Linguistic Dragon has begun his journey through Ultima 2. And I have to admit, his opening paragraph elicited a rather hearty laugh from me:

I kind of view Ultima II as the series’ equivalent of the book of Leviticus – the first major potential stumbling block for any well-intentioned individual attempting to take in the entirety of canon from the very beginning. (Of course, I happen to find Leviticus unironically fascinating, so the analogy kind of breaks down in my case, as any analogy does sooner or later.)

My only quibble: Leviticus? Meh. Book of Numbers, man. But I digress.

Much of the post is consumed with an analysis of the history of the game, the box contents, and the general thrust of its plot. As well, he gives us some idea of his personal history with the game:

When I first was introduced to the Ultima series, I got my hands on the first four games entirely, but never played II much because my system ran so fast that I blinked and starved to death whenever I loaded the game. I also have very vague memories of an Apple II in my third or fourth grade classroom that ran Ultima II, but I never played it much then because I never could figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing.

And finally, in closing, he outlines his plan for playing it through:

I mentioned back in the beginning that I intended to use graphical patches for this game, and the screenshots I’ve included here probably serve as good evidence that I’m following through on that. The original graphics were a four color scheme that just grated on my eyes and made it very confusing for me to figure out who all I’d already talked to, so I opted for an EGA update (courtesy of The Exodus Project via Pix’s Ultima Patcher) to the graphics that made it less of a chore and allowed me to focus on the game rather than trying to fight the system itself. I played a thief in my first runthrough a couple months ago, but I’m leaning toward a cleric this time, once again an attempt to make use of spells more, and the cleric list intrigues me more (mostly because they allow me instant exit from dungeons). Wish me luck!

Here’s wishing him luck!

Oh, and do check out his final thoughts on Ultima 1 as well.