Ultima Underworld: Summary and Rating

         

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss

United States

Blue Sky Productions (developer); Origin Systems (publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS; 1993 for FM Towns and PC-98; 1997 for PlayStation

Date Started: 15 February 2018

Date Ended: 24 March 2018 

Total Hours: 33

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5)

Final Rating:62

Ranking at time of posting: 287/290 (99%)
Rakning at Game #576: 571/576 (99%)

Ultima Underworld is in many ways a typical Origin game: groundbreaking, innovative, well-produced, addictive, enormously fun to play--and at the same time a bit disappointing in what they did and didn't do with the story. This simply has no business being an Ultima title, and the protagonist has no business being the Avatar. Fusing the game with their hallmark series may have ensured sales, but it creates a confused continuity and subtracts from what otherwise might have been a compelling story designed specifically for this game. It also blunts any sense of role-playing: if you're supposed to be the Avatar, you can't very well run around choosing the "evil" options.

If they were going to insist on making it an Ultima game, they should have gone all-in. Make it clear that the three-part key is the same one the Avatar originally carried into the Abyss. Replace the ankh shrines with Ultima IV's altars. Replace Cabirus, Almric, Garamon, and Tyball with people we've heard of--Ultima IV, V, and VI had plenty of possibilities. Make it clear that the chamber in which the Slasher was trapped was the old Codex chamber, and make the player answer questions to get in. Toss in a gargoyle NPC or two. Blame the fall of the colony on one of the factions finding Mondain's skull, which the Avatar had last cast into the lava. Instead, they did everything to make it seem like the game was an apocryphal part of the Ultima universe.
          
I don't know what to think about the story that was told. The cluebook gives an entire history of Tyball and Garamon (reprinted here), and it makes the backstory much clearer than what was presented in the game: the brothers accidentally released the Slasher of Veils while researching interplanar travel. They created the Chamber of Virtue, imbuing it with "virtuous energies" to trap and weaken it until they could find a way to send it home. In the meantime, the Slasher corrupted Tyball and led him to arrange for Garamon's murder. To get into the Chamber of Virtue and free the demon, Tyball needed to find someone of great virtue and sacrifice her to "shatter the virtue of the chamber"; hence, he kidnapped the baron's daughter.

Aside from not making a lot of sense and reflecting extremely outdated views on virginity equaling virtue, the story has a feeling of being written after the game, to explain the elements within it, rather than vice versa. For instance, consider this paragraph, which seems like a clumsy way of explaining why Garamon's bones were somehow found in a random part of the lower level instead of in the chamber.
          

Dying, Garamon was still not without great power. Yet if Britannia were to survive, he could not afford to use his power to defend himself. Instead, he cast a mighty spell which, despite Tyball's best efforts, drew closed the door to the Chamber of Virtue. The demon was bound in place, but Garamon was not. His act of sacrifice made him virtuous enough to leave the Chamber of Virtue, and so he did by magic; but he died immediately thereafter, and his remains were lost on the lowest level of the Abyss.

      
Whether this supposition is true or not, I don't think this overall backstory is discoverable within the game itself. Sure, there are scraps of it here and there, and it's possible that the developers meant it to be something of a mystery, but I just feel it was poor story-telling--and, again, not well-integrated into the backstory of the Abyss presented in the game materials, let alone the rest of Ultima canon.

Beyond that, and a couple of bugs, it's hard to think of a negative thing to say about it. Even the things that don't work have a spark of a good idea, and you can see how they might work. For instance, the "bartering" system is a bit under-developed and unrewarding, but it's not a bad idea on the surface. Of the three major character builds--fighter, mage, and explorer/ranger/rogue--the last one seems mostly untenable, and yet it's a valiant effort.

There are a lot of "firsts" in Ultima Underworld and even more "seconds"--meaning some other game technically did it first, but probably not as well, and even if it did, it's not coming to mind right now. My list, on which I invite you to expand or correct, includes:

          

• First RPG with the ability to look and move up and down

• First continuous movement in a 3D RPG.

• First 3D RPG that doesn't use straight lines and right angles for all the dungeon walls and has complex textures. Without that last bit, Alien Fires: 2199 A.D. (1987) is technically first. 

• First 3D RPG in which each corridor and room is uniquely designed with wall details, ground details, and furniture instead of just repeating textures.

• First RPG with a realistic dungeon ecosystem

• First 3D RPG with realistic item interactions, such as using a fishing pole to catch fish, making torches out of wood and oil, using a torch to light a candle.

• First RPG to allow direct bartering of goods without the need for intermediate currency (although that's possible, of course).

• First game with an automap of this level of detail, on which you can make your own annotations.

            

There are a lot of other areas in which it isn't first but still rare: full sentences for PC dialogue, for instance. A fully-voiced introduction. Contextual music. Flowing water. A realistic item identification and repair system. Dynamic lighting levels depending on the source.

Add to all of these things an overall approach that isn't offered here for the first time, but perhaps for the first fully-realized time: the ability to explore and solve puzzles from multiple perspectives. Take something as simple as opening a door. I'm hard-pressed to think of a game from even the last 10 years that takes as realistic (and yet still challenging) an approach as Ultima Underworld, where you can pick it, smash it (including with spells), cast an "Open" spell on it, or find the key. Just as in the real world, some doors are sturdier than others or harder to pick than others. Once opened, you can even close and lock them behind you. Meanwhile, in Fallout 4, 23 years later, just to preserve the integrity of their little lockpicking mini-game, I can't even nuke a door open.

