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.

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.

I'm not going to deny that these are some RPG classics, but man are they hard to play. Its mostly the controls, and me being raised on RPGs from the 90s that had fluid interfaces. Great games, better bundle, hard as hell to play.