Ultima™ 1+2+3

Ultima est la série culte des Jeux de Rôle, celle qui a mis en place tout ce qui, aujourd'hui encore, est actif dans les jeux, de Witcher à Baldur, en passant par les Elder Scrolls. Tout y est. Mais attention, tout y est, tel que c'était à l'époque ! Passez donc votre chemin si vous ne supportez pas plus de trois minutes des graphismes qui vous paraissent être un bug de l'écran. C'est moche, sans musiques réelles, et il faut parfois une certaine dose de patience pour accepter de se dire que ce que l'on voit à l'écran est un monde féerique et fantastique. Si on accepte ce simple fait, on peu profiter des jeux. Et voir la réelle progression entre le premier opus et le troisième, chacun apportant sa dose de nouveautés et de futurs standards. Attention aussi à un point important : la difficulté du jeu. Je ne sais pas si, à l'époque, quelqu'un est parvenu à achever l'un de ces opus sans aide, mais pour ma part, impossible. Je n'ai ni la patience, ni la capacité à comprendre qu'a tel moment il faut rentrer manuellement un ordre précis... C'est sans doute ma limite comme joueur, mais je l'assume. Les sites et autres manuels de l'époque (je vous conseil de vous procurer The Official Book of Ultima, petite perle drolatique et bien utile (en anglais cependant) où vous connaîtrez tous les secrets d'Alfred et aurez tous les éléments pour venir à bout des jeu en conservant l'aspect aventure. Amusez-vous, prenez plaisir, et vive Ultima !

These games started a whole genre and for that, we can't forget about them. Sure they might not be very good today, with limited interaction, boring combat and a non-existent plot, but these games were amazing when they first came out.

These are brilliant even for today. You really have to use your imagination to picture the chaotic worlds and crate a continuity between each games. The manuals are a great place to start. The worst game in the series ultima 2 can even be fun, but use cheats and patch. Ultima 3 is worth the price alone for being a revolutionary crpg, use patch as well. If your looking for a great place to start the ultima series, this is it.

WIthout a doubt those 3 are very important to the RPG genre. Ultima 1 gave birth to every RPG, Ultima 2 brough more worlds to explore and Ultima 3 brought us a party system which even to this day is still used. I'll make this review short since we will talk about 1st 3 Ultima games which most people call it "The Age Of Darkness" saga. In terms of graphics, Ultima 2 and 3 by default use CGA, while Ultima 1, has been remaded to use EGA graphics. There are patches to update them. In Ultima 3's case, you can patch it up to have VGA with music included, but don't count on rest of em to have any sound besides PC speaker. Gameplay really differs between these games, especially in terms of difficulty. Ultima 1 is what i consider, the easiest of them all, as you can quickly HP back and get it up to 9999 as there is no max HP and increasing stats, along with getting the strongest weapon is very easy to do once you know the trick. Ultima 2 is very difficulty, especially at the beginning. You will die a lot if you don't have any guide with you, despite playing nearly the same with some differences. Both battles take place differently depending on where you are. In a dungeon, fights in both games are from 1st person perspective cept the outside. Ultima 3 on the other hand is different. It uses party/class/race system which affects your stats, equipment and available spells. Unlike Ultima 1 and 2 in terms of battle in overworld or dungeons. All of em take place in a separate grid-based screen where everyone can do only one action in each turn. The game also promotes you to explore, talk, search and discover secrets in order to make progress. It also brought max HP system, which you increase it by visiting Lord British in each level up. As for stats, you have to find and visit the shrines to increased it....not without the cash of course. If you are curious how it all began, give it a good shot. Just remember that Ultima 2 will give you a huge pain in the butt without a guide.

These games are only playable if you played them twenty years ago; if it's your first time, I promise you will turn them off in five minutes or less. They represent a meaningful advance in gaming, but well... so did Pong. I have gone back to these 'nostalgia classics' before and it never goes well. More specifically, games from around 2000 to present may do okay, but these ancient ones are just outclassed these days. If you're new to Ultima, buying this is just donating your money to a 'good old game' so you can try it for five minutes.