Ultima Underworld Retrospective
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- #immersivesim #rpg #ultima
Lets talk about the difference between inquisitive and acquisitive games in this retrospective review of Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld The Stygian Abyss is one of the best RPGs ever made and maybe the most influential RPG ever!
0:00 - Introduction
2:20 - Early Ultima Games
5:57 - Your Adventure Begins
13:14 - Survival and Things
18:08 - Exploration/Level Design
22:52 - Combat
31:00 - Talking With NPCs
39:06 - Final Boss Fight
41:32 - Conclusion
44:57 - Outro - เกม
In regards to enemy health, you can know their condition by the color of the eyes on the gargoyle at the top of the screen. Green is healthy, yellow is hurt and red means they are about to die. Great video. Really enjoy your work.
I would say that right now
@ 16:49 What I think you're forgetting, is you choose a class, and not all classes can do magic. This game was amazing that you could play it various ways and still be able to complete it. You can play a stronger (more STR [Strength]) Character that can actually hold more, and thus carry the food and light sources but cannot use magic to create them. On the other hand you can also play a mage class that cannot carry much but doesn't have to because they can make the food and light as you suggested when they needed.
@ 23:33 You say combat isn't fleshed out, yet in many modern games it is a one button, where you do not even choose the type of attack you are using. It is either attacking or not attacking. Some enemies will even try to run away when they are hurt in this game. You can get a spell to remove poison, however if you play a non-magic user, that isn't even an option. Did you know leeches can suck the poison out of you at the cost of some health?
@ 27:20 As someone else commented, there is a indicator on how damaged an enemy by the color that lights up in the eyes of the gargoyle above your main viewing window.
ok I didn't mean for this to get this long.
I found your channel because of the Dark Sun vid but been staying around for the retro RPG talk. keep up the good work.
love this guy, it takes some time for him to release videos but man, when they come out, its a pleasure to watch em.
Me too. He reminds me of 90sgamer92 who unfortunately stopped doing videos a while back. Same level of information though, so great by my book.
Me too
Same here.
Hope one day Michael gets the notice he deserves.
dark sun setting is mental and metal except without much literal metal
One minute in and you've got a subscriber. Can't wait to see more
When I got poisoned in the early game, there were some green leeches that could cure you at a cost of a few hit points.
Great video.
UW by far is the one RPG that I remember every detail and interaction from. It has been nearly 30 years since I played it. Very few games can claim that lasting of an impression. Forget about all the issues with it. Around the age of 8-9 I spent a lot of time studying the spells, languages, and creature types. I killed every race at least once to understand how they would react, the reward, and how it made me feel. Every time I found myself restoring and playing through to be as peaceful and understanding. To the extent where there were some that seemed to pick a fight no matter the dialog you chose. I would explorer if there was a way to reach them peacefully. In most game design you know it's linear and you have only one choice. But Ultima's seemingly multiple paths to the end created sense of choice.
You mentioned that you wished the talisman required you to complete some virtue to obtain. But I think that is more of a standard RPG model. The beauty here is that this underground has fallen apart and the talisman are scattered. So only some have to a degree some virtue to obtaining. But this is perfect and I would not change it as it isn't a sterile school environment but a chaotic underground which you are either purging of life or restoring balance to.
The notes system was brilliant and I typically wrote it on physical paper then wrote again on my map. The fact inquisition factor is well done.
If you want to enjoy the survival aspect then try not using the runes for food and fish for it instead. Also use torches and such for lighting. It definitely adds a lot more to the game if you understand the mechanics they gave you and choose which add to the experience and which are best not used for the sake of immersion.
You can definitely speed run this game but it isn't a game I would enjoy to speed run and when I return to it, I will be carefully detailing the underground as if I had never seen it before.
You know...I had to stop watching this video. It got me so interested in Playing UU again that now I don't want to spoil it! I'll be back in a few weeks once I've had a run through the game.
I was thinking the same thing but I was desperate for something interesting to listen to while I did house work , I just listened to the whole thing but I still find myself wanting to play after some of the spoilers
I'm playing it while watching 😂
I was a Nintendo kid and I will never forget going over to my cousins and seeing this running on his pc. My head pretty much exploded
That "indefinable dimension" is the ethereal void.
You're becoming my favorite up and coming youtuber since that Dark Sun video!
bruh that dark sun video was INTENSE
Top quality video about a fondamental game that only few people talk about.
