What good memories this brings back. Christmas 1985, playing this into the wee hours as a 13 year old kid, sharing ideas with friends in my neighborhood. Then later in machine language learning how to hack the game and change the text of what the characters say 😂😂 but this music is the best part.
@Unorus Janco I only owned Ultima IV (for Atari 800XL), and I remember the Fanfare, but I couldn't remember when I heard it. I thought it was when you entered Lord British's castle.
Oh man, you missed out - the music made it an unforgettable experience, burning a certain kind of feeling into your mind across many, many hours of play
My family got this game for Christmas, 1985. Me and 3 older brothers. It practically caused a frenzy among us that day. I think there was fighting over rights to use the C64. I still remember the 'town' music with the animations of the monsters struggling at their chains. I've never anticipated a game so much before, nor will again.
The Sega Master System's version of Town is also very good. It had a more comforting and nostalgic tone to it than the Apple II's more uplifting beat and tone that i love so much
I was one of the rare owners of an AE Phasor card, the 12-voice card which predated even the Soundblaster, making it the highest-quality soundcard available on any computer at the time. It had a Mockingboard-compatible mode (unfortunately necessitating flipping a switch on the card itself) which I took advantage of when playing Ultima IV and Skyfox. Also made a lot if 12-voice tunes for myself. ;p
Fascinating! I had never heard of this sound card. 12 voices! That's utterly insane for the time! I have to look up this card and hopefully some music for it has been uploaded. Ever considered uploading your 12 voice compositions? You'd get plenty of views from audiophiles and geeks like me that enjoyed having sound beyond the standard. I was one of the first proud owners of the Gravis Ultrasound when it came out for the PC, upgraded to the full 1mb for maximum wavetable goodness. It's SBOS SoundBlaster emulation was iffy, but games that supported the card directly sounded SO good it was worth the headache for every other game to get working.,
@@exidy-yt I have thought about it from time to time, since yes, I expect I'm one of probably fewer than a dozen people in the world who ever legitimately tinkered with the music app that came with the card. The music app was the whole reason I wanted it. (Conveniently, a fellow made a video showcasing the specific demo song I obsessed over as a kid, "Plastic Forks". It's not direct audio but you get the idea. th-cam.com/video/feR0sifbEt0/w-d-xo.html) I still have my songs (rescued them from diskette) and the old AppleWin actually supports emulating the Phasor, if a little shakily. Tons of NES / arcade music recreations, sometimes inaccurate due to being from memory. But really too busy at the moment. Talking of the GUS, I too was an early adopter. I helped the guy who made the GUS's MOD player iron out the inaccuracies. I also beta-tested the world's first 32-channel tracker, called Extreme Tracker at the time, eventually renamed to Velvet Studio and then, I suppose, vanished from the earth. Far as I know, I made the first 32-track MOD. (Scavenged a lot of the MIDI samples the GUS shipped with, since it was always difficult to find good samples for MODs.) Game support for the GUS never really reached a fever pitch, but it was nice while it lasted.
I love these old soundcards that have more than three voices; it really makes a difference. As great as SID was, the three voice limitation still held it back as you couldn't really do proper chords and an accompaniment.
@@GustafStechmann It has 6 channels (one mockingboard). Listen to the Dungeon and Castle pieces for the richest chords. It also uses the extra channels for reverb so that decaying notes aren't just silenced by the next note. Ultima V goes further and will use two mockingboards, but only uses 9 out of the 12 channels.
Remember I'd enjoy the music at the Shrine of Justice for hours on end, something about it just was unforgettable, I was awful at puzzle solving things this difficult as a kid but damn if I didn't enjoy every minute of trying.
While I agree that this (original) version of the soundtrack has a special charm of its own, I don't think the MIDI ports are as bad as the description suggests. With a decent soundfont (such as GeneralUser), it sounds great on DOSBox.
