I experienced the magic! Actually, that is quite enough magic, thank you. It was like chewing gum where it loses its flavor after a few minutes. I wanted to love this game so much! Ultima is overall my favorite RPG series of all time. There are many games from 1981 that hold up. But I don't feel that Ultima 1 is one of them. Even for back then, the dungeon was disappointing and felt archaic. And this is coming from a guy that loves Pac-Man on the Atari 2600! [NOTE: I played the PC/Apple version. From everything I have seen, the FM Towns versions of Ultima I & II are good! Japanese game developers also saved Ultima III, which I will be playing sooner than expected. All of this reverses from Ultima V onwards, at which point the Japanese versions become significantly worse than the original American versions.]
"Ultima"tely, it was the complete lack of npc interaction that made Ultima I unpleasant for me, along with barebones combat. If I don't have anybody in-game to interact with and no illusion of sword fighting or spellcasting, then this becomes an action game. But then, it will be measured up against action games of that time period and fall far short. I don't judge games of the past by the gaming standards of the present, especially since I am older now. But action games in 1981 were a lot more fun than Ultima 1. It is wild to think about how this went from what I just played to some of the best RPGS of all time! Richard Garriott got better and better with each game. His imagination and love of his craft wouldn't let him quit.
But Ultima 1 aged like milk. If you see fun in that video, please let me know!
Otherwise, I am going to try Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress next.
Until Ultima IV, these are going to be very fast dates! No fancy dinner, just coffee and "see ya!"
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