Okay, took a few days, but finally got a start on Underworld 2. Mouselook patch helps with the controls, but still getting used to it.

Spent a long time running around the castle, grabbing stuff, eventually talking to Lord British, as well others, including Iolo, Dupre, too lazy to help this time. Took WAY too long to find the sewers. Would have been nice if Dupre had mentioned it was behind a secret door. Still working my way through the sewers, killing a lot, but not everything I have seen (and fortunately I talked to the goblins, before attacking something I should not have) made one trip back, learning the disappointment that Lord British is too useless to heal for the first time since U4. Wish I had more torches, I'm on my last one and need to sleep to heal.

I assume there are more than 8 levels in this game, since I'm already at 5.

i believe in my heart of hearts that the proper successor to the Guardian in Ultimas up to UW2 is not the Guardian of later Ultima games but rather SHODAN of the System Shock games. same character or role as the Guardian of UW2, developed by the same team as i understand, just with a different name.

FYI, there is a magic way to repair items. If you're diligent enough about reading all notes and experimenting with runes you find written down, or grouped together in bags or boxes, you can discover some undocumented spells. The "repair" or "mending" spell is one of those spells.

Got distracted from the game a bit there, back to it now. Tomb is done, working may way through the void, three out four colors done. Purple is last. The section that looks like an Ultima 1 dungeon is kind of cute. Apparently a cute joke by the Guardian, due the gate to it in being the shape of his head.

And Ulnderworld 2, and thus the main Ultima story, is finally finished. Will probably do Underworld 1 next, while I’m still used to the system.

So late update there. Not sure how much I am going to both with the remaining spin-offs. Underworld 1 I essentially cleared the first level but haven’t gone further, just have not found it as appealing as Underworld 2 (and not as much of a fan of somewhat randomness of using shrines to improve the character rather than trainers, though trainers would naturally have been more difficult to include in that one). And I just couldn’t really get past the intros in either World of Ultima games.

Instead went back to Serpent Isle, the only main series game I skipped before, due to beating it a quite while back, that I liked enough to replay (unlikely to do the same with 8 or 9). Did everything in Monitor and Fawn. This time I decided to do some and if possible all of Silver Seed before Sleeping Bull and especially Moonshade. It’s been a long time, but I believe last time I made a point of waiting until I got to Monk Isle to get the Amulet of Balance,

Got 3 of 4 orbs and the most desired items (Helm of Light and especially the Ring of Reagents). Though I am less certain I can deal with Aram-Dol and finish Silver Seed in my current state.

If by "randomness" you mean using one of the three mantras found on the walls by that one shrine on Level 1, then be aware that you can find specific mantras for each skill as you traverse the Abyss.

If you don't find it appealing though, then there isn't much of a cure for that.

IMO, Underworld 1 was better than Underworld 2, and was a bit less random. But yes, to Bookwyrm627's point, later on in the game you'll be able to learn mantras that can improve a specific attribute. Some from entities, some from scrolls, some from books, some just written on a wall. There's a lot of exploration involved and figuring out how the world works in Underworld 1.

There's a way to cheese past Aram-Dol by arming every single character with bows and magic arrows (you can get unlimited numbers of them from the Arachnians). A few characters may still die when the room of Fire Fields appears about you, but you can also cheese past that by saving first and making sure your Avatar is the first one to die, which cause you to revive at the healer's with all of your party members intact. Then, when you go back to Aram Dol, the door to the south of the throne room has been unlocked (automatically happens when the Fire Fields are summoned), so you can just walk through that door to reach Aram-Dol instead of walking through the Fire Fields, and fight him. Just save beforehand again, since if he casts invisible on himself, you're pretty much stuck since you don't have a spellbook to cast Reveal. I was able to beat Aram-Dol on the hardest Exult difficulty using that strategy, without having increased a single attribute for any of my characters, and without having a spellbook.

That will probably be worth trying. Got the bows, but depending on how many arrows I need, may have to take time to drop things, the characters were all close to weight limit.

Did not grab a huge amount of arrows, but thankfully it was enough to kill him after a few reloads to avoid either him going invisible or party members dying in the fire.

Great that you're logging your progress. I've just started UW1 (well on level 5) for about the 4th time in my life. Hopefully I'll finish it this time. I remember the last time I got all the way to the bottom only to find out I had to keep the talismans. That's one aspect I find annoying, you can basically break your game by doing something like throwing away or losing a vital object. But otherwise, UW1 and U7, thumbs up!