Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash
Description
You have been imprisoned by the Garrintrots in the mountain stronghold of Mount Drash. There are 15 levels of tunnels within the mountain, and you must find the exit in each one to escape. Some levels have gems which must be collected before you are allowed to leave. Along the way you will encounter a variety of enemy creatures which will need to be defeated in combat. Only released for the VIC-20, it is a simple maze game with some monster battles, and very little connection to the other games in the series.
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Credits (VIC-20 version)
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Players
Average score: 2.4 out of 5 (based on 6 ratings with 1 reviews)
Without the Ultima brand on it, this game would be justly long forgotten.
The Good
You can finish the game on your first attempt.
The Bad
This is one of the single worst games I've ever played. The Ultima name was slapped onto it without Lord British's knowledge and it's the only reason I suffered my way through.
The game involves navigating through 15 mazes from the bottom right corner to the top left. On the way you may have to collect gems from the other 2 corners and fight a few monsters. The maze is shown in a 3D view, and also a map view. The 3D view is nearly useless since it doesn't show monsters or gems. In fact you don't even know if you have picked up a gem or not since the game doesn't show you.
If you do run into a monster, another window at the bottom of the screen comes into play, which has ASCII like graphics of you and the monster. Combat basically consists of pressing the parry and thrust keys as fast as possible until its dead and is so easy I only ever died once.
There's also a few spells you can cast, the only one of which I used blasts through walls and you need it on the last level of the game.
The Bottom Line
It's got Ultima in the title so I had to play it. There is a reason this title is so rare though - no one wanted to buy it in the first place. Unless you have to play every one, then avoid at all costs.
VIC-20 · by Pix (1172) · 2008
Trivia
Connection to Ultima
Mt. Drash is named after one of the dungeons in Ultima I. Although other than this, the game has almost no ties to the Ultima series.
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Related Sites +
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One Man's Drash...
An article in Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe update of 2004-02-01. About the game, and how some collectors re-discovered it. -
Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash EXPOSED
Screenshots, and photographs of the game material.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe.
Additional contributors: WWWWolf, Sciere, Freeman, Pseudo_Intellectual.
Game added October 19, 2004. Last modified January 3, 2024.