Because of the multiple approaches it offers, I have an almost insurmountable desire to replay the game as a mage. Part is the reason is for penance: I didn't even test 80% of the game's spells. Some of them would have made life a lot easier; for instance, "Fly" would have cut an enormous amount of navigation time out of Levels 7 and 8. "Resist Fire" would have come in handy against all those elementals. Why did I keep casting In Lor once I was capable of Vas In Lor? I was almost always saving my mana for "Heal," "Create Food," and (later in the game) "Gate Travel" that I didn't experiment with many fun-sounding combat options like "Ally," "Paralyze," "Summon," and "Confusion." 

Such a replay would be a challenge because although I know the main quest steps, I didn't record, and I barely remember, where I found each rune. I'd have to take a nonlinear approach to exploration, avoiding combats I can't win, re-assessing my capabilities with each new rune. 

It might be equally fun to try a stealth game: hardly fighting anyone, trying to sneak in and out of areas, reaching the endgame at a low level. (Are there any required fights other than the Chaos Knight?) I guess it depends on how well the "Sneak" skill works at high levels. Or to play as a fighter again but go for more of a "barbarian" build: high "Attack" and "Defense" but no weapons and armor; maximize "Unarmed," "Acrobat," and maybe "Swim." Or to try a ranged fighter.

Of course, I won't get to all of these. That's why I have you. Please tell me your experiences with these alternate character types. If you don't have any, get the game and give it a try. These comments will stay open indefinitely. Don't be afraid to set the game to "easy" mode if you choose a challenging character.

Here are some other miscellaneous notes:

      

• I played a tinker, but never once did I repair my own weapons and armor. Early in the game, my skill wasn't high enough; late in the game, they stopped degrading very fast. Also, I only ever found like two anvils.

• Apparently, the wisp on Level 4 is supposed to talk (I don't know why he wouldn't for me) and provide the rune sequence for "Armageddon." Why are those wisps always up to such mischief? 

• Casting "Armageddon" actually does destroy the Slasher of Veils, but it also wipes out every other creature in the dungeon, causes the stairways to collapse, and destroys your entire inventory, including the rune bag.

• If you go back up to Level 1 after rescuing the princess, nobody acknowledges you at the door.

• It appears that the only "undocumented" spells are discoverable within the game. You can't just string together logical sequences of runes to find new ones.

• Something pointed out in the reviews that I didn't notice: you can keep clicking "next page" on the automap after Level 8, and use the blank pages just to write random notes.

        

I don't generally buy the idea that consoles have "dumbed down" games, but it's probably true that the reason you can't do this in modern games is because of console compatibility.

          

• The record for a speedrun of the game seems to be 17 minutes and 25 seconds. Look at that guy go. He doesn't hesitate for a second. I don't know my way around my own bedroom as well as he knows that dungeon. At one point, he drops the moonstone while in mid-air, knowing that it will land where he wants it to be when he casts "Gate" later. 

• But there is a bit of an exploit: he has piles of ash that seem to be able to shoot fireballs and other spells. I guess there's a bug in the game by which turning a wand into a pile of ash keeps its abilities but prevents it from every running out and "breaking." I guess I'm glad I didn't know that. The game was easy enough.

          

Now, I don't want to jinx it, but having revised my opinion on the game's combat system (as per the last entry), it's entirely possible that Ultima Underworld might unseat Ultima V for the top spot. I'm not going to engineer it that way, but I'll bet it's at least close. It's thus with some excitement that I begin the GIMLET:

1. Game World. As per my concerns at the top of this entry, the backstory and in-game story may offer more detail than the typical RPG of the time, but they're still a bit clumsy, unsatisfying, and uncomfortably seated within Ultima canon. What little lore we got on the Abyss and the collapse of the colony was appreciated, but I still wish there were more. More in the game's favor, the world feels like a realistic environment. Days pass at a sensible rate. The dungeon is logically structured, has clear sources of food and water, and feels like a real place. The game experience is almost better if you ignore everything presented in the backstory and just piece together the scraps of information the game provides as you find them. Score: 6.

2. Character Creation and Development. The "classes" don't matter so much as the more basic "builds," but it's still a good system. The different choices create quite different approaches to playing the game. There's admirable flexibility in character creation, the skill system is mostly well-realized (minus some useless skills), and leveling is more rewarding than any previous Ultima title. My major quibble in this area is the artificially-low level cap. Score: 6.

3. NPCs. Fantastic. I love the importance of dialogue, the dialogue options, the fun use of classic "monsters" as NPCs. There could have been more dialogue options, or starker distinctions to accommodate different role-playing styles, but it's early in the era. I like that NPCs are vital to understanding the quest and game lore, but you still have some options, such as joining (or not) the knights. The barter system needed some work but was still fun and original. Score: 7.
         

Dialogue options are: 1) what I need to accomplish the quest; 2) unnecessarily cruel; and 3) a lie that will just prolong things. Some of the other conversations are better.

        

4. Encounters and Foes. 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 like that some "enemies" are on the edge and can be tipped (or not) into hostility depending on your actions, and that expectations are inverted by making goblins, trolls, and lizardmen friendly. 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. Score: 6.

