Ultima 6 for Super NES…Online!
Twitter user and Ultima fan Cody Baxter alerted me to this online Nintendo Super NES emulation site, at which it appears that the NES port of Ultima 6 is available to play for free.
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A simpler loading screen.
Now, to be fair, I’m actually not sure of the legality of this site, so while I’m happy to link to it and point out its existence, I’m not going to say anything to the effect of “go and play it!” You can decide, good Dragons and Dragonettes, whether you want to do so or not.
I loved that port.
Back when I bought it, I had only played Ultima VI on the Atari ST – which was exactly like the original game… with with terrible 16 colors graphics, awful music with a lot of missing pieces (and a butchered stones ugh, I should record it someday to show it to people) and a slowness that was barely bearable.
The Super NES version was admitedly missing a few things (no portraits, only 6 party members, reduced interactivity and insides on a separate map), but it had gorgeous 256 colors graphics and jaw dropping music. It even had some music unheard of in the PC version – for instance you’d hear Britannic Lands from U5 when peering into a Gem.
I guess all there is to say is that Ultima VI was a great game even on consoles.
Oh and: no way it’s legal – in truth there is very little legal emulation and Nintendo consoles definitly aren’t amongst them.
Ultima VI for SNES was a great port, it really only missed game play features mentioned above, and things like horses, not plot features. Over all one of the best ultimas out there. The Avatar’s first real adventure after becoming the Avatar.
Aw…you guys are making me wanna play it. 😉
One interesting aspect of the gameplay of the SNES port… is that it has a very U5-ish vibe to it actually.
The main example I’d think of is how bodies and death are handled. You don’t get bodies when killing or being killed like in the PC version: so for instance if a party member dies, you see a small smoky ghost following you instead until you can ressurect it. Likewise for monsters: no bodies to loot… but instead they can go and spawn chest upon dying exactly like Ultima V.
Less interactive, but still very neat and Ultima-ish.
Also this really was the only Nintendo port of an Ultima game that was faithful to the source material since the others Ultima IV, V, VI and Savage Empire were quite different gameplay wise. Ultima III wa mostly the same, but graphics were very different though 😛
Atari ST version and only 16 colors? Screenshots showing much more than that. And besides the best graphics in series was on PC-98 with crispy sprites and 640×400 resolution. I wonder that no one borrowed it for remake engines.
Well yeah the Atari ST version had only 16 colors… it’s not like it could have had more than that: the Atari ST couldn’t do more than 16 Colors as a matter of fact. It looked damned ugly though, everything was very reddish.
The Amiga version had 32 colors and looked much better though. In some ways I feel it looks a tad better than the PC version to some degree (I’ve never been found of the reddish earth look of the PC version – the brown of the SNES version was much better).
I’ve never played the PC-98 admitedly but I can’t say I’m impressed by the screens I’m seeing at mobygames: it feels like they have less colors than the original PC version.
Yes, Ultima 6 looks pixelated unlike other Ultima PC-98 ports (1-5). Sevens were never released on this Japanese platform and Pagan supposed to be also “not that sharp”.