Exodus: Ultima III

aka: Ultima 3, Ultima: Exodus, Ultima: Kyōfu no Exodus
Moby ID: 878
Commodore 64 Specs
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Description official descriptions

After the defeat of the evil wizard Mondain and his mistress Minax in the previous two Ultimas, peace has returned to the land of Sorsaria. Times passes and eventually geological disruptions and a resurgence of the monster populace occur, and it is soon learned that Mondain and Minax had conceived a child named Exodus before their death. Now that child has become an adult with the power to avenge the death of his parents. Obviously, it falls upon the hero from Earth to find and stop him.

The third title in the Ultima series was the first to feature a party of adventurers instead of a single player character. The party is created at the beginning of the game by assigning various class combinations and determining the characters' attributes. The game has larger and more detailed towns, populated by NPCs the protagonist can converse with to obtain clues. Like in earlier Ultima games, exploration is divided between top-down overworld locations and first-person 3D dungeons. This installment introduces separate combat screens where player-controlled party fights multiple monsters in a turn-based tile-based system.

Spellings

  • ウルティマ3 エクソダス - Japanese spelling (PC-98 title)
  • ウルティマ〜恐怖のエクソダス〜 - Japanese spelling (MSX version)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Commodore 64 version)

Designed by
Commodore 64 Conversion by
Music composed by

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 11 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 135 ratings with 7 reviews)

A Beautifully Dark and Utterly Absorbing Game!

The Good
I'm pretty sure I stumbled upon the Ultima: Exodus NES game cartridge by accident as nobody else I knew at the time was playing it. In fact, in my little world, I seemed to be the only one who liked RPGs - everyone else was into the 'shoot-em-ups'! And this was the best of the role-playing genre that I'd seen back then (circa 1990 and it came out in 1987). I loved the story line and the huge number of Spells available to use, and the fact that you were in charge of a 4-character team which you could change up every time you went back in to play. I loved the separate battlefield screens and fighting all those different, very scary-looking monsters with the cool names!

The Bad
Maybe it was just the contrast on our TV set but the whole land of Sosaria seemed extremely 'dark' and foreboding to me (and not just the dungeons and Ambrosia, either!). Of course, this was perfectly suited to the game storyline and everything (and I'm not complaining!); I just hadn't seen anything that looked like it before, graphically. It seemed like a very complex and 'more adult' game to me at the time. Some of the game play and controls (Commands and Spell casting) seemed a little cumbersome but, then again, there was a lot of things you could do in this game, compared to the relative simplicity of other RPGs that were around.

The Bottom Line
I found it to be utterly absorbing, and I'd spend hours and hours at it! Once my character party finally had everything it needed in order to go up against Exodus, I remember delaying doing so for quite a while, just so that the game wouldn't be over!! You'd better have a lot of time on your hands as it is a pretty long game. It takes a lot of time to build up your money and hit points. I would highly recommend it even today, as it is. The days and nights I spent playing it is a great gaming memory for me and I wouldn't change a thing!

NES · by Jabra (2) · 2008

This game actually made me like CGA graphics.

The Good
The packaging for this game was unlike any other that I'd seen at the time. (early 80's) A cloth map, spellbooks with textured covers, each printed on heavyweight paper. The ultima world was HUGE for a game that came on 1/2 of a 360k disk. (the other half was the character/user disk)

The Bad
Considering the timeframe this game was released in, absolutely nothing.

The Bottom Line
There was so much attention to detail in this game. From the above mentioned extras in the packaging, to being able to have a party of adventures, each separately controllable in combat scenes, to the scale of the ultima world itself, with dungeons and towns and castles to explore. The game is somewhat complex at first, with each key on the keyboard controlling different elements of the game, but the learning curve is fast enough that the keyboard control seemed natural within a few hours.

After reading the other reviews of this game mentioning the lack of music, I honestly didn't even realize it was missing on the PC version. Like the other reviewers, this was my first RPG game, and I was so engrossed in the storyline and building up my characters that I actually played this game consistently for over a year. I just couldn't get away from it. I played this game so much in fact, that I was depressed that Ultima IV used EGA (16 color) graphics. It just didn't look right to me!

DOS · by jeff leyda (1842) · 2000

The first classic Ultima game

The Good
This is the first game in the series that really feels like a Ultima. It has a lot of the standard elements that were in the later games such as moon-gates, an underworld and familiar towns like Yew. The modern technology has gone and the game takes place in a true fantasy environment. The game also has a musical soundtrack (with the upgrade patch) which although basic helps the atmosphere no end.

