195 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
195 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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THE ULTIMA TRILOGY
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Written by Richard "Lord British" Garriott and published by ORIGIN, THE ULTIMA
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TRILOGY is a collection of the first three adventures -- ULTIMA I, II, and III
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-- in the popular role-playing series. ULTIMA I appeared in 1981 and became an
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instant hit; each subsequent adventure expanded on and enhanced its predecessor,
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reaching (at the time of this writing) the day-to-day realism and visual
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elaboration of ULTIMA V. This review is based on the Commodore 64/128 version.
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THE ULTIMA TRILOGY package comes with three disks, one for each adventure;
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Quickstart and Player Reference cards that explain key commands, character
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creation, and play-disk instructions; and foldout maps for each scenario. The
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comprehensive and nicely-written 100-page manual explains, with text and
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drawings, all about the land of Sosaria and its layout and inhabitants, and the
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story behind each adventure. ULTIMA III's "Book of Amber Runes" and "Ancient
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Liturgy of Truth" are reproduced in the manual as well.
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ULTIMA I is controlled by joystick (for movement) or keyboard (for movement and
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commands); the sequels dispense with the joystick in favor of key commands.
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ULTIMA I: THE FIRST AGE OF DARKNESS
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Opening the TRILOGY, and the "Triad of Evil" series, is ULTIMA I, a
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single-player quest set in the world of Sosaria. The land is held in the evil
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grip of Mondain the Wizard, and your goal is to become strong enough to defeat
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him, and bring peace and prosperity to Sosaria. To accomplish this, you must
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create a character (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief) from four races (Human, Elf,
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Bobbit, Dwarf), upgrade your six attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom,
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Agility, Stamina, and Charisma), earn items and rewards, accumulate gold to
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purchase weapons, armor, and transportation, roam the four continents of
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Sosaria, cruise around the heavens, and use a time machine in order to reach
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Mondain (currently immortal thanks to a black gem) for the final encounter.
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In each land, you're given quests that send you deeper and deeper into
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multi-level dungeons to do battle with fierce and unholy beasts. You must also
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explore remote areas of the Sosarian continents to locate important and useful
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Towers, Pillars, and Landmarks. Successful completion of the quests is essential
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if you hope to defeat Mondain, upgrade your attributes, gather valuable items
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and information, and reap economic rewards. Looted gold may be exchanged for the
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rafts or aircars you'll need for travel to islands and other Sosarian
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continents, the shuttle you'll need to become a Space Ace, and advanced weapons,
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armor, and magic.
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ULTIMA I is really just a hack and slash game. But back in 1981, there was
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nothing else like it. ULTIMA I (and WIZARDRY) played a major role in creating a
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software category of immense popularity, and one that inspires obsession in its
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players. Computer role-playing games continue to prosper to this day, and in
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ways beyond basic hack and slash.
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The original version of ULTIMA I, programmed in interpreted BASIC, was entirely
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rewritten in assembly language in 1986, and it shows: While there is still
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plenty of disk access (to load towns, dungeons, etc.), screen scrolls and
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character movement are swift and smooth; what's more, the line graphics of the
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dungeons no longer have to be redrawn. Although the screens seem primitive when
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compared with the sophisticated graphics of the late 1980s, this is deceptive.
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In the midst of today's hi-tech special effects, where too much is not enough,
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ULTIMA I pleases with a clean, uncluttered look.
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ULTIMA II: THE REVENGE OF THE ENCHANTRESS
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The peace that you restored to Sosaria in ULTIMA I was short-lived. Despite the
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annihilation of Mondain, rumors abound: an apprentice with fabulous magical
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powers, wars in the making, lurking evils. The discovery of "time doors,"
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portals to past and future moments of the space-time continuum, changed the
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world dramatically. After a while, the terrors of Mondain faded. Happiness was
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the order of the day, and the uncomfortable rumors were ignored.
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Yet, slowly but surely, evil once again infiltrated Sosaria. And when the
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inhabitants had no choice but to see it, the powers of the perpetrator had
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already reached untold proportions: Minax, formerly Mondain's apprentice and now
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a hateful enchantress bent on avenging the death of her mentor, desires nothing
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less than the complete destruction of good, a feat nearly realized during the
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Holocaust of 2111. Only the time doors allowed some to survive.
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Those who did survive, a group led by Lord British, now believe that the only
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way to remove Minax from the present is to remove Minax from the past, thus
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altering all that follows. It is this premise that drives ULTIMA II: THE REVENGE
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OF THE ENCHANTRESS, an excellent and heady follow-up to ULTIMA I. It's easy to
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dismiss sequels, which more often than not don't measure up to the initial
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offering. Happily, ULTIMA II is fresh enough to not only avoid the "sequelitis"
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problem, but to stand by itself.
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Like its predecessor, ULTIMA II is a single-player adventure. The object is to
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create a character (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief) from four races (Human, Elf,
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Hobbit, Dwarf), upgrade your six attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom,
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Agility, Stamina, Charisma), travel throughout the domains of Sosaria and the
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heavens, earn rewards and items, and become strong enough to obliterate from
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time the very existence of Minax. The time gates allow passage to Sosaria's
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distant past, and to the aftermath world of the Holocaust.
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ULTIMA II's particular time travel plot is not new. Yet, it's still a nifty
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idea, one that kicks ULTIMA II up a notch from the hack-and-slash foundation of
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ULTIMA I.
