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The box is a bit misleading. It seems to depict the ice caverns, but it suggests that there's a teleportal gem to be found here. |
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds
United StatesLooking Glass Technologies (developer); Origin Systems (publisher)
Released 1993 for DOS, 1995 for FM Towns and PC-98Date Started: 2 April 2022
Date Ended: 18 June 2022
Total Hours: 54
Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at Time of Posting: (to come later)
Summary:
Ultima Underworld II uses the same interface as its predecessor--a revolutionary engine that allows for three-dimensional, continuous movement, vertical navigation, and realistic environments. It sets the game more firmly in Ultima canon than the first Underworld; you have to have played Ultima VII: The Black Gate to understand key backstory elements like the Guardian, the Fellowship, and blackrock, as well as the dynamics of the castle that serves as the hub of gameplay. Some of the story elements don't make sense, and some of the interface elements don't work well, but these can be easily ignored amidst a sea of successes. The Underworld series remains a key transition point in the history of RPGs, both technically and thematically.
*****
When wrapping up a game that I really like, I have an unfortunate tendency to focus on negative things. This isn't because I'm naturally pessimistic or critical. It's because I'm holding up those games against the best in the genre. When rating most games of the 1980s and early 1990s, I try not to be too harsh because I don't really see them as contenders. I treat them like a mediocre painting done by a child. You make allowances: She hasn't really learned composition yet; vanishing points are easy to grasp but tough to master; realistic anatomical details will come with practice. You focus on the positives and trust she'll get better. But once a game crosses a certain line, I no longer feel like it needs paternalistic praise; the author is clearly a master and I'm evaluating him against other masters. Nonetheless, I'll try to maintain a positivity in this summary because I'm very positive about the game.
Except for some minor quibbles, there's almost nothing negative I can say about the Underworld interface, which saw only minor changes from the first game. I would have liked more spell "shelves" and the ability to select runes by typing their letters. The way one screen slides out of the way and another slides in when you transition from inventory to character sheet or inventory to rune bag is fun once or twice, but there should have been some way to make it instantaneous, particularly in the heat of combat. Beyond that, expecting the developers to do any better with the interface would be expecting them to travel through time. In an era in which customers would have been happy with only two or three of their innovations, they offered dozens. Even today, long after advanced graphics and sound have come along, there's something amazing about casting "Fly" and moving upwards and downwards in cavernous spaces, or jumping from pillar to pillar with lava flowing beneath.
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I didn't need to watch this animation as often as I did. |
I'm less enamored with the story--although, again, it has more detail and logic than anything else being offered in its era. While I love the Underworld engine, I remain unenthusiastic about its setting in Britannia. In the first game, that setting was forced--the game had clearly been developed for an original setting and later shoehorned into the Stygian Abyss when it was purchased by Origin. For II, the plot always seems to have been set in Britannia, but that didn't necessarily make me like it any better. This is an engine made for a dungeon crawl, multiple levels deep and dark. Starting on the first level of the Abyss with no resources, no idea what you're going to face around the bend, is so much more delicious than starting in the friendly confines of Castle Britannia. Despite the subtitle, I never got the impression I was exploring a "labyrinth of worlds" so much as a bunch of small, discrete worlds. But a few of them did rise to the quality and visceral thrill of the first game, and I appreciated them.
A few final things I discovered after winning: First, if you lose the air daemon, or just release it in the wrong place, Zoranthus gives you another one without complaint. Apparently, you can also find one in the Ethereal Void somewhere, allowing you to bypass a large chunk of quest.
Second, I was unable to find a path of dialogue that got me the blackrock serpent from the goblins in the Britannia sewers. They don't drop it if you kill them, I verified. If you are able to get it, it comes with this dialogue:
[The goblins] have agreed that we should give over to thee one of the secrets of our tribe. Over a century ago, a human appeared near our home in the rocky Serpent's Spine Half-starved he was, and there were wounds on him which seemed to have been made by arrows! . . . Before he died, he gasped out a single world to those who found him: "Pagan!" We know not what this might mean, or where he came from--our trackers traced his spoor to the foot of a sheer wall of stone. He carried this with him, though.
If you don't crash Killorn Keep like I did, Altara flees the keep when Mors Gotha arrives, leaving you a note. In discussions with Mors Gotha, but continuously choosing curious or non-threatening options, you can get to a point where she offers to let you join the Guardian's forces, and you can agree! She then says, "Thou hast only to hand over thy weapon, Avatar, a sign of thy decision, and we shall away, off to the palace of the Guardian in the Pagan world." I didn't realize that the name of the Guardian's homeworld was determined this early, and cited in two conversations. Anyway, if you hand over your sword, Gotha just attacks you and the game continues as if you'd never agreed to betray Lord British. But you know.
