Ultima 5 Gameplay Graphics Comparison
To celebrate the release of Ultima 5 on Good Old Games today, it seems fitting to look at the differences in the gameplay graphics between the various ports of the game.
The Apple II original
The Amiga port
The Commodore 64 and 128 ports
The NES port
The PC DOS port
The Sharp X68000 port
There was an FM Towns port of Ultima 5 as well, but I wasn’t able to locate a gameplay sample for that version.
There isn’t a tremendous difference in quality between the ports, with the exception of the NES port. The decision was made to craft the port in the style of Ultima 6, replacing the dual-scale world of Ultima 5 with a single-scale one, and adding many other features not present in the original. To effect these changes, however, other elements had to be removed from the game, and the game was generally regarded as a technical disaster.
And, well, we’ve already heard the NES soundtrack. Let’s not revisit that horror, what say?
The sad thing is, the NES probably *could* have handled Ultima V if they’d just kept the map dual-scaled and didn’t try to emulate Ultima VI. It might’ve still needed to be trimmed to fit in limited memory, and likely would still have been a rough approximation of the real game, but it might not have been the utter disaster it turned out to be.
The FM Towns version basically looks like the 16 Bits port just with a slightly different color palette.
I think UV for Nes as bad as it is stands as an interesting experiment. Remaking UV in the UVI engine including portraits and all? Count me in!
Had it been made for the SNES instead (and from the release dates it probably could have) it could have been a terrific remake.
On a side not I cant help notice the worst console ports of Ultima were those developped internally at Origin (ie UV and UVII). Had FCI done Ultima V as well, it would most likely have been more JRPG-ish like Ultima IV… But in all likelyhood a better game.
Isnt FCI the production company behind Iron Chef nowadays? Last time I watched it I swear that little eye logo they show during the credits is the same old FCI logo I remember from the NES U3..
Well, here a detailled article about the different ports: http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Computer_Ports_of_Ultima_V
As you can see in it, some of the ports had strange features (like the music on the Amiga)
The disaster that is the NES port also got an article. You have to read it to believe it. Also we’ve included a link to a video-walkthrough of a man who was brave (and patient enough, thanks to how slow the game is)enough to play to the end. Just look at the ending sequence. http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/NES-Port_of_Ultima_V