![]() In addition, the relative similarity of the dungeons can become tedious after a while, though there are a few quite interesting entities thrown in occasionally to break the tedium. If you play through the game for a while with one party and then start over with a new one, you quickly discover that the game does no level-related difficulty scaling and your new party rapidly encounters creatures it cannot possibly hope to defeat. ![]() Because of the increased depth of play, the difficulty factor also goes up. Only a few elements really hamper the game's enjoyment factor. As a result, the game has an epic feel to it unlike the beat-it-in-a-day-or-two atmosphere of the last two in the series. Character advancement takes considerably longer, as the days of one character killing one enemy at a time have given way to four characters, each with more options than in previous games, fighting up to 16 monsters at one time. The depth of gameplay is greater than that found in Ultima I or Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress for a variety of reasons. In its place, the few paltry PC speaker sound effects seem completely lacking. Unfortunately, the PC version tragically omits this wonderful aspect. On various platforms, this epic quest is generally accompanied by a delightfully composed musical score with different songs for just about every occasion - from visiting town to exploring a dungeon or sailing the seas. The dungeons are still presented through first-person wireframe graphics but are a bit improved in appearance and use some limited color in certain, important areas. Lord British's castle in particular looks very regal and interesting. This time, though, things are slightly better looking and there seem to be far more sprites of creatures, objects and terrain. As with the previous titles in the series, Ultima III: Exodus utilizes CGA graphics. While your party wages this symphony of destruction, the graphics do their best to keep up. ![]() Without his omniscient insight into the enigmatic Exodus, your quest will be futile. Toward this end, your adventurers must delve deep into the dungeons of the land and seek out a legendary entity called the Time Lord. Is it a force, a being, a person, a big bag of coins? Whatever it is, you know at the very least that it annihilated the entire crew of one ship and is probably behind the rampaging monster gangs crossing the kingdom of Sosaria. The game's primary quest is to unravel the mystery of Exodus. As you play, the monsters that appear in the wilderness increase in difficulty, presumably to match your newly found powers. Once you perform enough destruction, you return to Lord British and he rewards you with more hit points and, if applicable, the ability to cast better spells. ![]() So, you do by wandering the countryside, slaughtering monsters, and exploring wireframe dungeons from a first-person perspective. If you choose to speak with the king, he offers surprisingly little aid aside from telling you to seek more experience. All in all, a good deal more effort went into this system than in the previous games.Īfter character creation is complete (you make a party of up to four), the adventure kicks off with the group plopping down near Lord British's castle. Each race and class contains bonuses to their respective statistics (strength, dexterity, intelligence and wisdom) as well as maximum point limits. Races like hobbits and "fuzzys" combine with classes of larks and alchemists. In this case, the list of races and classes include not only the standbys, like dwarves, elves, fighters and wizards, but also numerous other ideas borrowed from other sources. The character creation system in Ultima III: Exodus is a greatly expanded version of the one found in its predecessor which was, in turn, an improved version from Ultima I. ![]() The main title screen contains a gameplay demo above the menu selections and gives you the obvious choices to either create new characters or play with pre-determined ones. The world of Sosaria is thoroughly entrenched in a dark age. There is no time or space travel and, until you really get into the game, no indication of any modern technological elements. Ultima III: Exodus returns to its medieval roots with nary a mention of planet Earth and contains a very limited amount of bizarre futuristic circumstances. With this release, it seems obvious Origin Systems realized that Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress strayed too far from the successful formula established in Akalabeth and Ultima I. ![]()
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