THANK YOU
Thanks, this was fun. There's not enough proper retrospectives for Ultima Underworld on here.
There's a little correction to make. You DO have an indicator of how much health enemies have. It's indicated by the eyes in the top center. They glow colors when you hit them. If they have max/nearly max health, it glows green. If they have medium health, it glows yellow. If they have little health, it glows red.
This is really good commentary on not just this game, but rpgs and games in general. Thanks!
Ah, man. This is an excellent video! Thanks for the retrospect!
It's crazy how in-depth your videos are, I have looked around for some of the vids you have like Wizardry and there are not a lot of TH-camrs out there that can describe the games like you do. Great Work.
I also found this channel through the Dark Sun retrospective, and while my comments there were almost snide, I am truly loving your content.
Really great videos! It's a mystery to me why you don't have more subscribers.
Well, now he's got 1 more :)
Definitely agree about this being a great RPG. Encumbrance is not an issue if you roll a very high strength char. A fighter with 30 str is a good idea. You don't need plate armor: it is too heavy and there is magic chain and magic leather that is just as good. You don't even need a weapon: using unarmed gives surprisingly good damage. To deal with fire elementals, just cast Sanct Flam and they can't hurt you. If you do it right, combat becomes pretty easy and you can carry everything you want without having to stash things.
I would say the main defect in the game design is with the attributes and skills. The attributes are unbalanced, because strength is so much more important than the others. All of the practical skills are completely useless: you only need a weapon skill, attack, defense, casting, mana and lore. You can even manage without lore if you collect all the gold and pay the seer Dominus to identify all your stuff.
Concerning the flute song that gives you the Cup of Wonder when you play it in the right place: you missed something. Talking to the seers will tell you that using incense will give you visions, and that there are mantras that reveal special items. If you keep using the incense you will see cups with the letters IN SA HN. They won't be in this order, but you can assemble them into the correct order using the background images which show morning, day and night. Using the mantra INSAHN at a shrine then directs you to the correct place to get the Cup.
I played and finished this game a couple years back after watching a video done by Spoony about it. Despite its age and general clunk it ended up being one of the best RPGs I've ever played, however after completing it I realized I went in to it with an aggressive mind set and killed my way through it. It maybe worth playing it again with a more diplomatic mindset.
I've played this game a lot when I was a kid. At first, I always made a raid into the lair of whatever creature I've found on the floor. Honestly said, hack & slash run was so fun XD. But actually I noticed the most of "short story" happened through interactions between minor NPC characters walking around their lair. They give you hints to which part of the levels you should explore carefully. And I was always surprised by the things I've found between the wall of the levels!!
@@user-bx4vo2jc9r It really was a years ahead of anything else being made at the time.
Such a well done video, thank you for the stroll down memory lane.
Absolutely love your retrospectives. Very well researched and made, you have quite an underrated channel!
The game was >thoroughly< not designed for the keyboard and was fully intended to be used almost entirely by the mouse. If you try to play the game like a modern title with the WASD+Mouse method, then you wont have nearly as much control as you might expect.
To get the full enjoyment out of the game, use the mouse as much as possible and only use the keys when you absolutely have to. It might feel sluggish at first, but you'll notice you're having a better time with a greater sense of control than before.
Listening to you talk about games is such a great thing to do! Thanks for making those videos!
I just recently discovered your channel, and I love the in-depth and thoughtful analysis that you bring to discussing older games.
This video, as a case in point: I grew up in the late 90's, so I *just* missed the window of opportunity for getting into UU (and the main Ultima series in general) at the time it came out. And based on what I saw of the game, I'd assumed it was one big monotonous dungeon crawl, so even afterwards, I had no desire to go back and discover the game for myself. However, this video has completely changed my opinion of UU; I don't know when I'll get to playing it with the backlog I have, but it's definitely on my radar now. It sounds like the Ultima series was really unique in exploring deeper philosophical and spiritual themes that you just don't find in modern RPGs; it's unfortunate that so many games focus instead on being power fantasies. So thank you for this!
Love your videos man, love retro RPGs and the great context/history you give about them in these retrospective. Keep up the great work.
Love the format and writing of this video, well done!
Would love to see more-- I'm very interested in philosophical gaming experiences.
Learning about this game because I read the System Shock engine uses this game's engine. This looks right up my alley!!!
Your channel has helped me expand my horizon when it comes to designing anything.