5. Magic and Combat. Literally, there isn't much to combat--just a choice of weapons and attack types. But as I discussed last time, in any game where combat is integrated into the main exploration engine, anything possible in that engine becomes a combat tactic. If combat was a little harder, it would have made more sense to explore those various options. More than any game so far, however, you can truly "role-play" combat here, including avoiding it entirely.

I feel like a fraud even commenting on magic. I like the variety of spells, and that so many can be used to solve puzzles and explore rather than just engage in combat. Having to find the runes adds a fun twist. Score: 5.

6. Equipment. Also better here than any previous Ultima title. I always like when you have plenty of item "slots," so you're constantly getting upgraded. The variety of items is fantastic, accommodating just about any play style or set of skills. I didn't mind the wear-and-tear system, nor the identification system, and in both cases I appreciated that there were multiple approaches. I liked that so many items (poles, spikes, fishing poles, lockpicks, torches) could be duplicated by spells, or not, depending on your preference. The encumbrance system altered between challenging and annoying but at least wasn't annoying full-time. Lots of magic items. Lots of things to read. Lots of worthless items, but in the game for atmosphere. Lots of ways for items to interact with each other. My only real complaint is that I don't like fully deterministic games in which items are never varied nor vary locations. Score: 7.
          

Late in the game, I replaced my black longsword of Great Accuracy with a jeweled longsword of Unsurpassed Damage. It seemed to kill the enemies faster.

         
7. Economy. A lot of dungeon crawlers eschew an economy. This one not only offers one but also makes it somewhat realistic by allowing direct bartering rather than passing everything through a standard currency. Beyond that, however, the economy isn't very good. There's not enough interesting to buy, and thus hardly any reason to sell. I do like that the dwarven smith and the seer who identifies things provide a "money sink" if you don't have those skills--if only it didn't take so long to get to them when you need them. Score: 5.
        

All the treasure found on the lower levels is wasted.

         
8. Quests. Decent main quest, although it could have been clearer, and a handful of side quests along the way that add flavor and role-playing. No options or alternate endings for the main quest. Score: 5.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The graphics are state-of-the-art for the time, though obviously a bit blocky today. To allow continuous movement and views from multiple angles, they had to take an acceptable step back in some detail. I found the sounds adequate but not outstanding. The voice acting at the beginning of the game was just awful. The interface, on the other hand, couldn't have been better. The game supports intuitive, redundant use of both mouse and keyboard, and I didn't have to think about either after the first 10 minutes. The automap is the best we've seen so far. Score: 7.
          

This is what the dungeon looks like if you set the textures to "low detail."

         
10. Gameplay. Easily the best category. It's as non-linear as a multi-level dungeon game can get (although a central staircase with quicker access to earlier levels would have been appreciated), even in monster difficulty. The lowest levels still have plenty of rats, rotworms, and mongbats. The experiences of different character builds make it very replayable. It was perhaps just a tad too easy in combat, at least for a fighter-type character, but the puzzle difficulty was decent and the game lasted just a perfect amount of time. At no point did I say, "I'm ready for this to be over," but neither did it leave me wanting more. Score: 8.

That gives us a final score of . . . drum roll . . . 62. Ah, well. Not technically enough to unseat Ultima V (69), Ultima VI (68), or even Pool of Radiance (65). On the other hand I rated the "newest" of those games 4 years ago, and 62 is within the margin of error for how my rating approach may have evolved. I wouldn't fret too much about it. It's at least made the average for its year, as of now, the highest yearly average we've seen so far. Perhaps more telling, Ultima Underworld is one of only two games--the other is Ultima VI--in which every score is at least a 5. It could have done a few things a little better, but it didn't do anything truly bad.
         

Organizing those three enemies in that screenshot must have taken forever.

          
My opinion is hardly original. Ultima Underworld makes the "Best X games" list, even today, for every category that it qualifies for. In its day, Dragon magazine called it "the best dungeon game we've ever played," particularly praising its auto-mapping, controls, and simulation of a real environment. Having cheapened their rating system by awarding 5/5 for just about anything, they gave Underworld 6 stars on a 5-star scale. PC-Spiele gave it 100%; Pelit 98%; Play Time 95%; Power Play 94%. ACE, PC Joker, ASM, PC Format, and PC Review UK were all above 90%. The only truly negative review seems to have come from a Swedish magazine called Svenska Hemdatornytt, which gave it 66%. I have't been able to get hold of that particular review.

The July 1992 Computer Gaming World, as was its tradition by the early 1990s, pairs Scorpia's "distinctive and often controversial perspective" with a review by Allen Greenberg. Greenberg's review isn't negative, exactly, but he seems to like the game more for what it portends than how it plays. Half his problem is declaring that the game "is best controlled using the mouse" and then spending several paragraphs explaining why the mouse doesn't work very well. If he'd used the WASD cluster to move like 90% of players, he'd have nothing to complain about. He praises the game as a "significant step" towards quasi-virtual reality and simulated environments but doesn't seem to have had much fun with the "murky and dim" graphics and "minimal" sound effects. He praises the automap but complains that you can't send it to the printer. A couple of complaints are just mystifying ("certain doorways that appear to be within reach remain frustratingly unapproachable"). Overall, though, he rates the game "an enjoyable challenge with a unique game-playing engine."

