Ultima III is often seen as one of the most important games ever. It
brought RPG mechanics to a whole new level with party based strategic
combat. It's basically the distant ancestor of strategy rpgs. The game
is a big leap over its predecessors Ultima I and II who were simpler
action rpgs. In Ultima III you create a party of four characters to
play as. In structure the game is more similar to Ultima II than Ultima
I which is surprising since Ultima I was a superior game. However I
think Richard Garriott preferred a free roaming world to a more linear
quest based one so he continued in that vein. Fortunately Ultima III is
much more interesting than Ultima II and has more of a structure to it
which helps keep it interesting. However it still has some weaknesses.
The dungeons are a big hassle. In 1983 the technology wasn't yet good
enough to allow detailed graphics in dungeon so you're left to wander
around in a mess of orange walls. The only things you see in dungeons
are orange walls and bright yellow treasure chests. It's not a
stimulating sight and since the dungeons are much harder than in Ultima
I it's not a pleasing one either. You need to spend a lot of time in
the dungeons in this game so I would have liked them to be more
interesting. The combat is really rudimentary strategy RPG stuff. That
is to be expected considering the age of the game but by modern
standards it just cannot be praised. It is slow and boring at times.
The questing in the game is also extremely slow, you spend most of the
game gathering money by either fighting over and over again, going into
dungeons and grabbing chests or looting towns, none of which is
exciting. The NPC's have nothing to say but boring one liners. All in
all, Ultima III is basically a party based Ultima II but with a
slightly better structure. The game also rewards playing as evil rather
than good characters which is a bit annoying. Killing guards is the
fastest way to gain levels and in some cases the fastest way to gain
money. A nice touch now is that you can bribe guards if they are in the
way of some information or a couple of treasure chests so you can avoid
bloodshed that way.
The commodore 64 version had full music and it was quite impressive
too. The only real problem with it is that it's relative brevity; the
music loops a bit too much to my liking. The sound effects are still
the simple ones found in the earlier games although with some
additions. Once again I can't say Ultima III is a good value since it's
quite old and expensive if you want to buy it. The Ultima Collection is
still your best and cheapest bet. Even if the game is an improvement
over Ultima I and II it still is too old and rudimentary to recommend
to anyone else but Ultima fans.