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On successfully returning from your adventure, no one (other than the small
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group of survivors of the Holocaust) will know that you're the hero responsible
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for the peaceful world of the present. This is really good stuff: Who needs a
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hero with a big mouth? Besides, it's obvious from ULTIMA II (and from the three
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adventures that follow it) that Richard Garriott, the creator of ULTIMA, grows
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with the story, even as the rich world of Sosaria unfolds before us.
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ULTIMA III: EXODUS
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EXODUS, the second sequel to ULTIMA I and the final chapter of the "Triad of
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Evil" series, proceeds logically from ULTIMA II. It also departs from the
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framework of the two tales that preceded it: No longer a single-player scenario,
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ULTIMA III jump-starts players into a new and wider world by way of a
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four-character party of adventurers.
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Moving the series up yet another notch, ULTIMA III offers a long and
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complicated quest that takes you throughout Sosaria, into many dungeons, through
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"Moon Gate" transporters, into the maelstrom to a Lost Continent, and into
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combat.
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Through the discovery of an ages-old manuscript penned by the mad Minax, we
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learn of the existence of Exodus, the sole offspring of Mondain (ULTIMA I) and
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his apprentice, Minax (ULTIMA II). Whether it is man, monster, demon, or
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machine, no one knows. What is known is that Exodus lives on a newly-formed
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island, and that he rises from the pit of Hell to seek vengeance. This time out,
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Sosaria is in really big trouble, so much so that ULTIMA III replaces the
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solitary adventurer of I and II with a group of four heroes.
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The goal of EXODUS is to create a party of four adventurers from ten classes
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(Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief, Paladin, Lark, Illusionist, Druid, Alchemist,
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Ranger) and five races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Bobbit, Fuzzy), develop their
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attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom), loot enough gold for
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first-rate weapons, armor, and magic, and unearth the information to locate the
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items that will accomplish the destruction of Exodus.
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The Moon Gates are shimmering portals to other areas of Sosaria. The space
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travel of I and II has been dropped in favor of a Lost Continent and a fleeting
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visit to Dawn, the city of Light and Magic. In addition to the usual combat with
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monsters and the ever-present, all but unbeatable guards, there is also combat
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with abstracted pieces of the environment: invisible floors, something called
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"grasss," and, in a different sense, poisoned fountains.
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Like any role-playing game, the basic plot is the same: "Good Guys versus Bad
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Guys." But while the story of ULTIMA III progresses logically from ULTIMA II,
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its style and implementation are utterly different. ULTIMA III offers much more
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than merely hacking an orc into several pieces or disemboweling a gargoyle
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(although you'll do this, too). Everything in the game is important: You must
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visit every dungeon; you must speak with everyone; and you'll need a ton of
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gold, not only for items but for bribery. Despite being overly complicated,
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ULTIMA III is neverthelss well worth the effort to complete.
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THE TRILOGY REVISITED
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Taken as separate games, the adventures that form the TRILOGY proceed
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logically, although it could be argued that ULTIMA II and III are contrivances.
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(Oh? Mondain had an apprentice? Oh? Mondain and Minax formed an unholy alliance?
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Why wasn't Minax's manuscript wiped from her timeline when she was?) While
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contrivances are now rife in the world of RPG software (are evil wizards
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rampant, or what?), back in the early- to mid-80s, all of this was new. And
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contrived or not, the three tales of THE ULTIMA TRILOGY do progress sensibly.
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(A side note: ULTIMA IV and V depart in radical ways from the TRILOGY -- a
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departure telegraphed by the complexity of ULTIMA III. The basic ideas are the
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same, of course, but the size of the games (ULTIMA IV is "sixteen times" larger
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than III), the obsessive attention to unnecessary details (such as the sun
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rising and setting), and zillions of "advanced" graphic enhancements (such as
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ticking clocks and flowing fountains), all conspire to circumvent the simplicity
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and good ideas that marked ULTIMA I and II.)
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I suppose it would be unfair to blame Lord British for the tendency of today's
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programmers to create games that take months to play, but it seems to me this
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trend began with ULTIMA III. All the graphic enhancements in the world cannot
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make a bad idea any better, nor do they make game playing more fun. Real life
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has plenty of ticking clocks; I don't need them when I'm tripping through a
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fantasy.
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WIZARDRY also appeared in 1981; it and ULTIMA I are basically identical in
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foundation and execution, if not in storyline. The C64 version of WIZARDRY I was
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released in 1987, followed by WIZARDRY II, a scenario disk. Despite the
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similarity, WIZARDRY falls far short of the revamped version of ULTIMA I, which
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looks as good and plays much better.
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Technically, THE ZORK TRILOGY was not a trilogy, but rather one large mainframe
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program split into three separate games in order to fit into 48K and 64K
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computers: fundamentally, one complete game. The ULTIMA series, however, is an
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ongoing epic adventure, with each installment building logically upon the
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hack-and-slash foundation of ULTIMA I.
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A world unfolds and expands in THE ULTIMA TRILOGY, a world alive with important
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ideas and events. And it is in this unfolding that much of the charm of the
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series lies. As dated as it is, as outclassed as it is by fast-moving, 3-D
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graphics and animation, and despite the questionable intricacy of ULTIMA III,
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THE ULTIMA TRILOGY can be considered a contemporary classic, an integrated work
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that set the standards from which all subsequent role-playing adventures have
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evolved.
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THE ULTIMA TRILOGY is published and distributed by ORIGIN.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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