Ultima Exodus walkthrough (pt 1: create 4 characters)

[thesnare100]

Yeah, I would have gone with a fuzzy wizard at least, you don't like wizards? So, they can get max spellpoints and level to cast destroy (for wizards) and death (for clerics)

[valcaron]

Hey Uli is there any slight chance you could consider doing a full playthrough/Lets Play of another game in the Ultima series as well? Lord British considered Ultima 4 and 7 to be his best works of the series.

Both are PC games, but only Ultima 1-6 seem to still be purchasable these days. Not sure where Ultima 7 (or 8) can be bought.

[ulillillia]

It must be a console before I even consider it. That's the trouble I had with Might and Magic.

[presonicgenesis]

@ulillillia For what it's worth, the NES port of Ultima 4 is probably the most playable in this day and age.

[krononomikon]

@ulillillia They have an NES version of Ultima IV by the same subtitle: "Quest of the Avatar" :)

If it's anything like the PC version, then it is indeed a fun game! :D

[valcaron]

@ulillillia Actually I just discovered there exists a NES version as well as a Sega Master System version of Ultima 4 :D. The Sega version, from what I've read, is more accurate to the PC version's gameplay than the NES version... unfortunately I think it was Europe-only so it's probably hard to find.

[ulillillia]

If it's foreign, the odds of playing it are essentially zero. It has to be a US release (and also in English as I don't know any other languages (programming languages don't count as I know C, CSS, and HTML)).

[valcaron]

@ulillillia Only the Sega Master System version was Europe-only (which is unfortunate because, in screenshots, it looks like it has the best art style out of all of the ports). The NES version was released in the U.S. in 1990.

I'm currently playing through the PC version from 1985 -- 16-color EGA graphics, no music, sound effects coming from the PC speaker... and yet I'm having more fun with it than I've had with certain recent multi-million-dollar-budget RPGs released lately :)

[thesnare100]

@valcaron 88 actually ulililillia, it was featured in the 2nd issue of nintendo power, maybe you're thinking the ultima 4:Quest of the avatar nes version

[thesnare100]

@ulillillia Why does it?

[Evilmonkey66699]

@valcaron Ultima's 1-7(both black gate w/forge of virtue and 7 part 2: serpents isle w/Silver Seed) along with the 2 Ultima underworld games had been re-released for sale on GOG.com. but since Uli said he would only do the console versions I would recommend that he passes on doing Ultima 7 as the SNES port of that was terrible, the snes port of 6 is good, censored but good, the nes port of 5 is meh due to them redoing the game in the U6 engine which the nes can't handle.

[MrDragoniteTrainer]

My Brother bought a box of 30 NES games and he had one that had no lable and was dicolored. we popped it in, and after some research, found this! He says that he had played this game when he was young!`

[drewdudy]

how do i save my game??? on the NES

[ulillillia]

This is explained in another segment. There are 2 inns present in the game, one in the easy-to-access castle that you'll find the king in (take the left path), the other in a hidden town that's covered much later.

[Fruitboots25]

I love the music in this game!

[p4rkaboy]

hey, fella, i love yr walkthroughs. if only you did more. people often comment on yer voice. i don't know what it is about it, but theyre right. you've got a great voice for this. keep making walkthroughs!!! your comments are the best! likelikelike!

[lonomac]

Man I havent seen this game since the 80s used to love the ultima series

[bonestorm99]

"BS to backspace"

[111random]

What can  the alchemist actully do?

[ulillillia]

Really, nothing but close-in physical combat. They can't cast spells, use ranged weapons, etc., but at least they're same in regards to HP and overall growth.

[Shmey]

@111random Alchemists are half-wizards. They are a pain to use and build. Just build them like a wizard, and use psi every chance you get. If you can't, just spam missile, or max dex and throw daggers. In castle Exodus, use Psi and run up with the mystic weapon. There's no reason to make an alchemist anything other than a Fuzzy, Elf, or Human, in that order of preference.

[krononomikon]

@111random In the original Ultima III version, Alchemists were supposed to have a better change of opening chests and avoiding traps than others, besides thieves. This is also true with Barbarians in the original, which is what their pro would be to counter their lack of armor. So, in essence, Alchemists were Wizard/Thief hybrids, and Barbarians were Fighter/Thief hybrids, but the U3 NES game manual doesn't seem to mention that, so it was probably left out.

[krononomikon]

@111random Half-Sorcery powers and some Steal&Disarm - at least in the PC version he had a little Steal & Disarm boost, like the Barbarian, Ranger, and such, yet in the NES, I don't know if there are "some" Steal & Disarm with others as opposed to the full boost with Thieves...

