Exodus: Ultima III

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Description

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.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "Ultima: Kyōfu no Exodus" -- Japanese NES title
• "Ultima: Exodus" -- MSX/NES title
• "Ultima 3" -- Informal name
• "ウルティマ3 エクソダス" -- Japanese spelling (PC-98 title)

Part of the Following Groups

• Fantasy Creatures: Dwarves
• Fantasy Creatures: Elves
• Fantasy Creatures: Orcs
• Gameplay feature: Hunger / Thirst
• Games made into comics
• Physical Bonus Content: World Map
• Ultima series
• Ultima universe

User Reviews

At least it's not as bad as the Ultima 7 port.	NES	Nancy "Infested" Kerrigan (39)
Great design, great atmosphere -- still highly enjoyable today	DOS	General Error (4364)
A Beautifully Dark and Utterly Absorbing Game!	NES	Jabra (3)
The first classic Ultima game	DOS	Pix (1221)
This game actually made me like CGA graphics.	DOS	jeff leyda (1735)
The foundation of what a lot of Video-Game RPG's are today	DOS	cimerians (51)
Fabulous role-playing adventure.	DOS	Jeff Sinasac (409)

Critic Reviews

Home Computing Weekly	Commodore 64	Jul 16, 1985		100
Computer Games	Apple II	Jun, 1984	A	100
Micro 7	Apple II	Nov, 1984		83
VideoGame	NES	Jun, 1991		80
Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft	Amiga	1992	71 out of 100	71
Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft	DOS	1992	69 out of 100	69
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Macintosh	Nov, 1985	Unscored	Unscored
Happy Computer	Commodore 64	Jun, 1985	Unscored	Unscored
64'er	Commodore 64	Aug, 1984	Unscored	Unscored
Happy Computer	Apple II	Jun, 1985	Unscored	Unscored

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
PC-98 version - remake?	3	Trypticon (11031) Mar 08, 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/

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

Related Web Sites

• SOUND/EGA/Windows XP Upgrade for Exodus (An upgrade for Exodus with more colors and sound support for WIN XP.)
• Ultima III MAC upgrade (Exodus upgrade for MAC OS with new graphics and full music and speech support. )