Finally, if you kill the flying eye-brains in Killorn after Mors Gotha arrives, she has some special dialogue as the keep goes down. Essentially, crashing the keep just prevents you from having to fight the first of the two final battles.
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Mors Gotha if you crash the keep with her in it. |
In a GIMLET, I suspect we'll see something close to a tie with the first Underworld, maybe even a slightly higher score. What this game lacks in ambiance is balanced by a slightly better equipment system, skill development system, and economy.
1. Game World. Origin knows how to tell a story, even if they don't always make sense in the details. Even though it doesn't always make sense, we've never seen an RPG set in a castle covered by a magical dome. I appreciated references to previous Ultimas, including the notion that Lord Draxinusom was fighting the invasion outside the castle. Although none of the individual worlds were completely fleshed-out, they all had their own lore and backstory, and I liked how references in one world popped up in another, and that there were some places where you could make decisions that reverberated across worlds. Score: 6.
2. Character Creation and Development. A good system that allows for a variety of "builds," some easier than others. I liked the training system better than the "praying" system of the first game. I appreciated that although there's a level cap, you continue to gain skill points beyond it. I appreciated all the different ways that you can approach puzzles, and that the world doesn't have a lot of artificial barriers. I don't think you can't quite play it as a stealth game--it would need a "backstab" mechanic or something similar, so you could still get skill points from combat--but it gets pretty close. If I were to play it again, I think I'd try maximizing "Charisma," "Lore," and "Appraise," and then see how far I could get in the game on potions and wands, which you can buy and recharge at the Killorn market. Score: 7.
3. NPCs. It was fun doing regular loops around Britannia and seeing what new things the NPCs had to say. The dialogue system is relatively solid, but I think there were more dialogue options and role-playing choices in the first Underworld. No one outside of Britannia really had much personality, either. Score: 6.
4. Encounters. The game has a small but effective menagerie, well described in the game
manual, with an interesting set of strengths, weaknesses, special
attacks, and special defenses. I don't remember any respawn areas in Underworld, but this one had several optional ones. The game is full of non-combat encounters that aren't designated as such
(i.e., no text box pops up with a menu of options) but that still call
upon your creativity, knowledge, and skill. I appreciated the role-playing options: the different ways to deal with the servants' strike; the different ways to deal with Dorstag in the Pits; whether to crash Killorn Keep. Score: 6.
5. Magic and Combat. I really enjoyed playing as a mage, and particularly that there are so many useful non-combat spells. There's a common sentiment that real-time combat isn't tactical, but I don't agree when it's integrated into the larger game world. An open environment offers opportunities to create chokepoints, fly or jump out of enemies' reach, shove them into lava, or just sneak or run past them. As with the first game, it's too bad that combat wasn't just a bit harder, thus requiring the full use of such options. Score: 6.
6. Equipment. A great variety of weapons, armor, magic items, and utility items, suitable to just about any build and play style. The wear-and-tear system works well. The identification system works well. The crafting system isn't really necessary for a mage, but it also works well. Encumbrance is set liberally but not generously. Other than everything is always found at the same fixed locations, I don't have much in the way of complaint here. Score: 7.
7. Economy. There ought to be more shops, but the presence of someone who will take gold to identify and recharge items, as well as sell potions, adds a lot to the gameplay. I thought the bartering system worked pretty well in the first Underworld, but in II you could really make it part of your overall gameplay strategy. Because of my particular build, the economy mostly stopped being useful to me about 3/4 of the way through the game, but that isn't inevitable. Score: 6.
8. Quests. A clear main quest with a few minor choices along the way, plus a few side quests to add flavor and role-playing. There are no options or alternate endings for the main quest, but there are alternate options for close to the end of the main quest. Score: 5.
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. Not much different from the first game. Graphics are state-of-the-art for the era and more than acceptable today. Sound effects are effective if not spectacular. Music is moody and well-composed even if I did turn it off. I'm not sure we've ever seen a better approach to automapping. The mouse/keyboard combo works well, though I noted a few issues during this session, most having to do with magic, that I didn't flag last time. Score: 7.
10. Gameplay. A strong final category. It's about halfway between "linear" and "open," though perhaps leaning slightly towards the "linear" side. It's reasonably replayable if you're excited to try different character options. I think it could have been a little harder and a little shorter, but only a little. Score: 7.
That gives us a final score of 63. Checking my review of The Stygian Abyss, I find that I've rated the sequel one point higher, landing it among the top 5 games played so far. In my memory, I think of The Stygian Abyss as the better game, but not so much that I can find anything wrong with this rating. I might be mentally giving Abyss points for doing it first, which doesn't really factor into the GIMLET.
