I owned this on the Japanese FM-Towns version which had great CDDA music (search for a video), but otherwise found the game to be frustrating to play and sort of an RPG-lite meshed with an adventure game and even a touch of those old D&D strategy titles where you'd have Clerics and Halflings running randomly around a screen fighting enemies. It tried to be a lot of things and I remember the hype, but it was not particularly good from any angle. Everything about the pseudo-3D engine that is reminiscient of early Commodore 64 3D games like Castle Master and the frustrating combat made a traditional turn-based RPG fan like me cringe. But I guess if you go into it looking for an "enhanced adventure" you might just like it.
This game and the expansions took countless hours to enjoy and the mods available for it only added to the fun. To this day I will occassionally install it just to enjoy some of it again. Something about this title makes it enjoyable on all levels from the ambient-style music that's not too intrusive, to the just-good-enough graphics and movement that keep it playable even a decade or more after release. I am not sure quite what it is about this game's addictive nature, but everything from being able to play with a kobold to the mystery of the Underdark (without Baldur's Gates' clunky engine) make this a real gem. A "diamond" perhaps?
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.
Since Ultima III there was music and sound effects beyond a scratchy PC speaker in the Ultimas, and yet due to a too-heavy reliance on lacking IBM PC ports from DOS, we get inferior music-less releases here. They lack the fun and feel I remember, hearing a tune when the game opens, or a foreboding bit of music in Blackthorne's castle. TIme for GOG to wean itself from the teat of DOS ports and give us a few more options. The Commodore 128, FM-Towns, and other platforms had music for Ultima 5, and while I realize a Commodore emulator box is not on GOG's radar perhaps, is there no way to patch in some of that music? Was there no MIDI music available in the various community-made patches since?