Scorpia's review is similarly mixed. With her historical perspective, she fully understands the major leap forward that the game represents, and it was fun to see that she had to spend an entire paragraph explaining what "continuous movement" actually means, because players wouldn't have encountered it before. She sees right through the less-useful skills like "Search" and "Appraise." She says the automap is the best she's ever seen but also complains that you can't print it (honestly, name one game in which you could). Her summary is that "the meticulous construction of a real-world dungeon environment is outstanding" and that the game represents "the dungeon trek of the future."

For "RPG of the Year" in 1992, it was up against Eye of the Beholder II, Might and Magic III, Planet's Edge, and Ultima VII, and it took the prize. It lost overall "Game of the Year" to Sid Meier's Civilization.
         

I just thought this was a fun shot of a goblin getting hit in the face.

          
To listen to the developers, Ultima Underworld was almost never published. You'll recall that it wasn't an in-house Origin product, but rather the brainchild of former Origin employee Paul Neurath, now running his own company in Salem, New Hampshire. Neurath's own account says that the project started off with enthusiastic support from Richard Garriott, but that otherwise Origin hardly communicated with Blue Sky during development. Two consecutive producers assigned to work with Blue Sky quit, and there were rumors that Origin was going to cancel the game, a horrifying prospect to Neurath as he had personally fronted most of the development costs. Fortunately, things changed when Blue Sky requested, and received, Warren Spector as their third producer. Spector took a much greater interest in the title, communicated regularly, and shepherded the project to completion. Even then, success wasn't assured. Although the game sold half a million copies, it took a while--and word-of-mouth from excited gamers--to build momentum. That it was released only a month before Ultima VII probably didn't help.

Thanks to the ultimate sales total, Origin commissioned Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (1993), which fits more solidly in the Ultima canon, featuring Lord British and the usual Ultima NPCs, and occurring between the two parts of Ultima VII. By then, Blue Sky had merged with Lerner Research to form Looking Glass Studios, and the company continued to specialize in 3D games like the System Shock series, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, and the Thief series. To some degree, of course, Ultima Underworld's influence is seen in nearly every first-person, continuous-movement title, including The Elder Scrolls and Deus Ex and even non-RPGs like Half-Life. Arkane Studios' Arx Fatalis (2002) was originally intended as Ultima Underworld III (Electronic Arts rejected it).

Looking Glass Studios closed in 2000, its employees scattering to companies like Ion Storm, Westwood, Valve, and Arkane. Paul Neurath formed Floodgate Entertainment in 2000 and co-developed Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (2003, with BioWare) and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (2006, with Arkane). Floodgate closed in 2014, and Neurath almost immediately formed OtherSide Entertainment. Their first project? Underworld Ascendant. It achieved its $800,000 Kickstarter goal in 2015 and has an official license from Electronic Arts (albeit only for the Underworld setting, not the totality of Ultima canon). The graphics look very nice, but the project seems to have exceeded its anticipated delivery by a non-trivial margin.

In talking about this game's development and legacy, I could publish an article six times this length, but those articles have been published, and are out there, so I leave you to them. I'm grateful to have such a fun and fascinating start to 1992. How do you possibly follow that? Adventure Gamers, are we ready for Quest for Glory 3 yet?

****
    

Previous entry in this series 

    

For further reading:

   

My reviews of the entire Ultima series:

• Akalabeth: World of Doom (1980) 
• Ultima (1981)
• Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress (1982)  
• Exodus: Ultima III (1983)
• Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)  
• Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988)
• Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990)
• Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (1990) 
• Martian Dreams (1991)
• Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992)
• Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (1993) 
• Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle (1993) 

 

Also:

  

• "The Digital Antiquarian" articles on the making of this game.
• The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994), a game clearly inspired by this one. 

 05/06/2026

Ultima Underworld: Won!

            

I guess I needn't have worried. The inventory error message didn't manifest itself in any obvious way, and I was able to get to the end of the game. I was in a constant state of agitation until then, however, which hurt my enjoyment of the last level.

I spent most of Level 8 obsessively collecting every bone and skull that I could find, then taking them back to Level 5 and trying to use them on Garamon's grave. The grave stopped accepting them with the previous "you thoughtfully give the bones a final resting place" message, and I started to worry that I'd somehow filled up the grave.

Eventually, I found a refuse heap worthy of a mage: Vas, Tym, Sanct, and In runes, a case with a scroll of "Freeze Time," a Ring of Invisibility, and a set of bones. Those, fortunately, turned out to be Garamon's. When I used them on the grave, his spirit appeared.

Garamon suggested that we open a gate to send the Slasher back to his own world, which would require a lot of magical energy. He said that the source should be "pure" and somehow tied to the traditions of Britannia. Then he left it to me to suggest the solution: the various TALISMANS of virtue that I'd been assembling for the entire game.

            

I didn't have a saved game recently; otherwise, I would have tried the first option.

        

While agreeing on the source, he was stumped on "a latent source of power" to "release their stored virtue." Again, I had to feed him the keyword. It wasn't hard; it was all around us: LAVA. He agreed and said I should toss the talismans in the lava when I encountered the Slasher.

           

I shall name a font after thee.

