Ultima™ 1+2+3

Ultima I is a bit of a slog, honestly, but nonetheless an amazing game, establishing many conventions of the genre, certainly a must-play for any CRPG fan. Ultima II is a bit of a letdown, with cryptic puzzles and grindy gameplay reaching it's ugly peak in this installment, give it a try but if you find yourself getting burned out playing it, skip it and move onto Ultima III: Exodus, undoubtedly the best of the first trilogy and worth the price tag on it's own. The complaints against the game are somewhat absurd, really. Admittedly, these games don't have much in the way of narrative, but if you're playing for a story, you're playing the wrong game. Gameplay is king here, and it reaches it's apex in Exodus.

These are some of the earliest CRPGs I ever played. I originally played Ultima I on an Apple ][ computer in my school's computer lab. Talk about going way back! Of this first trilogy Ultima III was my favorite, and like others have said, this trilogy is not as good as the second one (IV through VI) but these were still amazing games back when they were created, there was nothing like them on any platform. These are truly classics in every sense of the word. Just remember tho, these are VERY old games and gameplay in them is nothing like that of today, read the manuals and dive in and prepare for a journey through history.

This whole package is a really mixed bag. Ultima 1 is fun enough for most of a normal playthrough because it's simple. Ultima 2 is a grindfest. Ultima 3 has the most tedious battle system I've seen in an RPG. I finished Ultima 1 and 2 and played some Ultima 3 and 4. Ultima 3 and 4 especially are super fun to talk with people to gather information. If Ultima 1 and 2 had more of that without the awful battle system from 3 and 4, they would've been great even by today's standards. But since talking with people isn't much of what you do, mixed with confusing hints, you fight more than anything else. Ultima 1 and 2 have a super simple battle system, which works alright. You press A and a direction and attack monsters on the world map. You either hit or miss. In Ultima 3 and 4, you enter a new screen when touching an enemy. The gameplay is a grid based strategy RPG. But... without the strategy You can only do one thing every turn. Moving one tile or attacking once or casting one spell. Enemies are pretty far away from you so you waste a lot of time getting close. With melee characters. It's a must to mainly use ranged weapons to not waste too much time on one battle. Missing your attacks makes the battle system even worse. Ultima 3 has 4 characters you control and that's tedious enough. But imagine starting with Ultima 4, like most people recommend. Where you control 8 characters by the end of the game. With the same horrible gameplay. The only true qualities these games have is talking with people to get information and the fact it's an open world game that makes use of the open world. And there's not enough of that to keep you engaged even in Ultima 4. Let alone Ultima 1-3.

The first two games are a bit odd with you starting out with swords and chainmail and then eventually getting ray guns and spaceships. Kind of curiosity games really, but Ultima 3 is actually a really fun game. It still has a bit of that sci-fi mashup at the end of the game, but it isn't as detracting. You can play the first game as is, but you'd really be best served installing the updates for 2 and 3 located at this website: http://exodus.voyd.net/ Ultima 2 really benefits with having EGA graphics added so that it doesn't look like a downgrade from Ultima 1. Ultima 3 is given VGA graphics which look pretty nice as well as music, which is always nice. Ultima 3 has arguably one of the best class systems of any Ultima game that I've played thus far. I'd say that Ultima 3 alone is worth getting this package, but the other two games can be interesting to play if you want to see how everything started out.

I loved all these early Ultima games, and it's nice to see them for sale to enjoy. I originally played Ultima 3 (my first CRPG) on the Atari 800 computer, and I remember how wonderful the music and sound effects were. So I was very disappointed to see there's NO music in the version for sale here on GOG. I'm guessing it's the Apple version. It's nice these games are available, I just wish someone had taken the trouble to ensure that the best version of each game was made avaialble, regardless of platform.