As I predicted, Origin historian Pix’s next post about his playthrough of Ultima 6 for the Super Famicom. As expected, he was able to polish off the game in one more sitting, and of course offers his thoughts on its finale.

As with the vast majority of this SNES port, the latter stages played out much the way I remember so I’ll be keeping this post reasonably short.

Which, indeed, he does. He makes a wee tiny oopsie along the way, however:

That only leaves the vortex cube to be fetched which is in Stonegate. I balloon my way there and locate it in the cellars of the former home of the Shadowlords. Around this time, I realise that I forgot to pick up my balloon when I entered and return to find it has vanished. This leads to another journey around Britannia collecting everything I need all over again.

Having recovered from this, he proceeds to find the three gargoyle shrines and acquire the final quest so as to reach the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. He notes a few minor differences between this port and the PC version (e.g. the gargoyle shrines only have to be visited; they do not teach a mantra), and a somewhat more major difference in the endgame sequence:

The final cutscene is there in full (with slightly altered graphics). The music is just one piece all the way through and it’s not exactly obvious to my ears that it’s the gargoyle music playing in chorus with Rule Britannia. This is a loss as it was a great little twist for the ending.

Still, overall, he enjoyed the game:

I have still really enjoyed this port when I’ve had the time to get into it. It’s the sixth Nintendo Ultima I’ve played if I include the Runes of Virtue games and easily the best of the lot on it’s own merits. I’d prefer it if nothing had needed to be cut but I can’t say I missed anything that was left out all that much. The fullscreen graphics during daylight hours make up for it even if it does seem to be permanently winter in Ultima 6 if the length of the nights is anything to go.

Before I started I didn’t think the SNES would be up to a game the size of Ultima 6 and was expecting far more compromises. The irony is that for an Ultima fan who has already played all of the games and is looking for something different, this is arguably the least interesting of the Nintendo Ultimas because they changed as little as they did.

He ends by noting that he plans to briefly explore the Savage Empire port for the Super Famicom, although since he has no talent for the Japanese language he will do little more than wander around Eodon for a spell.