The characters are kind of like this:

Fighter > Attack, Cleric > Prayers (will power), Wizard > Sorcery (magic), Thief > Stealing & Disarming.

The other characters are more of a blend, with the ranger being a solid avg.

[ZPokemonfanA]

Okay, I don't quite understand why ALCMT sucks. What pros and cons does the ALCMT have?

[ulillillia]

The alchemist can only equip the most basic armor and the most basic weapon which makes them extremely limited and weak.  Only the mystic weapon and mystic armor can be equipped otherwise. This means close-in combat which also makes it very hard for them to get exp and level up.

[krononomikon]

@ZPokemonfanA It's basically a crippled character in the NES port of Ultima III, but in the original, the Alchemist was a Wizard/Thief hybrid, and actually wasn't a very bad character choice. Actually, you might have considered it a preferable choice, depending on how you played. In the NES version, though, Alchemists are just good for a challenge or if you want to incorporate a "special" or pity party member on NES. Same thing with Barbarians, but at least they can use all of the weapons.

[Crust218]

This is a classic RPG and a great walkthrough. I watch it often. Excellently done!

[MFMoshDEK]

As someone who played this game through blindly probably 5 times with a couple fellow Ultima junkies in 88-89 I am looking forward to see someone else play through!! I am embarrassed to say how long it originally took us to beat this game...way more than the slim 2 3/4 hours here!!

[ulillillia]

In my case, it's actually 5 days of real world time, 60ish hours game play time, 60% of that spent toward accumulating gold since I was unaware of the 20,000 gold a minute method at the time (I was kind of playing this game blindly almost, using random guides from GameFAQs to get "unstuck" every time I got stuck (the pirate ship was one example, which, on my first play, I never figured out). The locations of the marks was the big one I needed a guide for.

[BaronMorte]

@MFMoshDEK Amen to that. The game literally threw you smack tab in the middle of crap without even as simple explanation of what was going on or any kind of directions as to where the hell you had to go.

Example: Ohhh treasure chest in the middle on the city *open* *City guards come and pwn your ass for for being a crook*. WTF! lol

Miss I miss old school rpgs

[kevilinsky]

I love these good old classic RPGs. "Go save the world, you're on your own, good luck"

Ahh, the good ol' days of figuring things out on your own!

[skywize]

ok, sad now, lol. I miss playing this game. I used to play the Macintosh version back in the day. It was funny, I used to make paths throughout the map with treasure chests keeping baddies away unless I was ready for them. Easily one of my favorite games, but the NES version is not the same. The rules (such as the chests) change slightly.

[zombieddie73]

Very nice walk through!

[dartfrogger]

Is this guy Ben Stein's son?

He should have made a male female wizard.....

[ThePattycake1313]

Two fuxzzy wizards, two bobbit cleric=unstopable.

[HeavensMeat]

Dorf.

[konkord2]

thx, there was a lot of useful info =)

[EllieBellyNet]

H aha, oh wow I remember playing this game back in the day

[Bastiest]

In this walkthrough I will state the obvious for you.

[earthmanbrick]

What a quality retro title, I'm totally going to play this. :D

I've almost finished playing through, 'AD&D: Pools of Radiance' on the NES (upto the last boss) and Ultima is next on my list.

BTW Great tutorial, man. Very informative and all round awesome, well done.

[ulillillia]

There is a better way to get gold and you can get the "mark of kings" in less than 10 minutes. There are two other videos beyond this series that cover just that.

[iherduliek]

ullililililililila is my hero

[Hoodooswamp]

I remember playing this for near 3 months on my NES back in the day....

Got to Exodus castle, saved it(had to go to bed for school LOL), came home after school, turned it on....and no saved data.

[Hoodooswamp]

Are Illusionists, and Alchamests worth playing?

[ulillillia]

I don't recall the specifics. The alchemist is the weakest one to use and is only suitable if you really want a challenge.

[Hoodooswamp]

Thank you for the response.

I thought about using a Ranger/Thief/Illusion(or Alch)/Cleric. Thanks again for the videos that you made on this great game.

[ulillillia]

The combination I use is, perhaps, the easiest of all.

[mrcuddles100]

I love you, ulillillia

[Feijoada1]

marry him then!

[Wishbringer3]

This music was stuck in my head all day.. which resurfaced 20+ years later hahah .. wonderful.. great sleeper hit!

[yogurt0]

This is awesome. Tom Petty playing Ultima III.

[Celestrious]

Yes, I'm well aware of why it took that long thank you....

[Celestrious]

I played the NES version, along with a friend of mine. This game without any help is hard as hell. We spent the better part of 15 years beating it.