As a note, Dosbox-X's MT32 emulation also makes it sound better. The MT32 instruments fit the compositions better than General MIDI (For Ultima 5's OST, the MT32 version actually sounds quite similar to the Apple II Phasor versions. Not the Mockingboard ones sure, but still good).
There are some patches out there that add music to the MS-DOS version (plus some pretty nifty graphics-upgrades, too): www.moongates.com/u4/upgrade/upgrade.htm
@@DropTehBazzIm really sorry for replying so late but there's a EGA version of the patch that imo looks much better than the VGA version and is more faithful to the original. It's included in Ultima Patcher by Pix also i recommend the Sega Master System if you want music plus a better more official graphical upgrade than the EGA and VGA upgrades
Nice work posting this! I had plans to eventually record all of these tracks from my Mockingboard for TH-cam, but now I see I might not have to. Thanks!
With the direction the series is now and how out of touch Richard Garriot is nowadays a remake would probably ruin the whole game entirely. A faithful remake is possible but for the love of god let it be anybody else other than EA, but even that is impossible considering they still held the damn IP of the series. I wish Ultima didn't die and got as much sequels as Final Fantasy does, in a way Final Fantasy represent what Ultima could've been if only the developers were still passionate about what they make
Lol. 7 minutes of music on this game I must have played for 100's of hours on my SMS (the best version?). Thunderforce 4: maximum 40 minutes to play through the whole game... 1:30 hours of music. Still have these tunes on my head after 25 years though.
Agree that the SMS version is absolutely the best one, purely for 2 reasons: much limited palette makes much more consistent looking graphics, and the limited controls means the game is so much more accessible and easier to play than the PC keyboard version, without losing any of the depth
Absolutely the best version. The only thing you could consider lost are the 3d dungeons. I like 3d dungeon crawling but it was just fine exploring the dungeons of Britannia in overhead view.
@@donov25The 3d dungeons were nice for their time but jarring and clunky gameplay-wise since you're so used to the overhead view. Another nitpick about it is how much harder it is to spot hidden walls so i much prefer the overhead view from SMS
This video is somewhat maddening. It's the C64's graphics but not the C64 music. The mockingboard makes this soundtrack sound more like the Bard's Tale music than how the music sounds on the C64
Funny how this game is still so great, yet it doesn't rely on AAA title graphics. It tells us much about how we connect with things on an emotional level.
Dammit. Played Ultima, Ultima II and Ultima III - now I'm finally at this title, but can't play because I've no musics - even if I use the Ultima Patcher! :( Runs fine otherwise; EGA and with 600-800 cycles on DOSBox the speed seems good as well. Sounds nice. Shitttt.
Thanks for the wonderful memories! I played thenxrap outa this game. I got it pirates and took the time to create a map of the whole world. Many hours wasted. 🤣
One of the very few games with no end boss....except where you would expect that end boss be, you only find a nerfed down mirror image of your own party. Your own biggest adversary proved to be....YOURSELF...or at least I think that is what this game wanted to say.
The Mockingboard really was a great sound-card for the Apple II. I still prefer the way the SID chip's waveforms sound (not to mention was included on the already far cheaper C64 without buying a sound card for an already overpriced Apple II) but this version has it's own charm with the extra voice. Some of the tracks are weaker tho, the castle theme in particular, but the dungeon theme is great.
interesting to hear the subtle differences between these originals and the C64 versions. on the Sega Master System, for some reason they changed some of the melodies, much to the worse. a pity because the SMS version of the game is great otherwise
What good memories this brings back. Christmas 1985, playing this into the wee hours as a 13 year old kid, sharing ideas with friends in my neighborhood. Then later in machine language learning how to hack the game and change the text of what the characters say 😂😂 but this music is the best part.
Lol I did that too - I changed the conversations of the NPCs, built my own towns, built bridges across the continents, etc etc - great fun!
Everytime i listen to this i feel a nostalgia feeling from a time which i didn't live in
Very beautiful compositions.