You control a party of four adventurers and combat takes place on its own screen, where you can move your characters around, attack or cast spells in turns. This is far more interesting than the mindless attacking from the earlier games.

The characters in the towns still only offer one line of conversation but there are far more characters that have something worthwhile to say. These tend to be hints you need to complete the game, and it adds another gameplay element where you have to search through the towns to get all these clues.

The game also adds line of sight so you can't see around corners, and viewing distance is limited in forests.

The Bad
Some of the spells are not as useful as they should be. The light spell lasts about 8 turns before you are in the dark again and with wind blowing out your torches all the time, you need a serious supply before tackling any dungeons. The clerics heal spells seemed a bit underpowered at the start of the game but are even worse later on.

Ships are far too rare, in this game considering you need one to show up before you can finish the game.



The Bottom Line
This game is a real classic - the beginnings of everything that Ultima developed into can be seen here. The gameplay is far more balanced and varied than the previous games and it doesn't feel like a load of elements thrown together ad hoc. It was fun to play through 25 years after it came out. I did use the upgrade patch from http://exodus.voyd.net. This adds a frame limiter, midi music (previously missing on the PC), EGA graphics and also a very useful restore hot-key (this required a restart otherwise).

If you are an Ultima fan and can see past the technology, this game is still worth playing even these days. Back in 1983, had I been old enough to appreciate it, it would have been truly outstanding.

DOS · by Pix (1172) · 2008

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
PC-98 version - remake? Trypticon (11024) Mar 8, 2011

Trivia

Certificate

Starting with Exodus, Origin began offering certificates, signed by Lord British, to players who completed the games.

Game Boy Color port

In 2001 Sven Carlberg made an unofficial port of Ultima III: Exodus to the Color Game Boy, featuring graphics and music largely adapted from the C64 version, fortified with an additional game following the completion of the regular game. A year later, he released its source code. For more (including free download of the playable version!) check http://gonow.to/sven/

Japanese Song

The theme song of the Japanese Famicom and MSX game was a digitised version of a song released concurrently with the game, ウルティマー瞳のナイフー (Ultima - Knife of the Eye), sung by Noriko Hidaka.

Lord British

This is the first Ultima in which Lord British's hit points are static (you can't lower them), making him unkillable in combat. In the first two games British had a ton of health but could eventually be killed by a strong enough character. From Ultima III onward, British is unkillable by normal means.

However, he still can be killed. There's a boat in his castle behind some locked doors that can be used to sail around the moat in. Get British pissed off by wacking one of his jesters then head towards the boat and sail to the front of the city. Wait there until he shows up and cut loose on him with the ship's cannons.

PC version

There is no music in PC version, but there exist a freeware patch that adds all the music from Apple/C-64 -versions to play properly with the PC version as MIDI. There are a freeware EGA graphics patch available as well.

Most people don't know that the IBM PC port is supposed to be played on an IBM CGA with a *composite* color monitor. Using that configuration, the pink-striped borders become a solid dark blue, the white-speckled road tiles become a bright red, and the cyan trees appear as green.

Remake

An unofficial shareware remake for Macintosh of this game was created and released by Lairware, featuring improved graphics including color and detailed sprites (hair, faces, etc).

Title

The title, Exodus, is a nice irony, considering that Lord British took leave of Sierra to found his own company, Origin, during the game's development.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1985 (Vol. 5.5) - Adventure Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • March 1988 (Issue #45) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #144 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #15 Least Rewarding Ending of All Time
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • December 1989 (Issue 5) - Best RPG Video Game (NES version)
    • December 1989 (Issue 5) - Worst Ending in a Video Game
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #41 Top Game of All Time

Information also contributed by Eisentel, Jason Gilchrist, NewRisingSun, Pseudo_Intellectual and Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alan Chan.

Atari 8-bit, FM-7, Sharp X1, Macintosh, PC-88 added by Terok Nor. MSX added by koffiepad. PC-98 added by Unicorn Lynx. Atari ST added by Belboz. Commodore 64, Apple II, Amiga, NES added by Jeanne. Windows added by eWarrior.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Unicorn Lynx, Corn Popper, Alaka, Игги Друге, BostonGeorge, Patrick Bregger, Narushima.

Game added February 21, 2000. Last modified February 29, 2024.