[ulillillia]

It's because you have nothing in the way of clues as to what to do in this game. The magic system, particularly healing, is very limiting.

[krononomikon]

In the original Ultima 3, certain classes had extra additional bonuses, like the barbarians, alchemists, and rangers having a little bit of extra steal and disarm ability, and the druid's magic points regenerated faster than any others'.

The alchemist was also intended for a half wizard-half fighter combination...

You can even beat the NES version with 4 alchemists, and though I was too lazy to do it, I did get their stats up and all that, just got tired of playing it and went to the pc port

[ulillillia]

The NES port is the only one I'm familiar with. My computer won't run those games anymore, even if I had a validly licensed copy. I'd like to get videos of Zeliard, but short of going back to Windows 98, which my hardware doesn't support, this is not an option....

[banduril]

Should run in DosBox?

[Shmey]

@banduril DosBox runs the game a little shady. Yes, it slows down encounters and basically anything that has AI attached to it at all. However, background animations are not slowed down. The whirlpool is a part of the ocean's background animation. Functionally, this means it is nearly impossible to find a pirate ship because the whirlpool basically takes only a short amount of time to cover the ENTIRE OCEAN!

Yeah, in the PC version, the whirlpool doesn't discriminate. It's a ship-eater.

[icepickmessiah1010]

"I'll name this one HIGH, because I like high places."

YOU, sah, just earned yourself another subscriber.

[ulillillia]

This is a quote I came up with from my July 1997 Triangle YMCA Camp days, to explain this. "High elevation is the best elevation. The higher, the better the view!"

[frostytheaussie]

they are words to live by sir

[anonymous732]

PLAY MORE BUBSY 3D

[ulillillia]

FF6 is much more interesting than Bubsy 3D and it's currently what I'm involved with.

[mikaiei]

thanks ulilillia

i hope you had a happy valentines day :)

[hasbet]

cool video series man. nes rpgs rock but i cant bring myself to play them anymore

[Deciheximal]

Your voice is curious. I am unable to tell whether it is highly sophisticated voice synthesis software or real.

Nice walkthrough. Thank you!

[ulillillia]

It is my real voice, unmodified. I recorded a few seconds of it and if good, I copied it then pasted it into my main track where it needs to go. If bad, I simply keep on rerecording it until I get a good one.

[topshonuff]

I tried a way to make money by forming a party.. Give everything to one guy (gold, weapons, and armor) Then discard everybody except the guy with the goods.. Then discard the other 3 and form another party.. And repeat again..

[ulillillia]

That method is excruciatingly slow. On a fast run, you may only get about 2000 gold an hour. I've got a method nearly 10 times faster (watch the "20,000 gold per hour" video for details).

[stabslice]

Unfortunately the NES port pretty much forsook a lot of the story from the games preceding it, but it did look and sound better.

[ulillillia]

I would think that this has to do with the limited capacity of the NES cartridges, probably about 500 KB or so. My first program was bigger than that!

[stabslice]

My guess is that it was ported by Pony Canyon. Oh well, either way, it's different from most of the other versions of the game, and in retrospect, this version in particular just doesn't come on that Ultima-y to me. You have to play the other games to realize it, but believe me, it's kinda hard to miss.

[slowhands666]

This walk through owns. Keep up the good work and don't ever lose that voice of yours.

[registeredhater]

i could listen to you all day. love your voice

[MonoEmoCatsMeow]

Would'nt using a wizard for traps be more ideal than a thief because a wizard has Superior dexterity, whereas a thief's is only ordinary?

[ulillillia]

The thief has a dexterity bonus. A higher dexterity increases accuracy and evasion, and it also increases the chances of safely opening a chest with the "get" command. The open spell, from the cleric, is the only real safe way to open a treasure. The wizard does not have this and thus, it is not recommended.

[MonoEmoCatsMeow]

Well, i was wondering because in the booklet, it labels the theif's dexterity as ordinary, and the wizard's as superior. That just seemed weird to me.

[ulillillia]

I've seen all kinds of misprints in manuals. Bubsy's, if I recall, incorrectly states the scoring for each yarn ball color. It also states that the bubble Bubsy can handle water, but that's not true. Don't believe everything in those manuals. Even strategy guides have misprints such as Final Fantasy 7's having the morph materia marked in the wrong spot.

[krononomikon]

I think I remember that it said you can also get out of fights in the manual, didn't it? but you can't even escape from them in the original ultima 3 :)

[xYxYxYxYxYx]

4 clerics = unstoppable party

[ulillillia]

4 rangers is better.