         

The last major step before the endgame was assembling the "three-part key." I'd already found the Key of Courage on an upper level. The Key of Truth came from telling the seer Illomo that I'd rescued Gurstang, which involved giving him a keyword--FALANAE--that Gurstang had spoken to me. Illomo said that the key was in another dimension, but I could call it back at an ankh shrine with the right mantra--a mantra that might be found in a library book.

Exploring the library, I found a book called Falanae Fanlo, used the second word as a mantra at the shrine, and got the key.

          

It's a good thing those are the only two words I could read. This otherwise might have taken a while.

          

I knew beyond a doubt that the Key of Love would come from Judy, once I gave her a picture of Tom, but I couldn't find the damned thing for the life of me. I finally had to look up a hint. I'm glad I did, because it was a bit unfair. One of Tyball's prisoners who you free on Level 7 is named Bolinard, and he asks if he can help you by making a map of the area. When I first met him and he asked that, I chose the answer that said, "No, I know my way around" because by then, I'd already explored the whole level and the automap was filled in. It turns out that you have to say "yes" so that he writes the map on the back of the picture of Tom.

In any event, I took the picture back up to Judy on Level 5. She mercifully had not fallen into the lava in the meantime. When she saw the picture, she cried a single tear, which fell into the lava and somehow turned into a Key of Love.

           

Well, I feel like a jerk now.

        

With the three-part key, I could open the inner chamber of the volcanic core on Level 8. I had discovered it ages ago.

          

Hey, is this supposed to be the same chamber that had the Codex in Ultima IV?

        

The Slasher of Veils was standing in a square of lava within, trapped by some magical energy. He won't talk to you, which I thought was too bad. Attacking him causes his bonds to break, and he kills you instantly.

          

I half-expected him to be a gargoyle.

          

With no other options, I threw each of the eight talismans into the lava, watching them burst into flames one by one. The moment the last one hit, a portal opened and sucked the Slasher into another dimension, and me along with him.

            

It's nice that in this chaotic hell-dimension, someone took the time to paint the floor tiles.

           

We were in a chaotic todash space, void on all sides, weird images like giant eyes and laughing mouths in the periphery. The Slasher was there, and he immediately started for me, so I had to run. There were several paths leading from the central area. My first choice, a red path, ended up leading me to a moongate that simply warped me back to the beginning.

            

Demon dogs are just a few of the horrors in the periphery of the final area.

        

My second choice, a green path, wound about for what seemed like miles, some horrible image at every bend, my health draining for no reason throughout the journey. Eventually, I came to a moongate and burst through. This was apparently the right one, for the endgame sequence commenced.

            

        

The moongate apparently brought me to the shores of the Isle of the Avatar, because the endgame narration (all text, no voices this time) explained that I dove into the sea with the lava at my heels. Fortunately, a ship belonging to Baron Almric was sailing nearby. 

          

What happened to my boots?

        

Almric apologized for how he treated me:

          

The "and more" part is never really elaborated.

         

And his daughter offered her admiration:

           

Have there been any others?

         

The ship sailed away as the volcano engulfed the Isle of the Avatar behind us.

         

Remember this next time you hear someone say, "Why don't we just throw all our trash into volcanoes?"

         

The final text explained how, after I got home, Garamon came to me in a dream, thanked me, and said he had used the last of his magic power to open a portal for the rest of the inhabitants of the Abyss. "They are now settling in a place called Destard," he said. I'm sure that I'll find their descendants there in Ultima VII and this will not simply be never referenced again.

          

From your lips to Lord British's ears.

          

After a final farewell, I got the screen at the top and a summary of my endgame status.

             

             

As usual, while appreciating the detail of the narrative, I feel that Origin missed some opportunities. First of all, rather than some demon we've never head of from a place we've never heard of, why not make this the first appearance of a villain who's about to have a big role in the Ultima series? You don't even have to refer to him by name. Just, you know, some being from another dimension has contacted Tyball and wants his help getting through. It would add more to the twist in the next game.

Second, just tossing the talismans of virtue into the lava is a boring way to treat them. Why not create a quest that makes more thematic use of the objects? It would have been fun if, for instance, the player had to identify the best individuals to wield each object among the game's NPCs.

The backstory is mostly wasted, but of course it's largely a framing story for a game that was originally conceived as an independent title. We don't really hear that much about Cabirus or why the colony fell apart, and the history is unnecessary to understanding present events. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Cabirus had summoned the demon to purge the place after seeing his experiment fail? 

Adding insult to injury, I don't think we ever hear of the events in Ultima Underworld again. Neither Arial nor Almric nor their descendants pop up in a later game. We never hear about the Slasher of Veils. In Ultima VII, the Isle of the Avatar doesn't seem particularly worse for the volcanic apocalypse presented here, and despite my joke above, I don't think there are any signs of civilization in Destard. I'm pretty sure multiple characters in Ultima VII refer to "the last time" the Avatar visited, clearly referring to Ultima VI. Correct me if I'm wrong.

           

But let's make sure we include a Wing Commander reference in this game. That's important.

           

The story got really lazy at the end. How did the moongate happen to take the Avatar to the outdoor area of the island, right where Almric's ship happened to be? Why couldn't the Slasher follow the Avatar through the moongate? How did the Avatar even get home from this trip? After offering a pretty lame way to get him to Britannia--he came through a dream--the developers don't bother to send him home at all.

