ORIGIN Systems - Ultima I - First Age of Darkness (Gameplay)

Whew, Ultima 1 has the distinct honor of being the first game I had ever played in my life. It was simple enough for a little kid to get, and fun enough to hold my attention long enough to get to the meatier sequels and begin my obsession with story based RPGs.

The original Ultima 1 didn't have much of a story, you just did some quests for some random kings, but it certainly had the charm and it was one of the first. Not only that, but it's still easy to play today.
While it's incredibly simple by today's standards (which is unusual by most older games' tendency to be confusing with complex interfaces) it still maintains some of its old fun.

Really, I most play it for nostalgia, and in this video you can see me entering dungeons, buying food, weaponry, armor and etc. equipping it then beating on some monsters.

Ultima 1 used a semi-turn based system where you'd make a move and then the enemy would, as one would expect, but it operated in a weird real time manner which meant both you and the enemy would make their move at the same time.

I don't think it was necessarily Richard Garriott not having advanced enough algorithms in order to make convincing turn-based combat, I think it was a relatively primitive form of real-time combat.

Nonetheless, it's a classic, and deserves playing for the history alone, if not for the fact that it's just pure simple fun that goes back to the roots of RPGing.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Ultima
• Origin
• Darkness
• Game
• Gameplay

[CastChaos]

I'm a true Ultima fan, so I tried this one, too... but I can't even come out from dungeons after getting in. The food goes away too fast and enemies kill me in the dungeons before I could see them... And after dieing even once, all attributes go down... So I can't even complete one quest...

[BloodPigggy]

You have to "K"limb up the ladders you enter from when you want to leave a dungeon. You need to buy food from cities on the map, remember that the game is turn based, so if an enemy attacks you in a dungeon turn slowly instead of erratically so they don't get too many free hits.

[gamingwithscott]

Very nice. I just started a Let's Play for Ultima 1 myself. I actually plan on going through all of the Ultima games (including online).

[GR8TM4N]

From this, to Skyrim. What a long journey it has been.

[mkrand01]

BloodPiggy I played this on an atari 1400? Does that sound right. Well, it was back in the day thats for sure. I started on Ultima II, and went back and played a bit of Ultima I. I remember thinking how much cooler the graphics were in Ultima II. Funny. I played up until they went with seven players on a team etc. Still though, great game and the start of RPG as we know it. Oh, and then there was Castle Wolfenstien....

[SeventhSun]

So this is what the first Ultima game looked like.

Interesting, blood pork.

[CrowJam]

i really like these old rpgs , cuz you let your imagination go wild , its both beneficial and fun

[MustardLung]

I seem to find old RPG's alot more intriguing than new ones. Elder Scrolls is about the only series I think that has a heart anymore.

[Hornet85]

Its amazing how far RPG has come.

[EroticBidoofFixation]

That is the best skeleton I have ever seen.

[Arcachnar]

Oh wow! I still can remember the day that this game came out in 1981. I got this for my birthday and played it until I finally finished it. This is not my favorite (that's Ultima IV and Ultima VII and Serpent Island), but I love it.

[cthulhusmop]

@DonbeeFwz : AFAIK, there was no in game music in any version of Ultima 1, just the 'sound effects' that you can here in the vid above.