Ultima: Kyōryū Teikoku

Cancelled US release

This game was set to be released in the US by the NY-based subsidiary of FCI, Pony Canyon's Japanese mother-company, when FCI abruptly closed their US game department. It had been losing money for some time, and they didn't want to make the investment necessary to move from 16 bit game systems to 32 bit systems.

FCI and Pony Canyon had a working relationship with ORIGIN. They ported ORIGIN's role-playing games to the NES, SNES, and Gameboy. FCI's Metal Morph was programmed by ORIGIN.

FCI had been working on porting ORIGIN's Wing Commander II to SNES when they were closed.

Differences

There are a few changes in the SNES version:

• There is no party; the Avatar travels alone.

• The introductory sequence and in-game cutscenes have been removed.

• The Avatar can't be named; he is always called "Avatar." The Avatar is always male like in the PC version.

• The NPCs have no schedules; the day-night changes are only cosmetic.

• Vastly-reduced interactivity; only a fraction of the in-game objects can be used in some way.

• The overworld is broken up into both indoor and outdoor maps.

• The whole game control scheme was changed; it now plays more action-like, similar to the Zelda games.

• All graphics are reduced-quality and more pixelated; the character portraits of the original are now smaller and less detailed.