still a pretty fun game overall :)
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews of course , actually is my favorite ultima and playing it using a Nuvie is a overall better experience
6 was my favorite and I apologize to no one.
Based
Are you pronouncing 'th' as 'z' on purpose? I enjoy the content you produce but, man, listening to some of the words is jarring.
Not really. Unfortunately, there are certain barriers I'd never managed to overcome.
Yeah. I wish I could play Ultima 6 and 7 properly with a controller--either on Switch or PS Remote. Thanks to Pillars of Destiny series, I have just recently found out the absolute JOY of playing CRPGs with a controller! Lol.
19:00
gru 🤣😎
Your videos would be great if you retired that seal and the quips
Just you wait for the time-travelling arc where Seal, me, my evil clone and a floating n64 controller get trapped inside an 80s DOS game with the power of friendship (aka, a dozen cameos from other youtubers) winning the day.
disagree... it's the best part.
im playing ultima 8 now, it sucks
Yeah, it checks out - people say some very mixed things about it
@@GeorgGreat_GameReviews if you have to play it some day there is something called pentagram and scummvm that improve the game ui a little
Ughhh, the ascent kills the video.. u will never catch on.. u need to take your incredible dialog and can someone to record it
I mean, it's not really about catching on - making those videos feels very special to me. Like, they mean a lot to me in and of themselves... but hey, thank you for saying that the dialogues are incredible!