[xYxYxYxYxYx]

hmmm... never tried 4 rangers. Ill take your word for it though. When I originally finished this game as a kid, after trying different combos, I finally did it with 4 clerics. There was a spell (forget the name) I think it was simply called "Kill" or "banish" or something, and with having all 4 clerics cast that constantly, I could pretty much wipe out any encounter without being touched.

[ulillillia]

I think its called "destroy". Rangers are focused toward everything (magic, and physical attacks) and do so quite well. If you want to be left untouched, I would strongly recommend ranged weapons. That way, you can, right away, begin pounding at the enemy and defeat several of them. You might look into 2 dwarf rangers and 2 humans. The dwarves have the highest physical attack power (magic maxes at 25 MP), but the humans have up to 37 MP. Also, use the "sands of time" to help if needed.

[wwjdgamemaster]

2 Clerics and 2 Wizards. You can Repel and Turn Undead. You need their spell pool with 99MPS. You will have to get a ton of gold in the beginning, get to ambrosia, and power their magic type to 99. You can then easily navigate the dungeons using assend/decend, Rise/Sink for both classes. The spell kill and banish can be used against the dragon classes. When there are more than two, use the spell Rot (takes their hp down to one) use the powder to stop time if you must for hand-to-hand.

[ulillillia]

My method is the easiest for those who just want to complete the game for the first time. Using ranged weapons is far, far more effective than spells, of which have serious restrictions in this game. One cast of destroy or rot is all you can do for quite a while until the MP is recovered in full. The B button and spinning around in circles are the easiest/fastest ways to recover MP though, but at a cost of expending extra food.

[DariakFrostmourne]

I love Ultima 3. I still have the NES Cartridges for Ultima Exodus and Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, as well as the Ultima Collections CD containing the PC versions. Its hard to imagine that the modern RPG genre rests on games like Ultima and Wizardry. And yet, even after all these years of innovations in gameplay, the classics like Exodus are still very enjoyable, and addictive.

I hope some of the Nintendo ported Ultimas make it to the Wii's Virtual Console, maybe even the C64's versions...

[Debautch]

I don't understand what is soooo fun about this game, but I loved it and still do. I actually beat it when I was 9 years old. I didn't fight for gold much, I would create worthless characters, take their 100 golds and delete them. I would also visit a town to the east with a massive amount of chests and steal all that. I'm curious... is it possible to kill the king? I used to always try but he would never die.

[ulillillia]

I've never battled anyone except guards and the monsters. The "cave of fool" has the fastest method for gold, far, far faster than the create-transfer-delete method and even the enemy defeating method. I've been getting gold at 36,000 per hour. See my related video for the strategy and method.

[yourmomas]

i love this guy

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

Usually, I'd go with a Dwarf Fighter for damaging attacks, an Elf Thief for opening chests without falling for traps, a Bobit Cleric for healing and support spells, and a Fuzzy Wizard for devastating attack spells.

[ulillillia]

I'm just using the easiest combination in the walkthrough. Also, I prefer a human wizard instead due to the game's poor magic system (it's tough to recover MP) so if the Wizard's spells run out, he can be devoted to strength and deal good damage. Weapons have a very small effect....

[machetey]

i hated the fact that you had to constantly buy food or you die. too hard back then

[ulillillia]

I disliked this aspect of the game too, but with my "fastest gold" trick, I've gotten over 3000 units' worth, enough for 30,000 steps/battle rounds on the world map or 120,000 steps/battle round everywhere else.

[knowfuture22172]

Hey Ulillillia, have you ever played any of the other Ultima games? They're pretty old but worth finding, if you can.

[ulillillia]

As far as I know, I've only seen this one for the NES and I haven't seen the others (of which there seems to be 9, given Wikipedia) for the console games.

[Kahran042]

Actually, there are technically 10- Ultima VII was released as two separate games, both numbered VII, but they are still considered two games. However, there is an NES version of Ultima IV, and SNES versions of Ultima VI and VII part 1, and you can download the PC version of Ultima IV as freeware.

[knowfuture22172]

I used to play this game on my Apple 2 as a kid (it's the 3rd in the Ultima series, if you go by the computer games---the NES version is almost exactly the same as the computer version in terms of gameplay if not graphics), and I can't think of a better person to do a video walkthrough than Ulillillia.

HOORAY!

[FrankHowley]

Thank you! I've been stuck on this game for a while and gave up on it. This guide helped me out in a few spots and now I almost beat it! Thanks!

[svandevort]

I keep wanting to yell "Leeeeroyyyy mmmJenkins! The music is awesome in the creation part.

[CameronVandevort]

Big K, hit you with the Big K