I have never played the original, and I'm sure this version must be quite accurate to the original - to its detriment 1) As other people have pointed out, the game is in German by default. 2) There is no manual provided. 3) There are no instructions, manuals or guides in-game to explain things: As such, I didn't make it past character creation. What, for example, is the difference between a "magician," a "witch," and a "sorcerer?" I have no idea. Allow me to compare to a GOOD remake: The Bard's Tale Trilogy. That provides a full manual in-game, as well as plenty of tooltips, explaining character classes, mechanics, spells and their descriptions, anything you could want or need to figure out how to play the game.
I suppose it might be good if you've never played a city builder before. As it stands, it has a tiny tech tree, very few building, and few random events. You'll spend most of your time tediously waiting for your base to move from one sector to another, to "mine" materials on a completely abstract hex map - just click and wait more. I didn't experience any of the lag issues other reviewers have mentioned, but I have a pretty beefy setup, so there's that I suppose.
f you were looking into this series based on the style? Well, I guess its worth being free, but I'm not paying for the sequels. The AMERICAN (as in, no Japanese) staff has mimicked the anime art style pretty well. It all falls apart immediately during gameplay - none of it is animated. All we get is static sprites getting shuffled around, like they grabbed the layer in Photoshop and just wiggled the mouse. If you were here for the gameplay... again, might be okay for free, would not pay for the sequels.
Might be okay, if it wasn't Ultima. As an Ultima sequel? UGH.
