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Ultima is a series of fantasy computer role-playing games from Origin Systems, Inc.. Ultima was created by Richard Garriott, a.k.a. Lord British. Several games of the series are considered seminal games of their genre. Today, Electronic Arts holds the brand.
Overview
Ultima tells the story of a hero that would be summoned by the ruler of a world known first as Sosaria, later as Britannia, whenever problems would arise and put in danger the peace of the land. The leader of that world is called Lord British, and his pleas would be answered by a stranger coming from a world known only as Earth. As time passed, that hero would overcome several obstacles and fight several entities (both in Britannia and in other planes), and gain the title of Avatar, becoming the embodiment of all virtues.
The Ultima series can be divided in two parts. While the first three games (the "Age of Darkness" trilogy) are the usual "kill the evil overlord" fantasy games, the later ones added an innovative moral element, in that the character had to excel at the eight virtues of honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality and humility. Most of the virtues are loosely based on the Chivalry code of knighthood (but without any explicit Christianity), although Garriott took some ideas from the movie The Wizard of Oz as well.
Ultima I-V were originally developed on and released for the Apple II family of computers. All the games from Ultima VI on were developed on IBM PC compatible machines. The earlier Ultima games were ported to many computer types, including 8-bit Atari (Ultima I-IV), Atari ST (Ultima II-VI), Commodore 64 (Ultima I-VI), Commodore Amiga (Ultima III-VI) and IBM PC (Ultima I-V).
The Ultima games were also famous for the goodies included in the game boxes. From Ultima II on, every main Ultima game came with a cloth map of the game world. Starting with Ultima IV, small trinkets like pendants, coins and magic stones were found in the boxes. Made of metal or glass, they usually represented an important object also found within the game itself.
The main games of the series are a trilogy of trilogies. The three trilogies are known as The Age of Darkness, The Age of Enlightenment, and The Age of Armageddon (also known as The Guardian Saga).
The creator, Richard Garriott, no longer owns the rights to the game, nor participates in the development.
There is also a substantial community of Ultima fans known as the Ultima Dragons.
The games
The original series
The Age of Darkness
The Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Armageddon (The Guardian Saga)
Other Ultima games
Ultima Online series (1997)
- See the main article Ultima Online
A MMORPG version of the world of Britannia. In Ultima Online, thousands of players interact online in Britannia. See Ultima Online for more information.
UO spawned two sequel efforts that were cancelled before release: Ultima Worlds Online: Origin (cancelled in 2001) and Ultima X (cancelled in 2004). However, several expansions were released for Ultima Online, adding new features and areas to be explored. They are The Second Age, Renaissance, Third Dawn, Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, Age of Shadows and Samurai Empire.
Console games
Console versions of Ultima have allowed further exposure to the series, especially in Japan, where the Famicom ports have supposedly inspired the Dragon Quest series, and manga based on Ultima. In most cases, gameplay and graphics have been changed significantly.
- Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash (Commodore Vic-20) — Designed by Keith Zabalaoui, a friend of Richard Garriott, in Coarse Gold, California. Published by On-line Systems (later Sierra) around the same time as Akalabeth. Related to Ultima in name only. Creatures called Garrintrots have imprisoned the main character, who must fight through Mt. Drash in order to escape. Extraordinarily unsuccessful at the time, and thus extraordinarily rare today.
- Ultima: Exodus (NES)
- Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (NES, Master System)
- Ultima: Warriors of Destiny (NES)
- Ultima: Runes of Virtue (Game Boy) — Non-canonical, action based gameplay and puzzle solving. The antagonist is called the "Black Knight."
- Ultima: Runes of Virtue 2 (Game Boy, SNES)
- Ultima: The False Prophet (SNES) — Gameplay adapted for the game pad. Includes plot changes and reduction in violence.
- Ultima: The Black Gate (SNES) — Gameplay adapted for the game pad. Includes plot changes and reduction in violence.
- Ultima: The Savage Empire (SNES) — A graphical update using the Black Gate engine for the SNES. Japan only, cancelled in the US.
Related projects
Many communities of dedicated programmers have taken it upon themselves to patch the old Ultima games to run under modern operating systems, or to remake and/or revise their cherished series with modern gaming engines. This is a partial listing of them:
Engine rewrite projects
- Ultima Classics Revisited (http://ucr.exahost.net/) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable engine, currently covering Akalabeth (complete) and Ultima I (partial).
- u3project (http://www.u3project.com/) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable Ultima III engine.
- xu4 (http://xu4.sourceforge.net) - An open-source, portable Ultima IV engine.
- nu5 (http://nu5.sourceforge.net) - A planned open-source, portable Ultima V engine.
- Nuvie (http://nuvie.sourceforge.net) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable Ultima VI engine (works with Savage Empire and Martian Dreams, too).
- Exult (website (http://exult.sourceforge.net)) - An open-source, portable Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Serpent Isle engine (works with the expansions as well).
- Pentagram (website (http://pentagram.sourceforge.net)) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable Ultima VIII engine (may later work with Crusader games, too).
- Underworld Adventures (http://uwadv.sourceforge.net) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable Ultima Underworld engine.
- The System Shock Hack Project (http://tsshp.sourceforge.net) - An open-source, work-in-progress portable Ultima Underworld (and System Shock) engine.
Remakes and new games
- Ultima V Lazarus (http://www.u5lazarus.com) - A remake of Ultima V by voluntary programmers using the Microsoft Dungeon Siege engine. Currently in beta stage (2004).
- Titans of Ether (http://ultima.cfkasper.de/) merges two former development efforts, both based on Morrowind game engine. Ultima IX: Redemption is an effort to create an alternative Ultima IX, writing a new ending to the series "for the fans". Ultima: The New King is a planned new adventure chronologically set after Ultima IX.
Major and recurring characters
See also
External links
Ultima is also the name for the game originally known as Baroque chess.
In the Final Fantasy console RPGs, Ultima is a powerful magical spell, usually the most powerful spell in the game. There are also weapons and/or monsters called "Ultima Weapon" in several of the more recent instalments in the series.
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