Game 553: The Ormus Saga II: Guild of Death

 

      

The Ormus Saga II: Guild of Death

Germany

Mike Doran Software (developer); CP Verlag (publisher) 

Released 1993 for Commodore 64

Date Started: 5 July 2025   

     

The Ormus Saga II is a sequel to an Ultima clone I played a decade ago and couldn't win. I remember that it was a bit infuriating because I had visited every location and done everything there was to do. I never found out if my failure to win was something I had done wrong or some error in the programming. The intervening decade has not provided any more clues.

    

The first game was set in the world of Beryland, and the PC was tasked with stopping the Ormus Cult from taking over the world. The second game begins two years later. A mysterious book called the "Ulbore" has surfaced; it's somehow associated with the Brotherhood of the White Rose, who are again taking over cities. The character must complete 9 tasks "provided by the god-servants" within 12 months, or the game is automatically lost.

      

I feel like this story could benefit from a few more introductory sentences.

       

Character creation is nothing more than specifying a name. The character starts with 90 hits, 90 experience points, 160 gold, 8 food, 8 soldiers, and 20 magic points outside a town called Remfield. The game's geography has not changed at all. The shape of the continent is the same, as is the placement of cities and even the specific people in the cities.

   

What has changed is that cities are no longer menu towns but rather fully explorable 32 x 32 areas, sometimes with multiple levels. You have to chase down NPCs, interact with shopkeepers, and search pieces of furniture. The author has also made some cosmetic changes to the screen and has added a day/night cycle, complete with a moon and a sun cycling through the sky, with darkness crowding in around the player at night. Graphically, of course, the game looks like the early Ultima series, and many of these mechanics were adopted from those games.

        

The game begins.

       

Curiously, the author decided to move a bit "backwards" when it comes to combat. Instead of the Ultima III-style tactical combat grid, the game has reverted to more of an Ultima I/II approach where you fight enemies on the main exploration screen, and there's only ever one of them at a time.

     

Fighting a spider. You can't see the cursor blinking on and off.

    

Oh, what else . . . let's see . . . oh, yes. The author does not adopt Ultima's approach of mapping each of the game's many commands to a sensible key. Instead, except for the occasional password, all control is through the joystick. To access a menu command, you hit the joystick button, scroll through the list, and hit it again to select. No big deal.

        

      

Seriously, I don't know how much more of this I can take. Between the all-mouse controls of Sandor II and Magus, my mother's death, and the all-joystick control of Ormus, it's like the universe wants to punish me somehow. I don't mean to suggest that those things all have equal weight. 

     

This is a list of all the commands on that menu:

   

EXIT MENU

ATTACK

BOARD SHIP

CAST SPELL

ENTER

CLIMB

VIEW MAP

OPEN DOOR

UNLOCK DOOR

WEAR RING

EXIT SHIP

     

Scrolling through the long menu.

     

SAVE GAME

LOOK

INVENTORY

TIME DATE

READY ITEM

EQUIPMENT

SEND TROOPS

LIGHT TORCH

ATTACK CITY

SEARCH

TALK

VIEW PLAYER

YELL/PRAY 

     

Even joystick lovers ought to agree that this is an unwieldy list, particularly since TALK and SEARCH, two of the most common commands, are at the bottom. If you're a game author, and your player enters a room full of treasure chests, you want him to cheer, not swear.

        

Damn it.

       

The Ormus games do have something original to add to their Ultima heritage: A city conquering/defense mechanic. Throughout the game, the enemy faction (Ormus in the first game; the Brotherhood of the White Rose here) will launch attacks against friendly cities. If the player can't defend them, he has to successfully conquer them back in order to visit them. Both defense and conquering take place on a screen in which the player's forces face off against the enemy's forces. But there's so little to do on this screen, and the ending is so predetermined based on the number of troops and weapons (i.e., cannons) that each side has, that the contest might as well have been handled automatically. In any event, you can buy soldiers and weapons in most towns, then send them to other towns to help beef up the garrison.

          

That seems a little unfair.

      

One thing that the game doesn't warn you about is that if the king's palace is conquered, you lose immediately. This happened to me within the first 15 minutes of playing. Accordingly, you want to send some troops to the king's palace as early in the game as possible.

    

Beyond that, winning the game appears to be about assembling clues from NPC dialogue and other sources. NPCs just spill their guts when you talk to them; there are no dialogue options. I started in Remfield and moved east along the coast.

   

Remfield  

• Armor shop, weapon shop, inn, troop shop. 
• Shaw: Just joined the Brotherhood of the White Rose, "probably the only unsullied order in Beryland."
• Nomis: Recognizes me as the knight who put an end to Lord Marox.
• Bulk: The enemy is growing strong again. "Ulbore" has been translated. Lord Falworth knows the location of a treasure.
• Ekim: A terrible secret will be released once "Ulbore" is translated.
• Falworth: There's a treasure at 130N, 141W. I should go to King Argon right away.

        

I left a locked door for which I need a magic key. I didn't find any magic keys until later, and even then the game won't let me open locked doors with them. Either there are regular keys in addition to magic keys, or the game isn't reading my key inventory properly.

     

But I do!

      

Like its predecessor, the game has a system by which you can see both world maps and area maps, and get your current coordinates, if you find magic maps. I found a few in some piece of furniture. The author did not fix the problem from the first Ormus where "west" really means "east." 

       

The map of King Argon's palace.

      

I had to reload and return to Remfield multiple times to buy more troops and weapons to conquer the next two cities. Fortunately, the treasure chests in the city gave me enough money to do that. This isn't the sort of game where you're an Avatar and need to avoid stealing from chests. Indeed, you have to search basically every piece of furniture.

        

Dillingston  

• I had to reconquer the city. 