A summary of "not as fresh as the first game, but equal to it, if not better" would apply to many of the game's contemporary reviews. For instance, in the April 1993 PC Review (UK), reviewer Paul Presley writes:
If Underworld I got nine stars and Underworld II got only eight, is the sequel worse? No. If someone were to hand me £40 and say buy either Underworld I or II, I'd take the sequel any time. The reason the original got nine stars is because it was the first of its kind and it did what it set out to do damn well, causing convulsions in the opposition and showing everyone that the PC is still growing as a games machine. The sequel is essentially just more of the same only different. The various elements that go to make it up are ear-wiggingly better (improved graphics, better plot, more imagination), but there isn't anything that takes it to a yet higher plateau to wait for the others to catch up.
Here's the March 1993 Game Players:
Although Ultima Underworld 2 doesn't provide any new breakthroughs such as above-ground exploration, it remains on the cutting edge of gaming software, if only because there's no other product capable of doing that Underworld 2 does. Looking Glass has listened to the complaints and comments from Stygian Abyss veterans, using their input to craft substantive improvements to the game engine.
Still, innovation tends to live longer in the memory than raw quality, and it doesn't surprise me that the original Underworld gets most of the nostalgia.
Computer Gaming World offered a curiously lukewarm review by Doug Seacat in the May 1993 issue. (The whole issue is curious. They reviewed both Legends of Valour and Ultima Underworld II without noting any of their similarities, and they wasted Scorpia on a review of The Magic Candle III.) I suppose it isn't any more negative than my own, but mine is written with 30 years of hindsight. It's odd to see the same complaints in the release year. Where the April 1993 PC Zone reviewer said, "there is really nothing you can do with this game except sit there, dribble slightly, and say 'blimey' every eight to ten minutes," Seacat finds complaints in getting hung up on doorways, redundancy in skills, and the fact that NPCs don't solve their own problems--all complaints that could be made about any modern 3D game. I would have thought there'd be more dribbling.
I do have to appreciate his note that "Lord British wanders around doing nothing." As we've discussed, Lord British's stature takes a series of major blows in the last few games. It started in Ultima VI but really ramped up in Ultima VII and this game. In his attitude towards the Fellowship and a lot of other things happening in Britannia, he is ignorant, negligent, and useless. I had a chance to mention this to Richard Garriott recently. I was curious if there was a deliberate effort to deconstruct the character or whether it was a matter of Garriott being less involved in the games and his employees simply not treating their boss's alter-ego with much respect. "None of the above," Garriott answered. "It was purely to give space for the player to shine!" But he did acknowledge that "perhaps I overplayed, or underplayed, the role of [Lord British]." As someone who once regarded Lord British as an Arthurian figure--the creator of a code that formed my secular religion as a teenager--I've been distressed to see him treated increasingly like a buffoon.
Labyrinth of Worlds only sold about half the number of copies as the first game, but as Maher points out, that was still considered a smash by contemporary standards. This success makes it all the more puzzling that Origin never commissioned an Ultima Underworld III. Neurath says that Looking Glass pitched several ideas to Origin, all of which were rejected. An internal document made public by the UK blog Pix's Origin Adventures in 2018 suggests a reason: Origin was planning to develop the sequel themselves. The 104-page design document, dated August 1997, suggests a Fall 1998 release--a snack for hungry gamers awaiting Ultima IX: Ascension. As for why develop it in-house, the document notes: "Recent external development of premium Origin titles have not received the critical praise nor met the revenue expectations they deserve."
The backstory sets the game in a new world called Jaal, far more violent and chaotic than Britannia. As the player progresses through the story, he learns that Jaal is where the Shadowlord Astaroth ended up when he was banished from Britannia in Ultima V. Astaroth intends to reunite with his fellow Shadowlords. Somehow, it serves their plot to kidnap someone from the Avatar's homeworld, who then becomes the PC of the game. The game would have used the Wing Commander: Prophecy engine, and its environments would "run the gamut from desert wastelands, jungles, caves, cramped towers, forests, steep mountains, and some underwater levels." There's a lot of talk about multiplayer options.
Anyway, someone at Electronic Arts said no, as there's no evidence the game ever got past the document phase. Later, an attempt by Arkane Studios to pitch an Underworld III to EA also failed and was turned into Arx Fatalis (2002). In 2013, Paul Neurath founded Otherside Entertainment and made Underworld Ascendant (2018) with permission from EA to use the Underworld title but not the Ultima name. The result is a weird half-sequel, in which the player character explores the Stygian Abyss, but the Abyss is not on Britannia. Cabirus reappears, but so do races that never appeared in Britannia, such as dwarves and dark elves. And, of course, the main character is the "Ascendant" rather than the "Avatar." It looked pretty good to me when I watched some YouTube footage, but I guess it got awful reviews.
Our next Ultima will be Ultima VII, Part 2, coming up later this year. But before then, we'll have a parody and one surprise.