Worlds of Ultima™: The Savage Empire

This is one of those Ultima-engine games that I want to like but the heavy jungle foliage makes it very difficult to tell what it is you are actually fighting most of the time, and your status and that of your enemy is difficult to discern at a glance, so its hard to be immersed in what you're doing. You'll be attacked from some unknown angle and then some creature half obscured by green foliage pixels will attack you for entering into its aggro zone. The story and setting are actually rather nice, but its very hard for me to give this game a good rating due to the muddy and choppy graphics and confusing scenery. I'm not sure if I can really blame Origin for this with the engine they had to work with -- but Martian Dreams just ends up being more playable for me due to the setting.

The Savage Empire sure had interesting ideas, and the potential for being quite awesome. Sadly, it turned out to be quite the dissapointment. You will spend most of the game wandering around samey looking environments (and I mean literally identical, for the developers copy pasted a few blocks of assets throughout the entire map) fighting very little and doing very little other than errands. That is The Savage Empire at it's core: an errand boy simulator. But are these errands any interesting or varied? No. You go from here to there and from there to here collecting stuff, killing stuff, talking to stuff... Combat is often obnoxius but inexplicably scarce. And conversation are very rarely any amusing in any way. I always felt as if the game was taking me somewhere where things would finally get interesting, but it never really happened. Storytelling? Who needs that? Now to be honest, if you read the papers that come with the game like I did, you will find a lot of nit stuff that is just a pleasure to read. But you don't have to play the game to see that! It is too bad that they put so much effort into making manuals and cluebooks but so little into actually making the game. This game is WAY too repetitive and monotous. Only a bunch of good ideas poorly implemented. Now, people here on the review section lie or are confused about some things. Parrots are not the only enemy to leave loot. Everyone has a name (not always unique). No, you can't level up your skills. You CAN tell which plants act as walls and which do not, you only have to get to know them. No, Tristia's dialogue is NOT bugged, you just have to answer N (no) to her question and that's it. There ARE random encounters. You can know where you are if you just look at the map (it's on the cluebook). Seriously, did people even play this game at all? Don't believe most of the negative reviews, for they are, simply put, a bunch of crap.

The version above is Savage Empire v1.6 but not the most recent v2.1! The version number can be found in Game.exe, look for string "Version".

Don't look at the game es a continuation of the main Ultima series. Instead, look at it like for example a Final Fantasy game, where there are certain motives and game mechanics are used but the story is self contained. And what a story it is! It's Lost Valley scenario is fresh, the setting is very detailed and a lot of fun. The world is a little smaller than Britannia but that minimizes backtracking to a certain extend. The basic interface of Ultima VI has been slightly improved - including a sort-of questlog: Your companion Jimmy keeps track of everything you need to do without being too detailed. And, of course, being an Ultima game you have all the freedom you want - including really great crafting mechanics and interaction with your surroundings. Add interesting characters, an open quest structure where you are free to solve most of the quests in any order, a solid combat system with underused enemy-types, and a pretty presentation (with detailed VGA graphics and a beautiful Roland-soundtrack) and you get an awesome RPG! Just don't look at it as a main game of the main Ultima series.

Great atmospheric game in an even more atmospheric setting. Who likes the games of the 90's will appreciate these games and enjoy in an atmosphere that no modern game can match. Soon as you start the game it brings you back like a time machine and no modern game does that.