Summary
An air of greatness doth surround thee...
The Good
If "Ultima IV" was an introduction to the unique world where ethics are tightly woven with the gameplay, a one-time trip to the realm of Truth, Love, and Courage, "Ultima V" is a more ordinary, but a deeper and more expanded adventure. "Ultima IV" was a one of a kind game that was impossible to imitate; "Ultima V" is a model everyone has been imitating ever since. It gives birth to the world of Ultima the way we know it - a living, breathing world you can interact with at your pleasure.
With all its greatness, the game world of "Ultima IV" can't be compared to what was achieved in "Ultima V". The enhancements are so great that it is hard to believe the game was made pretty much at the same time period and with the same technique as its predecessor. Gone are the small towns of "Ultima IV" - in "Ultima V", every town is a large place with many houses, some of which have several floors, plenty of doors, stairs, and alike. Gone are also the inhabitants of "Ultima IV", who were interesting only because they had some valuable information to share with you. Here, the inhabitants start resembling real
characters.
The conversations in "Ultima V" are much more complex and varied than in "Ultima IV". The text parser understands much more words, and the replies are much more detailed and personal than the short exchange of greetings and information you had in the previous game (you can even swear in "Ultima V"; in response, you'll hear: "With a language like that, how did you become an Avatar?"). You really feel you are
talking to people in this game, instead of just grilling them for hints. There is also much more connection between various characters, and more difference between them - characters have a more distinct style of speech and different reactions.
Perhaps the greatest enhancement "Ultima V" had was the addition of
objects. That's right, "Ultima IV" didn't have any objects at all - just people, treasure chests, buildings, and altars in dungeons. If you wanted to locate a certain item, you had to stand on the exact spot you presumed the item would be on, and search for it, but it was still not displayed graphically. In "Ultima V", there are objects everywhere - not only important, plot-related items like Lord British' artifacts, but all kind of stuff we see every day - chairs, tables, fireplaces, barrels, beds. You think it's not such a big deal to draw a couple of objects, and you are right. But the point is not the mere presence of those objects, but the possibility to
interact with them. And here is where the real revolution comes: everything in "Ultima V" can be interacted with. You can sit on chairs, push cannons, move barrels, or try taking everything you see. Of course, this is still far from the amazing interactivity of later Ultimas, where objects were much more numerous and the interaction physical, and not just text-based. But it was a fantastic feature for that time, and a huge step forwards compared to "Ultima IV". The new command "Look", that was absent in "Ultima V", also helps to make the world of "Ultima V" much more concrete and detailed.
Another great innovation is the concept of
real-time gameplay. In "Ultima IV", the world was static, like in most games: nothing happened unless you made something happen. In "Ultima V", the world lives its own life regardless of your actions. You can just walk around aimlessly, but the world around you will change. There is a precise time clock in the game, and a real day/night cycle. And it is not just a decoration: it affects the gameplay. You can't buy stuff in stores if they are closed. People have their own schedules, move around the town, go shopping, sit in taverns, and then go to sleep. Sometimes you have to talk to, or follow a certain person at a certain time in order to obtain the information you need.
The role-playing system is pretty much the same as in "Ultima IV", but the spell system is more complex, and there are more spells available. The graphics are excellent - I already mentioned the visible objects, but there are many other improvements. The world of "Ultima V" is more colorful and detailed than in "Ultima IV". The first-person dungeons are also more atmospheric and intimidating, and more impressive graphically (I liked those skeletons on the wall in the dungeon Covetous).
Just like its predecessor, "Ultima V" is a completely open, non-linear experience. From the moment you start the game, you can do whatever you like and go wherever you like. There are
two worlds to explore in the game - the standard Britannia with its towns, villages, forests, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, islands, and caves, and the sinister Underworld you have to visit in order to retrieve some valuable items and to access the final dungeon. There are new means of transportation - in addition to moongates, horses, and ships you can also sail through shallow waters in a skiff and fly around on a magic carpet that moves twice as quickly as the monsters, flies over rivers, and can take you through a swamp without getting poisoned.
The ethical system doesn't play such a big role in this game as it did in "Ultima IV": you can complete the game without following the moral codex of an Avatar. But if you want to stay true to what you have achieved in the previous game, you can do that here. The game still registers your deeds by giving you karma points, which are lowered every time you do something immoral like stealing or helping the bad guys. Unfortunately, karma points don't seem to influence the game enough, and you can always "buy them back" by donating money to shrines, even if you have done something bad. From time to time, the ghost of Lord British will appear when you rest, and give you information about your current state of proximity to the ideal of Avatar.
You have to defeat the Shadowlords and bring Lord British back in order to complete the game, but you can decide whether to side with the members of Oppression, who sympathize with Blackthorn, or with the Resistance, who remain true to the rightful ruler of Britannia. There are much more choices to make in this game than in "Ultima IV", where there were no real antagonists and where your only worry was your own progress towards avatarhood.