By the gods this was the best game review video I have ever read or watched. Thank you sir.
just found your channel tonight. the fact that you dont have more subs is an absolute crime. doing the elder god's work! really great stuff. hope to see lots more for many more years.
Classic adventure RPGs are about "fighting to live happily ever after". Ultima 4 goes straight to & beyond that climax asking "how do we live happily ever after"?
Man. I remember playing this way back in the 90s. Good times.
I enjoy videos like this, since I'm fascinated with older CRPG games but lack the patience to go through cryptic puzzles and clunky mechanics
Your point about "inquisitive" vs "acquisitive" is analogous to intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. With intrinsic rewards, you're invested in the activity for the sake of the activity. With extrinsic, you're invested in the activity for the sake of getting a reward. That's why you always see quests, drop systems, and daily rewards all the time these days. Every company and game is trying to get you hooked on extrinsic rewards to keep you coming back, instead of making a quality product that stands on its own
Thanks for saving me from having to play Ultima Underworld again. This is the first PC game I played on my brother's 486. At the time we were all blown away by how real it was. I am not sure that any of us who tried, ever beat the game. I still have the walkthrough book on my shelf, it also includes the walkthrough for the second Underworld game.
36:00 The cup of wonder! Never did I even come close to working out how to find it! This game was my 13th birthday present, and finally 16 years later, I managed to download a modified version playable on later PC's, and after a bit of research all was revealed. Did anyone else seem convinced that the cup of wonder was tied in with the incense visions you receive? There were three of them, all featuring a cup against either a night sky, a dawn/dusk crimson sky, or a daytime blue sky.
From Bumblethebads comment above "Concerning the flute song that gives you the Cup of Wonder when you play it in the right place: you missed something. Talking to the seers will tell you that using incense will give you visions, and that there are mantras that reveal special items. If you keep using the incense you will see cups with the letters IN SA HN. They won't be in this order, but you can assemble them into the correct order using the background images which show morning, day and night. Using the mantra INSAHN at a shrine then directs you to the correct place to get the Cup."
Absolutely outstanding!!
Great video
I really want to see you do one of these for Descent to Undermountain
Bravo on the explanation about “quests” and “questing.” How I long for the glory days of infancy-RPGs: where anything goes was the only way to play due to computer limitations. Wasteland was great for that. You had your main quest, with little to no clues on how to achieve it. Just go to various towns, talk to various people, and put the clues together.
Fun fact: the 7th Ultima game pretty much canceled Wasteland's sequel Meantime
Great vid. Couple of suggestions for people looking to play: @19:20 Running jumps are indeed tricky, but something like Hot Keyboard Pro is your friend for any Mouse+Keyboard game. You can completely remap keys and create macros. I don't recall the default 'standing long jump' combination (Shift-J or something), but whatever it was I remapped it to a single key and never missed a careful jump after that. @27:40 re. combat feedback, the eyes of the gargoyle at the top of the interface provide feedback. The eyes glow green or yellow or red upon each hit to reflect the enemy's remaining health.
Ultima Underworld I & II mastered puzzle rooms.
The thing about the puzzles being ignored by using some spells isn't the real appeal of the whole immersive sim thing? I mean, the players making his own way to accomplish objectives without any restrictions should be the kind of emergent gameplay I'm looking in this kind of games. Srry my English and great to see more videos about this awesome game
here i was rewatching the wizardry and might and magics reviews for like the third time when i finally get a notice this video came out a month ago. Keep up the good work.
I'm glad Arx Fatalis came later. I never was into Ultimas 8 virtues thing. But sadly Arx went kind under the Radar of many People.
Great Vid as always
Now THIS is an Ultima retrospective!
I got the UU demo with Ultima 7 and played it over and over. As a kid I couldn't just buy any game I wanted so I never got to play the rest of UU back in the day, such a shame! Thanks for a great video.
I remember seeing this running in a shop and realising that the days of my Amiga were coming to an end.
I played this back in the 90s, and I still have my notebook (which was an absolute necessity). I'm amazed now that I was able to figure it all out, I would not be able to do it today without a walkthrough.
I think I remember the part you're talking about with the flute - IIRC it was a little "cave" in the water someone had gotten trapped, and you knew the spot because you found either a book or their belongings or something there.
Wonderful musings on quite possibly my favorite game of all time. It's excellent for someone to come along and echo the same deep feelings I had for the world of Ultima Underworld. Seems I'm not alone! I spent 30 years in search of similar gameplay experiences to recently throwing my hands up in the air, shelving the thoughts to hope one day there will be another. If the game industry explored this style of game en-masse would it feel as special to us as it does today?