Kenneth W. Arnold is a genius.
God i couldnt wait until the game hit my door matt, opened it up and had that fab cloth map! Loved the music, game was epic for its day.
The cloth map was awesome!
I played this game so much it burned the UI into the monitor.
LOL not sure if you are joking, but this really happened to me xDDD
Dang!!!
Those days, when this was a modern game, I knew nothing about monitors. I only had my TV screen.
epic
So wonderfull, still my favourite R. Garriot title overall. I still play it on my c64
One of the all-time great games!
"In another world, in a time to come"
I have it for my Master System II. The music is the same!
'Wanderer' is my favourite.
0:00 - Towns 1:34 - Shopping 2:09 - Dungeon 3:09 - Castle 4:03 - Rule Brittannia 4:39 - Wanderer 5:27 - Combat 5:51 - Shrines 6:29 - Fanfare of Lord British
At what point during gameplay do you hear the Fanfare of Lord British?
@Unorus Janco I only owned Ultima IV (for Atari 800XL), and I remember the Fanfare, but I couldn't remember when I heard it. I thought it was when you entered Lord British's castle.
I'm not sure, but I think it plays when you're in camp or sleeping at an inn?
Music was so simple but so cool at the same time. Loved these games on my old C64 and would play them for hours.
I only played the DOS version. Didn't know there was any music at all. This is good stuff!
Oh man, you missed out - the music made it an unforgettable experience, burning a certain kind of feeling into your mind across many, many hours of play
Did you know that there are patches so it will play on modern Windows machines and it includes music?
Towns is the best opening music of any of the games.
My family got this game for Christmas, 1985. Me and 3 older brothers. It practically caused a frenzy among us that day. I think there was fighting over rights to use the C64. I still remember the 'town' music with the animations of the monsters struggling at their chains. I've never anticipated a game so much before, nor will again.
The Sega Master System's version of Town is also very good. It had a more comforting and nostalgic tone to it than the Apple II's more uplifting beat and tone that i love so much
These soundtracks bring back so much memory :)
Dungeons sure were creepy places in all Ultimas but 2:09 soundtrack did a good job emphasizing the creepiness.
I'll randomly catch myself humming "Wanderer" ever since I was a ten year old.
Back then I spent what must have been literal weeks wandering Britannia
I’m the same. I’m 53 now and find myself always whistling the wandering and combat tunes. They’ve been burned into my brain.
I was one of the rare owners of an AE Phasor card, the 12-voice card which predated even the Soundblaster, making it the highest-quality soundcard available on any computer at the time. It had a Mockingboard-compatible mode (unfortunately necessitating flipping a switch on the card itself) which I took advantage of when playing Ultima IV and Skyfox. Also made a lot if 12-voice tunes for myself. ;p
but afaik the DOS version of U4 doesn't have music?
Can't speak for DOS. The Phasor (and Mockingboard) cards were for the Apple II series of computers.
Wow, Skyfox! Spent a lot of time on that game as well as Ultima IV and V.
Fascinating! I had never heard of this sound card. 12 voices! That's utterly insane for the time! I have to look up this card and hopefully some music for it has been uploaded. Ever considered uploading your 12 voice compositions? You'd get plenty of views from audiophiles and geeks like me that enjoyed having sound beyond the standard. I was one of the first proud owners of the Gravis Ultrasound when it came out for the PC, upgraded to the full 1mb for maximum wavetable goodness. It's SBOS SoundBlaster emulation was iffy, but games that supported the card directly sounded SO good it was worth the headache for every other game to get working.,
@@exidy-yt I have thought about it from time to time, since yes, I expect I'm one of probably fewer than a dozen people in the world who ever legitimately tinkered with the music app that came with the card. The music app was the whole reason I wanted it. (Conveniently, a fellow made a video showcasing the specific demo song I obsessed over as a kid, "Plastic Forks". It's not direct audio but you get the idea. th-cam.com/video/feR0sifbEt0/w-d-xo.html) I still have my songs (rescued them from diskette) and the old AppleWin actually supports emulating the Phasor, if a little shakily. Tons of NES / arcade music recreations, sometimes inaccurate due to being from memory. But really too busy at the moment.
