Retro Games Beaten

I beat the NES version of Ultima: Exodus! The vanilla version, mind you. I’ll return to the remastered hack later on.

This was a game that I’d find in rom sites, I’d try it out, and then promptly discard in favor of Zelda or whatever. It’s not a game that you can just pick up and play. You have to research it, plan around it, and learn it to even progress. Once you have your plan in motion, a lot of the meat of the game is rather routine. You grind for money and more money and more money... at least enough to let you use some of the higher magic spells. Unless you wish to play the game with a disadvantage, I guess.

The original game had exploits but the NES version introduces a few more. The free-to-cast instant kill spells repel and undead (repond and pontori respectively, or kunte and kuun in the Japanese version) are cast-able an infinite number of times instead of just once per battle. You can use a party to level up and get a ship, dock it near Castle British, and then wipe that party to get a new, level 1 party. You get to have a ship and keep enemies at level 1 which are easy to wipe out. The reason you want to keep your characters at either level 1 or 2 is that the game scales monsters to your level except in dungeons and Castle Exodus. You can gain stat boosts in a place called Ambrosia but you need to first steer your ship into a whirlpool (and if you’re using the sacrificial party exploit, you want to keep it near land). You’ll also need loads of gold. Loads and loads of gold. Ambrosia is also home to the flower. Out of all of Sosaria, this is the only distinct flower and the only one that Sherry will accept for a thing called the compass heart. This doodad will teleport you back to Castle British even in the thick of battle... which you can use to steal all the treasure chests from Death Gulch. They respawn and should guards show up, you can either cast destroy spells on them or use the compass heart to whisk yourself back to safety. Hold on to your fourth compass heart so that you may use it the next time you go to Ambrosia so that you pick more flowers and get more compass hearts (Sherry will only give one to each of your characters for a max of four at a time).

I kept my characters at level 1 the whole time. I dove into the dungeons once I felt confident in myself. I got the mark of fire and the silver pick somewhat blind with only the floor as a hint. Turns out there’s at least something on the 8th floor of every dungeon and there might be something in the second floor as well. Anyway, I got the mystic sword for each of my characters which I then equipped to my cleric and wizard. My ranger and paladin kept using their bows. Eventually, I started using maps to help me get the other marks since the descend spell sometimes put me places that were walled off from where I needed to be. Not a big deal, really, since the ascend spell exists. Oh yeah. You can hardly explore the dungeons if you don’t feel like it. The ascend and descend spells will put you in the floor you want to be with only a bit of MP drained.

Anyway, I got all the marks, I got the pray command, I forgot to talk to the time lord (oops), and I eventually leveled up my characters to higher levels and healed them before finally entering Castle Exodus. Actually, I went in there like three times. The first time I got lost and got a total party kill after a sequence of battles (2 dragons, another 2 dragons, and finally 2 griffins with no chance to rest). The second time, I left my Famicom running (I was playing it off an Everdrive...) and when I came back to it I saw that the game had frozen. The third time, however, I looked up the map and made a beeline to the shortest route I could to take to Exodus. I fought dragons, wyverns, and griffins along the way but I was able to rest up each time (although I initially had a scare when I forgot to equip the mystic sword on my ranger and paladin- normal weapons do not work in there). I was able to make my way to the room with the killer floor. I knocked out the first group easily but the second group required manual work since my destroy spells were drained. Finally, I made it to Exodus and punched in the cards in the right order despite not having talked to the time lord because after like 40 years, every guide author and map maker is the time lord.

And with that, I “beat” Exodus!

Was the ending worth it? No, but I knew that coming in. Was the journey satisfying? I think so. And my journey started long before I started this save file. It started at least 20 years ago when I found it in some rom site and I tried to play it and ended up getting slaughtered by the very guards I shouldn’t have attacked. I kept going back to it. I gained new interest in it once I’d found out that it’s an important part of video game history. But it took a greater invested interest in it to look up guides on how to create my ideal party that worked for someone new to and intimidated by the game. Eventually, things clicked and I started to adapt to the game. Now I’ve got a playthrough started on the Gameboy Color port and on the Japanese Famicom version (which I’m looking to buy although I technically could get the NES version too... might just get both). And I just booted up the GOG version because I can.