Inquisitive RPG fan all the way here
I really love these retrospective reviews
Original Underworld was the very reason why I play only RPG-s until this day. Brilliant one.
Good video, thanks. Subscribed.
PS I had a ton handwritten notes for Daggerfall.
Rewatch this monthly. This video is just that good.
Actually the prison keeper on level 3 says he wants food in lizardish. And by the way you can use leeches against poison. And i love the cup of wonders ist one of the best questes. I can see you did not talk enough to people. You have to talk to the wisards, too. They will teach you to use the incense. This will give you a dream of a mantra you can chant to the shrines the rest is pretty straight forward. Most problematic for me was that i did not know that secred doors can be extra hidden and how the ability works is not explained at all do the blade was the most difficult for me. Still l love this game until today.
Found you through the King's Field IV retrospective while trying to find the Paranoid Android rip-off in its soundtrack, found some Twin Peaks stuff too and I feel right at home! :P
Solid content, just the kind I love to watch. I wish you all the best with this channel - I will be watching :)
Nifty tid-bit I haven't seen mentioned: at the end of the game, when you are in the Ethereal Void with the Slasher of Veils, the path you're supposed to take is mentioned all the way back on level one of the Abyss. There's a hidden area that can be reached from the river with some acid slugs and a crystal ball. Peering into the crystal will give you a vision of the Void and tell which path is the correct one.
Always thought that was kinda neat, giving you that hint so far from the time you'd actually need it and making it completely missable.
Damn you are good at this!
This video made me rethink, fundamentally, the whole concept of the Quest. In essence: it is the Hero's Journey.
I will incorporate this to my own tabletop rpg game I'm working on.
Enemy's do have a health bar of sorts. The gargoyle at the top of the screen has different color eyes based on enemy health Green = 90% Yellow = 50% and Red = 10%
As for the cup, a guy on level 6 mentions that inhaling incense can give visions. Doing this yourself three times gives you a vision of the cup and part of a mantra. reorganising the images based on time of day gives you a mantra that if used tells you where the cup is. above you or below and in which direction. Level 3 has 3 shrines to enable you to triangulate the cup. obvious? no but it is there
lovely video mate
you are doing great
Excellent points. Hoping to see a sequel for this video.
One of the very first games I played was an RPG type adventure game called "Master of Magic". This isn't the Master of Magic that most people think of, this was on the ZX Spectrum. I could get all the way through this, kill the monsters, get the amulet I needed to find and take it all the way back to the pedestal it needed to go on. But could I find the command to actually put the thing on the pedestal? Nope. And this was in the days before the internet, so I never did actually finish that one...
My last playthrough was a shepherd who preferred to sling a few spells before closing in with a magical dagger. I think in the end I ended up using enchanted leather armor until I stumbled upon some enchanted chainmail. Playing a lower strength class forced me to play more conservatively with weapons and armor and magic. Because I couldn't carry as much and full plate took almost all my strength to wear, I was forced to interact with more systems of the game.
Bit late to the party but glad to be here. Great video, high quality.
I watch this with the memories of Spoony's review still fresh in my brain and think "Man. someone actually tried to educate me here"
Well done.
Great video man.
Great retrospective.
lots of interesting takes in this, while i don't agree with all of them from a gamedesign perspective and there are a few minor contradictions, you raise a lot of VERY interesting points. thanks for your work.
This was awesome thanks
Incredible point about inquisitive vs acquisitive.
Read an article about ultima underworld and this cam up. Subbed.
Totally agree about exploration, today RPGs quests are pre-marked in the map, and you even have a compass marker to get to the exact point, in UU you should figure out a. where to find and b. how to solve those quests, mucho more challenging and rewarding, I miss a lot that kind of quest solving
I play this differently. Initially, I play like what the game wants me, to collect all the talismans to defeat the demon. But once I reach the Demon and looked at him, i roleplay that my character's soul is possessed by the demon. At this point, i drop all the talisman at the demon's feet and arranged it to look like I worshipped it. I then trod back up all the levels and kill every single npc as blood sacrifices to my lord and master. I also collect bones to represent i'm carrying their bodies as blood sacrifice. Once I killed everyone, I kill myself as the final blood sacrifice. :)
An idealist or a fool he may have been, but when I found myself before Sir Cabirus' final resting place I could not help but shed tears for him and his dream, Bleaker.