What about the story of "Ultima V"? The story is less original than in "Ultima IV" (you have to defeat the bad guys in order to win the game, as always in RPGs), but in some ways more interesting. There was no real conflict in "Ultima IV", except your own conflict with yourself. In "Ultima V", there are proper bad guys, who range from petty hypocrites and cowards (some members of the Oppression) to the mysterious Blackthorn and the ghastly Shadowlords. The sinister atmosphere of fear is masterfully recreated in "Ultima V" ("Don't hurt me! Leave me alone!" is all people can tell you when the intimidating figure of a Shadowlord appears in the middle of their town, spreading the "air" of the vice it represents), and the conflict between Oppression and Resistance is very convincing. But the most interesting and original aspect of the game's story is its moral background. In "Ultima IV" we were introduced to the Eight Virtues, that seemed to be the perfect ethical codex for everyone. In "Ultima V" we see it is not enough just to follow an ethical codex - it should be chosen freely, otherwise it can easily become a tool of cruelty and tyranny. Blackthorn's laws follow the Eight Virtues - but the seemingly slight modifications those laws make in them turn the noble values into gruesome rules of a police state. Opposed to those laws are the words of wisdom you learn from the Codex. This story is very close to our true history - so many times during the history of mankind the most tolerant and spiritual ideas were abused in order to achieve political goals.
The original PC version comes without music, but there is a patch that adds MIDI music to the game (see the links section for this game and for other Ultimas). The music is absolutely wonderful, with more appeal and variety than the soundtrack of "Ultima IV", and with some really classic themes that appear here for the first time, like the beautiful song "Stones", written by your trusty companion Iolo.
The Bad
"Ultima V" is decidedly the most uncomfortable, "user-unfriendly" game I have ever played. If you are not willing to dedicate your life to it, better go and play something else. I exaggerate, but not by much. I don't want to think how much time I would have had to spend with this game if I hadn't been consulting the walkthrough all the time. All the difficult and user-unfriendly stuff that "Ultima IV" had, "Ultima V" has twofold and threefold. Once again, you have to visit every place in the huge game and talk to every one of its countless inhabitants in order to obtain vital information. But now the towns are much bigger, the inhabitants more numerous, and the conversations more complex. Finding hidden items is even more difficult here than in "Ultima IV" (although the items are visible now, which is a relief), especially because some of the most important and necessary items are located in the Underworld - a living hell on earth. Many of the game's great enhancements add to its difficulty - it is very uncomfortable to move around when it is dark, and the internal clock is a pain when you want to meet a certain person, missed him by a few minutes, and have to wait another day in order to be able to meet him again. In addition to that, towns are randomly visited by the Shadowlords, who prevent you from having normal contact with people and who can also engage you in a battle that is impossible to win. Very annoying are the guards who roam the towns - a meeting with them is a potential loss of money or imprisonment. The dungeons are even more tricky to navigate than in "Ultima IV", and the final dungeon Doom is a veritable nightmare. As if all this were not enough, some of the game's most important clues are written in runic alphabet, which you must decipher in order to make progress in the game.
One of the biggest troubles of "Ultima V" is combat. The battles in "Ultima V" are
way more difficult than in "Ultima IV". I don't quite understand the strange decision to reduce your party members' maximum hitpoints from 800 to measly 240 (you gain only 30 HP per level instead of 100) - it seems the monsters haven't undergone the same change: it takes a much longer time to kill them, and their attacks are much more efficient than they were in "Ultima IV". The fight against two dragons, four daemons, and several sand traps in the dungeon Doom was one of the hardest ones in my gaming career. You have to rely a lot on your magic spells, the best of which you get only at high levels, and leveling up is extremely tiresome in "Ultima V". My Avatar was at level 7 in the end of the game - I simply didn't have enough patience to gather 3200 experience points needed for him to reach the final level. In short, "Ultima V" is one of the most inconvenient and difficult games I ever played.
Playing the game without music takes so much charm away from it. Unfortunately, the PC version doesn't have any music. This is a real shame - the music is wonderful, as I already mentioned, and I can't imagine playing the game without the MIDI patch.
The Bottom Line
+ Great interactivity
+ Huge open-ended world
+ Strong story and background
+ Hardcore exploration and combat system
+ Detailed and immersive
- Very hard and extremely inconvenient to play
"Ultima V" had a huge influence on RPG development. All later Ultimas were modeled after this one; all great PC-style fantasy RPGs of our time (like
Baldur's Gate or
Arcanum) are direct descendants of this game. If you can accept the extremely high difficulty level of the game, you'll be rewarded with an engrossing RPG experience that was not only unseen in its time, but is also rare to find today.