Before I close, I want to say a word about the nature of the combat system in Ultima Underworld and similar games in which combat is integrated with the main game engine, and not offered on a separate "combat screen."

On the surface, tactical combat seems to take a step backwards in Ultima Underworld. Previous Ultimas, which of course featured multiple characters, allowed for careful, turn-based combat on a tactical grid, with options to target various enemies with both melee and missile weapons, cast spells, and use items. Ultima VI allowed you to assign a "template" for offense or defense to each character. In each game after III, terrain was an important tactical consideration. Leave the Ultima series and you find even more tactics in the best games of the day. Consider the system of stealth, backstabs, and opportunity attacks in the Gold Box series, the "foresight" system of Knights of Legend, and the buffs and resistances of any D&D-based game.

In Ultima Underworld, we're reduced to a single character swinging repeatedly at foes while stringing together the occasional spell.
           

Swinging at a golem.

          

But something deeper is happening, because in Ultima Underworld, "combat" isn't a separate and unique phase of gameplay. Rather, a weapon or spell attack against an enemy is simply one of many options you can perform in the main interface. Hence, we need a new approach to thinking about "tactics" in such a game. I would submit that for a game in which combat is integrated with the main game engine, nearly anything possible in that engine is a part of "combat tactics."

This is far from the first game with an integrated interface. Ultima I and II had one. But the mechanics of those games even outside of combat were so limited that the integration didn't provide many additional tactics. Things start to improve in Dungeon Master and its descendants, also featuring integrated interfaces, with options to smash enemies in closing doors and try to get pits to open beneath them. Ultima VI was the first real "sandbox" game, but few of the related options improved the characters' chances in combat.

Ultima Underworld might be the first game complex enough that the integration of combat and exploration truly makes a tactical difference. Combat becomes not just a matter of standing in front of an enemy and trading blows, but rather effective use of terrain, spells, and objects to get a tactical advantage. Here are some things you can do in Ultima Underworld that you can't do in any other game that I remember:
            

• Use my superior jumping ability to reach a higher platform where the enemy can't hit me.

• Lead the enemy into a room, flee, and shut and spike the door behind me.

• Shove an enemy off a platform or bridge and into lava.

• Delay an enemy by pelting him with random objects scooped up from the dungeon floor.

• Use one enemy to block missiles and spells cast by another one. (I don't know if these damage the enemy they hit, but they do keep them from getting to you.)

• Hide in shadows and simply sneak past enemies. 

            
(One thing I don't know: do NPCs fight enemies when they encounter them? I wonder what would happen if I led a headless back to, say, the knight enclave.)

This is a fairly amazing list for a dungeon engine that is appearing for the first time. As such engines grow, so will combat tactics. Anyone who says combat in Skyrim is boring because it "has no tactics" either lacks imagination or is being too literal when it comes to "combat." I'll repeat something I once said in a comment:
           

The last time I played the game, I played on "legendary" difficulty, and it was exhilarating finding ways to defeat foes I could never have defeated just standing there swinging away. Between various stealth options, leading enemies to each other, spells and powers like "Calm" and "Frenzy," leading bandit chiefs up the sides of mountains so I could FUS-RO-DAH them back down, making daring escapes by jumping into rivers, sniping dragons from behind cover, conjuring allies to occupy enemies while I found a new place to hide, trapping Dwemer spheres behind grates, luring enemies into their own traps, and a thousand similar scenarios, I felt the game offered just about all I needed for combat tactics. I think if the next Elder Scrolls changes nothing [except adding body-part specific damage], it will be one of the best real-time combat systems ever made.

            
The problem with Ultima Underworld is that it doesn't have a "legendary" setting, so the combats are too easy to win without resorting to any of the tactics that it offers. But the engine is ready for them. That's something else we can add to the game's admirable legacy.

Ultima Underworld: Things Fall Apart

You mean "again," right?

        

I ended the last entry noting that I had all of my runes, and that as such, I would try to experiment more with the game's many spells. I then descended to Level 7, which immediately sucked away my mana and left it empty for nearly this entire session. This was particularly annoying because the level had a lot of creatures of various types, and it would have been a great place to test out spells.

Level 7 was just an awful experience. I mean, more so for the character than the player, but still. In contrast to the openness of previous levels, it had a ton of sectioned areas largely inaccessible from each other and one-way paths and doors. Where previous levels were largely solvable from within the level, solving the main puzzles of Level 7 required me to dip down into Level 8 (which seems to be even more partitioned). And in addition to the lack of mana, there were plenty of places in the level where health just disappeared for no reason, often killing me. I think I had more reloads on Level 7 than the entire game combined leading up to it.

          

Between the platforms and the lava, it's the platforms that are dangerous. I have boots for the lava; the platforms damage my health for no reason.

         

Oh, and I may have encountered a game-breaking bug.

When I first arrived, I ran into a fighter named Cardon at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted a bottle of port, which I didn't have, so he didn't offer me a lot of help. Later down the path, I found a goblin guarding a passageway, and the goblin demanded a medallion. Since I didn't have a medallion, any option I chose resulted in combat with the goblin and about half a dozen other goblins and trolls in the area.

            

Troll massacre!