       

Dillingston was "occupied" when I tried to enter.

     

• Troop shop, pawn shop, healer, ship shop
• Sally: There's a spell called FOREMIS that dissolves force fields. PORDI teleports to safe ground near the king's palace. 
• Festus: Wants to be mayor. Was ordered by Lord Narod to tell me the name of a god-servant: MARCIUM. 
• Velvet: Recently explored a dungeon. At the bottom, found a scroll with coordinates 81N, 156W listed.

      

A later map of the game world, with current coordinates.

       

• Derrick: The Black Dragon (a foe from the first game) is still alive, the most powerful being that has ever walked Beryland. Since Lord Marox and Thorn both perished, the dragon is the "last titan." It used to live in the eastern swamps. 

   

The pawn shop buys nuggets, jewels, silver, copper, and some other items, added to the game to increase the complexity of the economy. Finding 6 nuggets and then having to sell them is more work than just finding 60 gold pieces in the first place, but there's still something I like about it. 

     

You and I have different definitions of "only."

       

Ships cost over 3,000 gold pieces, so I'm a long way from being able to afford one. 

 

Dalewood 

• Also had to reconquer the city. 
• Inn, weapon shop, troop shop, magic shop.
• Farlow: Suggests I find the Mystic Helm but gives no clue where it is.
• Tom: Thinks I may have been referred to him by Martin but wants the password.
• Garder: We can blame all recent troubles on the Brotherhood of the White Rose. 
• Beth: Flirts. I should talk to Eliza, who has a secret.
• Eliza: Search 52N, 73W. 

    

In a barrel in the city, I found something called Lord Skull. I bought all the spells at the magic shop, which were cheap, but I don't know what all of them do. 

      

With night closed in around me, I find a skull.

       

52N, 73W wasn't far from Dalewood, so I headed over there after finishing the city, searched the appropriate square, and found nothing. It's hard not to feel like I'm already walking dead because of some screw-up in the coordinate system.

  

Hillstone

• Also had to reconquer the city. How big a head start did the Brotherhood have? 
• Troop store, healer, armory.
• Manuel: Went to school with Simon, Ralf, and Mike. Mike is serving in the military, helping the king to fight the Ormus troops.
• Tina: Farm girl. Flirts. Suggests I visit her at night. 

      

I then promptly forgot.

       

• Marry: Waitress at the inn. 
• Ralf: In school studying law. Manuel is a banker. "In each city, village, and other place, you can find 8 items! After you discovered them all, you receive a bonus!"
• Left a locked door. 

     

Ralf's comment was a fun bit of intelligence. Knowing each town has exactly 8 items will cut down on the number of scrolling to "Search" that I need to do. It also explains why I got experience after my last search in Dalewood. The references to the NPCs all going to school together seems to be a real-world reference to author Mike Doran and other people who contributed to the game.

 

As I traveled between these cities, I only fought about three battles with wandering enemies. I remember noting this in the first Ormus, too. 

     

Temple Mar

• Prayed in front of an altar. Was told I wasn't ready for a higher level. Good to know that's how you level up. 

         

What does it look like I'm doing?!

         

• Attacked by an archer and a troll. I didn't realize you could get attacked in temples. If I try to talk to them, the game crashes. It occurs to me later that this might be a good place to grind if it loads an enemy every time you visit. 

       

Have some respect, troll.

        

• Left a locked door with a poison field on the other side.
• Couldn't figure out a way to access a large part of the area. Need a way to cross water or go through walls, or there's some secret door mechanic that I can't figure out. 

    

Harper Valley 

• Again, had to liberate it from enemy troops.
• Armory, troop store, weapon store.
• Upgraded to chain armor (from leather) and a dragon shield.
• Andrea: Close friend of Lord Narod. The name of one god-servant is FERMON.
• Gorab: Member of the Ormus cult. They will get their revenge on me.

     

I do not remember, but good to see you anyway.

      

• Martina: I should ask her husband about a treasure. 
• Lothar: His grandfather stole a chest from a dragon and hid it at 132N, 25W.

   

At this point, I figured it was time to visit the Royal Palace. I looked up its location in the first game, and it was in the same place here. I marched right up to King Argon's throne room and spoke to him. He reiterated that I would have to complete 9 tasks for the various god-servants, go to the mystic flames in the Stone Mountains, yell the "holy word," and speak the three "eternal words," but backwards. Somehow, this will save the world.

 

Bar-Yogun, the king's wizard, told me of a treasure at 64N, 217W. He also warned me that when someone gives me coordinates, they may not be exact, and I should search the general area, so perhaps that's the solution to my earlier problem. Princess Sheila told me the name of another god-servant: URUK. 

       

I'm not sure you understand the purpose of "coordinates."

     

As I left the castle, I was wondering where I would meet the god-servants, and it occurred to me that maybe I needed to summon them. I used the YELL command to bellow URUK.

   

Sure enough, the creature appeared. He said that the task I'd need to do for him is to finish a sequence of runes, shown below.

      

Those aren't "secret runes"; they're just letters.

        

I'll be damned if I can make anything out of it. I'm guessing it requires knowledge of something in the game, like maybe those are the first letters of towns or something.

 

I continued with the other two names I had. FERMON wanted three black jewels and MARCIUM wanted to know the "holy word." 

    

As I wrap up this first session, it's 15 January. The game started on 7 January. I don't love the idea of a time limit, but I also don't seem to be in much danger of hitting it. Now that I know the map is the same as the first game, including the locations of towns, I can work out an optimal exploration strategy.

   

This kind of gameplay, involving finding clues and searching towns and talking to NPCs, is one of the things I love about CRPGs. I just wish I could do it with the damned keyboard.

   

Time so far: 4 hours