What is your favourite early Ultima art style?
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The Ultima games have seen a tremendous evolution in their graphical styles and in-game artistry. Part of this is due to Richard Garriot’s insistence that each entry in the Ultima series should have its own engine (and then one which shared no code with its predecessor). Part of this also stems from the fact that Origin had a habit of building games which pushed the limits of system performance in their day; as computers grew more powerful, Origin titles gained in detail and artistic complexity.
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That said, the first six Ultima titles — five actual Ultima games, plus Akalabeth — do have many similarities to each other; visually, they all look similar, and all use the same dual-scale world map and quasi-3D dungeons. Yet each is different and distinct in its own way.
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This poll will remain open for a week. Next week, we’ll take a look at the later Ultima games. After Ultima 5, the artistic style of the games went through a major upheaval….it wouldn’t really be fair to compare Ultima 6 onward against these first six titles.
I’d argue it’s not fair to compare ultima 5 against the first five titles.
I suppose that’s true as well, although this may prove instructive even so. It may be that everyone will vote for Ultima 5, but perhaps we will see revealed a certain percentage of fans who prefer one of the earlier artistic styles.
That, and I had to draw the line somewhere. Breaking the series up at the point where it stopped using dual-scale (or, technically, triple-scale) maps seemed the most logical choice.
I actually almost voted for Ultima 4 myself, since I prefer its overland ever so slightly. Alas, the superior dungeon art of Ultima 5 won my vote.
I voted for Ultima 3, but not because is was the most visually detailed. Like a good book, you were forced to use your imagination to fill in the details that were not given to you by the graphics. But they were just different enough to stand out at the time. When coupled with the midi from the Atari ST, it created a very memorable style. I didn’t get this same level of visual imagination from the other titles, though they were superior in many other ways.
So yeah — style? Ultima 3. Gameplay? well, not Ultima 3.
Kind of misleading, since you’re using fan-patched versions of Ultima II and Ultima III, but I guess that just brings them more in line with what was seen on the amiga, at least for Ultima III. Still, I have no choice but to go with Ultima V, even if at the time the graphics weren’t that well received. I read one or two old reviews that were downright hostile towards style compared to Ultima IV.
I’m partial to IV as well. I played Ultima I-V on the Apple ][, which is the format they were really designed for. To me, everything else is a port!
In fact, the PC versions all looked worse than the Apple versions, especially before the fan upgrades came out.
Dungy: Most of these pictures were taken from the Codex, actually…the respective articles for each entry in the series furnished me with all but a couple of the images seen above.
Though to be fair, I will grant that the comparison isn’t entirely fair, based on the images. Then again, as we’ve seen here, people are leveraging their own additional considerations in making the decision, so I’m going to assume that the harm is minimal.
I think it’s hard to choose and judge because of how different each of the original Ultima could look depending on which platform you’d play them.
I mean for instance the 16 Bits version of Ultima I, III and IV had the exact same graphical style, while the VGA patched Ultima IV looks quite different. That’s not even counting all the other odd numerous version such as console ports or those weird Japanese computers.
Personally I’ll style vote for Ultima V. It had the distinction of taking a brand new art style compared to previouses episodes, but most importantly it also had this darker feel that felt most fitting with the story.
An honorable mention for the SMS version of Ultima IV too. It was neat!
Sergorn makes some good points–in those days, the platform can make all the difference. I can’t choose–I like ’em all!
BUT–I thought I’d add this:
I have some old design documents from Ultima V–although some of my initial descriptions are incorrect, the docs themselves are pretty cool:
http://69.89.27.241/~originm1/stories/story8.htm
Joe
Akalabeth, hands down, greatest graphical design ever. We don’t need no stinking colours!
I’m going to have to say the Japanese Ultima Trilogy (which also had a mode in English): http://www.rpg.bajtnet.pl/recenzja.php?kat=fmtowns/ultima1/&str=ultima1.htm
Hunh…neat. I suppose I’ll have to hold a vote on the various console iterations of Ultima, too.
1st experience was the NES Ultima III, which tripped me out until I realized why certain areas were black and constantly shifted as I moved around. Excellent if not initially alarming POV simulation.
2nd experience was the IBM PC Ultima IV, which was hauntingly beautiful with its black canvas and striking 16-color palette, lovingly animated.
3rd experience was the IBM PC Ultima V, with seamlessly-interwoven landscape tiles laid across the familiar black canvas, still brilliantly evoking its 16-color palette.
4th experience was the IBM PC Ultima VI, which broke the 16-color and dual-scale barriers with excellent 256-color graphics. I missed the black canvas and as TARPIT alluded to, the expected level of imagination was fading.
5th experience was the IBM PC Ultima VII, which though visually stunning pretty much left no room for the imagination at all.
6th experience was watching a friend play Ultima VIII, which closed the book on the official series. No need to mention later incarnations.
My vote for the graphics which affected me the best emotionally is Ultima IV for IBM PC, although V gets a vote for sheer polish. Here are some maps for your amusement, though be kind to my bandwidth if you may:
http://www.eightvirtues.com/sanctimonia/ultima/