          

A few minutes later, I ran into another goblin asking for a medallion behind a portcullis, and also had to fight a bunch more goblins and trolls. At this point, I was feeling like I had messed up and perhaps needed to try harder to find this medallion. In any event, I was so weakened from combat that I decided to return to the previous level and either rest or let my mana recharge enough to cast a few healing spells.

That's when it happened: the dreaded inventory bug message.

               

          

This was the first time I'd seen it. Someone told me that it happens because a level accumulates too many items. I thought maybe I could make it go away if I reloaded from a save before I descended to Level 7, then run around Level 6 destroying superfluous items.

It didn't work, but the experience was useful in other ways. First, I found some more incense blocks and burned them, giving me two more visions of the Cup of Wonder--more about that below. Second, I found a bottle of port for Cardon. As for the inventory bug, I don't know if it will prove fatal or not. Nothing seems to have gotten corrupted in my carried inventory. I hope I can hang on until the end of the game.

Thus re-starting Level 7, I gave Cardon the port, and he had a lot to say. The lack of spellcasting ability on the level is the work of a mage who rules over the level and has taken a number of prisoners, including Cardon's brother. He confirmed that the wizard's minions look for a medallion of passage and said that he lost one in the "haunted mines" to the southeast.

         

These creatures were new on this level and almost comically easy.

         

I did my best to make my way to the southeast, sometimes leaping high over lava flows, sometimes walking on top of them. I battled through walking trees, giant spiders, gazers, and ghosts, and ultimately found the medallion. In the end, it turned out to be mostly a waste of time. It kept the wizard's guards at bay for a while, but they turned hostile once I escaped the prison, and I had to kill them all in the end.

           

I prolonged his life a little while.

          

The culmination of the goblin area was a prison. To get in, I had to bribe a troll guard with a few gems, the last time (I suspect) that wealth will be important in the game unless I want to identify items or have the dwarven smith repair them.

           

Probably my last barter.

           

The prison, among several massive doors I couldn't open yet, had several helpful NPCs. A guy named Naruto gave the name of the evil wizard as "Tyball" (has this appeared earlier in the game?) and said that Tyball's orb is responsible for draining everyone's mana and transferring it to Tyball. He suggested that if I could find the material the orb is made from, I can destroy it with that. He also provided the location of an important key.

         

Learning the name of the bad guy for the first time.

           

A man named Griffle said that Tyball keeps prisoners to work the mines on the next level, but he doesn't know what they're mining (Tyball seems uninterested in gold). A dwarf named Kallistan gave me a crystal shard that he'd found in the mines and said that it often makes an eerie keening. I think it helped me find a secret door later or something. Dantes, a human, told me of piles of treasure on the next level and showed me an escape tunnel he'd dug. This turned out to be important because the troll had locked the prison behind me, and the escape tunnel was the only way out.

The escape tunnel led to a long river of fire, where I faced about 8-10 fire elementals. I soon exhausted my wands. I never would have made it through them except that I found a stairway to Level 8 about halfway down the river, and I was able to duck down there between battles, sleep, and recharge my magic to cast "Create Food" and "Heal."

          

Toughest bastards in the game.

         

Throughout all of this, every time I rested, the same face that invaded my dreams at the outset of the game appeared to blather nonsense, only that nonsense slowly became more comprehensible. He identified himself as "Garamon"--I had been assuming this whole time that it was Cabirus--and indicated that Tyball, his brother, is cooking up some summoning ritual. Has the name "Garamon" appeared before?

             

His life!

       

Past the fire elementals, I found a Ring of Levitate, which really helped get around the multi-tiered level. But after that, I hit a dead end. The only place left to explore was a maze in the right-central part of the level, but it drained my health every time I set foot in it.

I took one of several stairways I'd found to Level 8 and soon found a stairway heading back up to a hidden area of Level 7. It was guarded by a couple of golems and an imp, who spoke to me.  He said I could only take a particular crown from the treasure chamber, one that would "open my eyes." The chamber beyond had numerous piles of gold, gems, magic items, and crowns. I investigated the latter until I found one labeled "Crown of Maze Navigation."

           

Did they think all this extra treasure would tempt me? I have one pound free!

         

Back up on the main part of Level 7, in the maze that drained my health, wearing the crown showed me a golden "safe" path along the floor. This took me to a large open area with an orb on a pedestal and a portcullis behind it, trapping Princess Arial in her cell. As I investigated, Tyball attacked me. All of this was a complete surprise; I had assumed I'd find Arial and her kidnapper at the climax of the game on Level 8.

       

Oh, right. I just remembered my primary goal!

       

I hadn't found anything to break the orb, so I had to fight Tyball without magic. He killed me the first couple of times. The third time, I used a few scrolls I had on hand, including "Monster Summoning," which kept him occupied while I attacked his rear. I also used a couple strategic retreats to use potions in the middle of combat. Eventually, I killed him.

        

I didn't get a great shot of Tyball. He was floating in the air for most of the combat for some reason.

          

As he died, he had a speech:

       

Thou hast just doomed this world, meddler! My ritual was designed to release the creature from its bonds, then bind it to the body of yon young lady. Thanks to thee, however, only the first part was accomplished. It is mine own fault. With my brother gone, only I could save our world. Ironic, is it not? I stood ready to save Britannia, and thou did slay me to save but a girl. The creature, the Slasher of Veils, which I sought to bind will soon escape. And its ambitions are horrible indeed. All Britannia shall suffer. Thou hast earned thy reward, fool. Thanks to thee, I shall not be here to see it.