The most interesting thing to me about this experience is seeing the game that inspired Dragon Quest. This game is essentially a primitive and smaller version of Dragon Quest 3. I think I’d prefer to casually play DQ3 but there’s a charm to Ultima 3 that kept reeling me and has now hooked me.

Edit: Oh yeah, I tweeted my accomplishment to Richard Garriott. He liked my tweet, so I’m very happy about that!

Edit 2: Y’all are slacking. I have to edit this post to report my latest game beaten. A few days or weeks ago I brought up Ultima: Runes of Virtue 2 and how I’d quit a few rooms before the end. Well, I decided to go back and just beat it. Turns out the pie factory was at least like the halfway point. There were so many more floors left and so many had infuriating puzzles like this one where if you screw up you are soft locked and the only way to reset the floor is to turn your Gameboy off and back on (the reset code doesn’t work for this game). There are these “enemies” that don’t hurt you but if they touch anything they start to bounce everywhere and they’re used in some floors as part of the puzzle to have them trip switches or whatever but it’s always done in the most annoying way ever (and they make noise, so much noise).

Oh, and let me not forget the cheap enemy placement. You will take damage whether you want to or not. So many enemies behind doors that conceal what’s behind them until you open them.

Some floors also have poison or lava tiles that hurt you if you walk over them. Sounds like you should avoid them, right? If only but you often have to traverse them regardless because there are no spaces between you, the lava, and the stairs.

Oh, and the rules of the game change periodically. You can destroy light colored webs? Yeah, not in this room anymore! Oh, is this a ladder? Sike! This plant is now the switch that opens the mayor’s cell because screw you! I guess by that point I’d gotten used to the game’s nonsense that I just started pressing against anything the hopes of progressing.

So, in Ultima: Runes of Virtue 2, you have to rescue the mayors from several locations and take them back to their respective towns. The last location is the Stygian Abyss, which I understand is where the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom should be but in this game is where the black knight decided to make his abode. Fortunately, the trek to the last mayor’s town wasn’t too bad. I’m not super familiar with the land of Britannia, but I know a few locations (this game uses the same overworld every Ultima after the fourth one uses). So, I left him in his town and no end credits or anything. So I went to Lord British. He congratulated me for saving everyone and I got a little parade and... back to the castle. That’s it, then. No end credits, no closure. Just “congrats, now leave my castle”. Talk about anti-climactic and disappointing.

Speaking of which, I found the black knight in a room. I initially passed him and found the mayor. I didn’t really want to waste time fighting the black knight but I went back and destroyed him (he was a pushover) thinking doing that would unlock the cell (it didn’t, I needed to press against a plant). He did not taunt me when I entered his room. To be honest, I only know it was the black knight because I found the mayor and just had to assume that tiny sprite I ignored was the black knight. And when I defeated him, there was nothing. At least Katrina in New Magincia acknowledged my efforts...

So, Ultima: Runes of Virtue 2... the Gameboy version may look and play better than the SNES one but the core of it is the same steaming pile. I think I’ll pretend that there’s only one Runes of Virtue game for the Gameboy. At least the first one is fun! That said... I’m glad I finally finished Runes of Virtue 2. I can now say that I beat the game and not the other way around. I can finally complete my feelings and opinion of it (although it didn’t change). It could have been a good game! It improves on the controls of the first, it’s set in the actual world of Britannia instead of using some new world (although I don’t dislike the new world thing), and it adds new items to collect and use. But whoever designed the floors and puzzles is an amateur at best. Challenge is good but this game’s idea of challenge was just frustration and tried my patience. Barely any of the puzzles were any fun and the game falls back on obstacles that are hidden until the very last second when it’s too late to react to them or the only way to react to it is to anticipate it (typically impossible the first time you open a door).

Ignore Runes of Virtue 2 and instead play Ultima: Runes of Virtue. More fun, less disappointing ending (which is saying something!)