Very well written!
I get what you mean, but it’s funny to consider that it is a moral conundrum for players whether they should kill friendly npcs or not.
You can cure poison with leeches and potions too, the aforementioned you can find on the first level.
I think ultimately the best part of the game is the immersion from utilizing the 3D space so well, which you mentioned. I think that is something 3D games don't utilize to it's fullest potential too often. You talked about quests and all that and I totally get your point, but usually a good game is one that can be stripped to bare pieces with only the mechanics in place and it is still amusing to interact with even without story and all the immersion enhancing stuff. Games are games, not books or movies, the first thing that determines a game is the interaction part.
In Ultima Underworld, even if the controls are clunky, it is fun to explore places, avoid traps, basically just progress forward. The questing part is actually something that doesn't work that well because the main quest is not completely cohesive and you likely will get stuck eventually. The quests in this game are still mostly fun though because they make you ponder and look around.
You mentioned some additional shortcomings of the game that I tend to agree on, but the driving force of this game that overshadows those little downsides, is the immersion of being a traveller in a dark dungeon, which naturally the use of graphics, controls and level design together create. Also they certainly thought carefully almost every part of the levels to keep the player always thinking and aware.
First time I played it in 1993 or so, I killed basically everybody on the upper floors, and set my headquarters up in the throne room of the dwarf king. Well ... headquarters ... in the end it became more like a warehouse.
Great video
Just found your channel. It’s fucking awesome. Easy sub!
Whoa, do not hit me with young Jennifer Connelly out of the blue like that. I completely forgot what kind of a point you were making there ;)
I'd love to see you check out the Pathologic series, although it isn't quite what I'd call a roleplaying game series.
about 36:20 The mantra altars in each level give you clues about where to play the flute, there is special mantra (I can't remeber right now), and each of the level altairs give you indications like "north east" from here, then you should intersect all the indications of all the levels in order to get the place, but you are right that one was the most difficult of all the riddles in the game
Michael I got a question: do you know how I could create mechanics to emulate "The Quest" for a inqusitive tabletop rpg?
how do so many people miss the gargoyles eyes above the play screen? the enemies health is shown there! green eyes = high health, orange = mid health, red eyes = almost dead. btw, love this video, well done
its in the book as as i recall. (i did buy this game as a kid new... part 2 was much more of an adventure in my mind)
edit: the 1st comment below mine says the same 1 year ago, bravo
Wish they updated the graphics of this masterpiece :)
A lot of nostalgia in this video but I really appreciated it nonetheless :)
#22:21 "How it makes you feel later on". I can honestly say Ultima Underworld is one of the few games that I play over and over again since 1992. There is no RPG out there that achieved that.
Great vid. One gripe - why did you use console footage for Ultima 4?
I thought it looked nicer that's all.
Storage is actually nearly unlimited as you can put bags inside of bags infinitely
30:00 - If you killed the wrong NPC on level 2, you could get 20 hours farther in and find out you made it impossible to finish the game.
I played the game! And I rewatched the video. So… it sounds like you found this game to be extremely immersive, which is valuable.
But even though you kept talking about how good the game was, you also constantly described how many problems it has.
Playing this recently, I found that it really doesn’t age well. It’s just so filled with traps - not like a D&D trap, but mechanical traps. There are useless skills, game engine mechanics that are totally unclear, and the combat itself is pretty pointless and unpredictable. Being immersive and realistic certainly doesn’t make it good or fun.
Also, saying that this is the first action rpg erases many years of action RPGs made in Japan. I hear this argument often made by westerners. Not sure why. Maybe it’s just unfamiliarity with international media?
I still appreciate what the game did for immersive sims and the genre. Lovely vid
Great game!
Funny how you mentioned the jumping sucking part, and i gave up on the part you mentioned for being unable to make that exact jump.
Agreed about darksouls 2 and one of the reasons its classed as the bad one when compared to the excellent level design of the original.
excellent review. UW1 is the best RPG videogame ever made
Instead of Underworld Ascendant, I would've really just liked a reboot of the original game.
Aw yeah, more comfy
“It reminds me I’m playing a game” I don’t mind that feeling with older games, but newer games for sure it’s bland. Kinda hard to not feel like you aren’t playing a game when you play this
Any chance of a video on the successes and failures of Underworld 2
I thought about making a video on that but I kind of already said what I had to say about the series here. Maybe in the future though I might change my mind.