         

I don't mind saying I'm a bit confused here. Tyball was trying to "save Britannia"--from a demon he freed in the first place? Why just, you know, not free it? And why go through all the trouble of kidnapping the princess to bind it? Why not just grab some poor fool who was already in the abyss? 

         

"The Slasher of Veils" sounds like a short story Stephen King might have contributed to Modern Bride.

        

The answers died with him. He left two keys, one of which opened the portcullis (again, how?) and freed the princess. She fortuitously had an "Amulet of Travel" that she could use to flee the Abyss and warn the populace to flee the island. After a quick speech, she took off.

           

I wonder why Lord British never gave me one of those.

The rooms behind the orb chamber contained some interesting books and scrolls, including On the Process of Resurrection and Demonic Summoning and Control: Theory and Practice. A scribbled note indicated that Tyball had killed Garamon but meant to resurrect him. 

Before I wrapped up the session, I wanted to clean up a few things, including the Cup of Wonder. The three visions had shown three different pairs of letters on the cup: IN, SA, and HN. I didn't think of them as mantras because "HN" isn't exactly pronounceable. 

I walked back up to the ankh on Level 5 (I either hadn't found or hadn't annotated any on 6 or 7). I had reached max level (16) at some point, so I used my final skill-boost mantras to increase "Lore," "Sword," "Attack," and "Defense." Then I tried combinations of the mantras from the vision--SAINHN, INHNSA, etc.--until I hit paydirt with INSAHN. "The Cup of Wonder is northeast and above you," the ankh said.

          

          

As it happened, I needed to visit earlier levels anyway, since I had never collected the moonstone and was now drowning in "Gate Travel" scrolls. I used one to reach its hidden area on Level 2, kill some slugs, and obtain the stone. "Gate Travel" takes you to wherever the stone is. I dropped it near a convenient staircase on Level 6.

            

This would have been hard to collect before I obtained my dragonscale boots anyway.

        

The ankh on Level 2 said the Cup of Wonder was below me. The one on Level 3 said it was "west" but not above or below. So I poked around various rooms to the west, playing Cabirus's favorite tune on the flute, until the cup appeared to me in a nondescript room off a river. At last, I had all eight artifacts of virtue. But for what?

          

That could have been more . . . wondrous.

       

Back on Level 7, I tried another stairway to Level 8 and found, amidst gold-veined walls and gold nuggets, an "orb rock." This destroyed Tyball's orb on Level 7 and removed the mana-draining effect. I wonder what would have happened if I'd done that first.

      

It was satisfying how instantly my mana filled back up.

       

Tyball's keys opened the previously-locked doors in the northwest part of the level. NPCs in those chambers told me of the Key of Courage and the Key of Truth, the former accessible from a staircase in the northwest area. I followed it upward, filling in small areas in the northwest of several levels, killing hostile goblins, lurkers, and mages, until I found a key labeled "Key of Courage" in a small room. This key opened a nearby door, where I found a small object also labeled "Key of Courage." So I'm guessing the first key was technically the key to the Key of Courage.

        

Walking through walls of fire on the way to the Key of Courage. Note that the error message keeps appearing.

          

As for the Key of Truth, a seer named Gurstang said he had been looking for it. My dialogue options included a choice to tell him that his "colleague Illomo" was worried about him. He gave me a password to speak to Illomo. Problem is, I can't remember where Illomo is and have no notes about him. I guess I'll search the seers' enclave first, of course. Naturally, there will be a Key of Compassion, of which I've heard nothing, but I'm 99% sure it will come from Judy on Level 5 once I find the portrait of her lost love.

      

I checked on her briefly to make sure she hadn't fallen in the lava.

        

Miscellaneous notes:

               

• Level 7 has a "mellow earth golem" just hanging around a little dead-end room. It feels like there should be something I can do there, but he won't talk and there are no secret doors.

• Every level still has central windows looking into the "volcanic core." They're getting brighter.

           

If you're going to wall off the "core," I'm not sure it makes sense to put windows in it.

        

• Although I had been determined to stick with the Sword of Valor as the primary weapon for weight purposes, I couldn't resist replacing it with an "excellent magical black sword" I found somewhere on Level 7 in a room guarded by a "shadow beast." It does seem to outperform the Sword of Valor.

• I encountered a wisp in one of the small areas near the Key of Courage. He was "mellow," but he wouldn't talk to me. That was disappointing.

          

I thought he'd have some news from the Xornite dimension or whatever.

         

At some point after I killed Tyball, Garamon came to me in a dream and said that the Slasher of Veils was unstoppable, but Garamon might be able to help if I could properly bury his bones, which are somewhere on Level 8 ("beneath Tyball's chambers"). I collected all the bones and skulls I could find on the level and brought them up to the graveyard on Level 5 and clicked on Garamon's grave. It congratulated me for giving the bones a proper burial, but Garamon didn't appear or anything, so I suspect I had the wrong bones. I'll have to keep looking.

         

I "thoughtfully" create a mass grave.

        

It feels like the game is becoming a bit unraveled towards the end here, but my perception might be influenced by the near-desperation by which I'm trying to wrap things up before the inventory bug makes the game unwinnable.
       

Time so far: 27 hours