Talking of the GUS, I too was an early adopter. I helped the guy who made the GUS's MOD player iron out the inaccuracies. I also beta-tested the world's first 32-channel tracker, called Extreme Tracker at the time, eventually renamed to Velvet Studio and then, I suppose, vanished from the earth. Far as I know, I made the first 32-track MOD. (Scavenged a lot of the MIDI samples the GUS shipped with, since it was always difficult to find good samples for MODs.) Game support for the GUS never really reached a fever pitch, but it was nice while it lasted.
I love these old soundcards that have more than three voices; it really makes a difference. As great as SID was, the three voice limitation still held it back as you couldn't really do proper chords and an accompaniment.
this version only has 3 channels afaik
@@GustafStechmann It has 6 channels (one mockingboard). Listen to the Dungeon and Castle pieces for the richest chords. It also uses the extra channels for reverb so that decaying notes aren't just silenced by the next note. Ultima V goes further and will use two mockingboards, but only uses 9 out of the 12 channels.
I finished this game on the Atari 800 XL but man, there was no music! I would have loved to play this with music.
Remember I'd enjoy the music at the Shrine of Justice for hours on end, something about it just was unforgettable, I was awful at puzzle solving things this difficult as a kid but damn if I didn't enjoy every minute of trying.
Even though I had an Apple IIc as a child, I had friends with C64s. No soundboard for me, so nostalgia came from the computer I never owned.
While I agree that this (original) version of the soundtrack has a special charm of its own, I don't think the MIDI ports are as bad as the description suggests. With a decent soundfont (such as GeneralUser), it sounds great on DOSBox.
As a note, Dosbox-X's MT32 emulation also makes it sound better. The MT32 instruments fit the compositions better than General MIDI (For Ultima 5's OST, the MT32 version actually sounds quite similar to the Apple II Phasor versions. Not the Mockingboard ones sure, but still good).
Loved this game!
after 14 years... I still never finished this game. Still, I´d give the soundtrack 10/10 and the game itself I´d rate 9/10
LOL man you suck. I was able to finish in 18,000 moves on the 2nd try. But hey, don't give up... One day...
Loved playing to this on my mockingboard. My fav ultima title
Listening to this on infinite loop while playing the music-less DOS version. :(
There are some patches out there that add music to the MS-DOS version (plus some pretty nifty graphics-upgrades, too):
www.moongates.com/u4/upgrade/upgrade.htm
@@nisus8 Is there a patch that only includes the music, and not the graphical changes?
oh god yeah. tried to play GOG's U4...i just couldnt do it
@@DropTehBazzIm really sorry for replying so late but there's a EGA version of the patch that imo looks much better than the VGA version and is more faithful to the original. It's included in Ultima Patcher by Pix also i recommend the Sega Master System if you want music plus a better more official graphical upgrade than the EGA and VGA upgrades
Nice work posting this! I had plans to eventually record all of these tracks from my Mockingboard for TH-cam, but now I see I might not have to. Thanks!
...It was all we had back then! *cries hard*
Well this is the kind of game they should remake.
absolutely agreed here. This is definitely on my TOP3 fav games ever
Someone remake the entire game!
Ultima Forever.
Damn straight! Come on Beamdog....quit re-making recent games and re-make this classic.
With the direction the series is now and how out of touch Richard Garriot is nowadays a remake would probably ruin the whole game entirely. A faithful remake is possible but for the love of god let it be anybody else other than EA, but even that is impossible considering they still held the damn IP of the series. I wish Ultima didn't die and got as much sequels as Final Fantasy does, in a way Final Fantasy represent what Ultima could've been if only the developers were still passionate about what they make
As Richard said himself "back when game developers had to make their OWN engine".
