Ultima III: Exodus

Ultima III is often seen as one of the most important games ever. It brought RPG mechanics to a whole new level with party based strategic combat. It's basically the distant ancestor of strategy rpgs. The game is a big leap over its predecessors Ultima I and II who were simpler action rpgs. In Ultima III you create a party of four characters to play as. In structure the game is more similar to Ultima II than Ultima I which is surprising since Ultima I was a superior game. However I think Richard Garriott preferred a free roaming world to a more linear quest based one so he continued in that vein. Fortunately Ultima III is much more interesting than Ultima II and has more of a structure to it which helps keep it interesting. However it still has some weaknesses. The dungeons are a big hassle. In 1983 the technology wasn't yet good enough to allow detailed graphics in dungeon so you're left to wander around in a mess of orange walls. The only things you see in dungeons are orange walls and bright yellow treasure chests. It's not a stimulating sight and since the dungeons are much harder than in Ultima I it's not a pleasing one either. You need to spend a lot of time in the dungeons in this game so I would have liked them to be more interesting. The combat is really rudimentary strategy RPG stuff. That is to be expected considering the age of the game but by modern standards it just cannot be praised. It is slow and boring at times. The questing in the game is also extremely slow, you spend most of the game gathering money by either fighting over and over again, going into dungeons and grabbing chests or looting towns, none of which is exciting. The NPC's have nothing to say but boring one liners. All in all, Ultima III is basically a party based Ultima II but with a slightly better structure. The game also rewards playing as evil rather than good characters which is a bit annoying. Killing guards is the fastest way to gain levels and in some cases the fastest way to gain money. A nice touch now is that you can bribe guards if they are in the way of some information or a couple of treasure chests so you can avoid bloodshed that way.

The commodore 64 version had full music and it was quite impressive too. The only real problem with it is that it's relative brevity; the music loops a bit too much to my liking. The sound effects are still the simple ones found in the earlier games although with some additions. Once again I can't say Ultima III is a good value since it's quite old and expensive if you want to buy it. The Ultima Collection is still your best and cheapest bet. Even if the game is an improvement over Ultima I and II it still is too old and rudimentary to recommend to anyone else but Ultima fans.