The one dislike must be Mondain's skull that was thrown into the Abyss.
Nice!! Lol.
the tune is so lovely ... also I like your user name ;-)
Lol. 7 minutes of music on this game I must have played for 100's of hours on my SMS (the best version?). Thunderforce 4: maximum 40 minutes to play through the whole game... 1:30 hours of music. Still have these tunes on my head after 25 years though.
Agree that the SMS version is absolutely the best one, purely for 2 reasons: much limited palette makes much more consistent looking graphics, and the limited controls means the game is so much more accessible and easier to play than the PC keyboard version, without losing any of the depth
Yeah def the best version. I spit on the NES version *ptooo*!
Absolutely the best version. The only thing you could consider lost are the 3d dungeons. I like 3d dungeon crawling but it was just fine exploring the dungeons of Britannia in overhead view.
@@donov25The 3d dungeons were nice for their time but jarring and clunky gameplay-wise since you're so used to the overhead view. Another nitpick about it is how much harder it is to spot hidden walls so i much prefer the overhead view from SMS
Anyone else do the exploit by inserting the dungeon disk in the wilderness and get an never ending chest ? ? ? ?
How much was a mockingboard back then? I played without music.
キャラメイクが面白かったね。自分はFM-77でプレイしました。
4:38-5:26…懐かしくて涙が…そうだ、まだクリアしてなかった！
+SirPenfro
なんと、マイナー派だと思ってた私と同じFM-77ユーザーが居るとはw
友人から譲り受けたFM-77D2(FM-77AVではないw)に音源ボード載せてプレイしました。
ホント、懐かしいですね！
+Keiichi Katoh
同士発見。周りはFM7系が多かったからその影響を受けましたね。
なお同梱のアンクにはシルバーのチェーンを付けアクセサリーにし、マップを兼ねたハンカチは額縁に入れております。
This video is somewhat maddening. It's the C64's graphics but not the C64 music. The mockingboard makes this soundtrack sound more like the Bard's Tale music than how the music sounds on the C64
Funny how this game is still so great, yet it doesn't rely on AAA title graphics. It tells us much about how we connect with things on an emotional level.
Lovely!
nice music
Dammit. Played Ultima, Ultima II and Ultima III - now I'm finally at this title, but can't play because I've no musics - even if I use the Ultima Patcher! :( Runs fine otherwise; EGA and with 600-800 cycles on DOSBox the speed seems good as well. Sounds nice. Shitttt.
Try using xu4.
Thanks for the wonderful memories! I played thenxrap outa this game. I got it pirates and took the time to create a map of the whole world. Many hours wasted. 🤣
foi o primeiro rpg sandbox que joguei...
One of the very few games with no end boss....except where you would expect that end boss be, you only find a nerfed down mirror image of your own party. Your own biggest adversary proved to be....YOURSELF...or at least I think that is what this game wanted to say.
Sorry I'm picking teams here. The composition is obviously great but the Commodore version kicks ass on the Apple.
good
The Mockingboard really was a great sound-card for the Apple II. I still prefer the way the SID chip's waveforms sound (not to mention was included on the already far cheaper C64 without buying a sound card for an already overpriced Apple II) but this version has it's own charm with the extra voice. Some of the tracks are weaker tho, the castle theme in particular, but the dungeon theme is great.
interesting to hear the subtle differences between these originals and the C64 versions. on the Sega Master System, for some reason they changed some of the melodies, much to the worse. a pity because the SMS version of the game is great otherwise
good stuff!
Press key B C D O or T then 1 2 3 or 4
Commodore 64 version trumps the Apple Version Any day. But this isn't all bad
Aug 27, 2024. 20:15. 666metalmidget posted this and there are 665 likes. Really hope it gets bumped to 666 soon