Ultima: Exodus

"There's a new threat in town, and its name is Ultima: Exodus!"

Ah friends, let us take a trip in the way back machine to the days when Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy 1 roamed the Earth and ruled with an 8-bit iron fist! Such excellent RPGs were scarce back then, and this title only further proves that point. I played this game to death long ago, and truth be told it's not AWFUL, but it is far from being very good and definitely not a NES classic like it's sequel, Quest of the Avatar.

You see, this game is a remake of the third installment of popular Ultima series that debuted on the Apple II computer in the 80's. There are some good ideas to be found in the game, as Richard Garriott really was a gaming guru so they couldn't completely mess everything up, right? I should have known I'd be in trouble though from the game maker's "eye" symbol on the cover of the box. Yes, this is the same FCI that also made the dreaded Heroes of the Lance, and Hydlide! And you wonder where they are today....

But enough of the shameless company bashing, let's get down to it shall we?

STORY: 3/10

From what I can gather about the story 4 adventurers are called forth by none other than Lord British to stop the new evil menace to Sosaria. Only this time, there is really no physical manifestation of the evil in the form of a wizard or warmonger. Nope, this time you have to fight a... castle. Yes, really! Now when you first start off you'll see a gigantic sea serpent blocking the path to the castle, and you'll THINK that you'd have to fight the monster to get past it, but you'd be wrong. You just need to find an item and use it and the beastie disappears! WOW! Actually, those castle floor tiles that fight you are kind of tough..

GRAPHICS: 4/10

Oh my. If you played Quest of the Avatar first, then I feel especially bad for you. The graphics in Exodus are nothing short of atrocious. (Hmmm.. Ultima: Atrocious, hehe nice ring to it.) The character sprites look to only be composed of a total of 3 colors apiece. When you look at them in the status screen, their pictures are greatly enlarged, which is good, but they are nothing more than bad pictures- only larger. Enemies sprites are nothing to write home about and consist of only 2 frames of animation! Yes, two! Even my crappy games I make myself have at least 3 LOL! The overworld seems unnecessarily bright-colored too. The one saving grace of the game graphically are the dungeon areas. They are drawn in the 1st person perspective and look pretty good, although there is virtually NO variation between different ones. Chances are, you'd get bored if not for the...

MUSIC / SOUND: 8/10

Such a high score? Yes, but truth be told it gets bumped up about 4 points due to the AWESOME dungeon theme song. Seriously, this song is very good. The song for the secret world of Ambrosia isn't too bad either. Sound effects on the other hand are mere bleeps and bloops for most of it. It's a good thing you'll be in the dungeon so much while playing!

CONTROL: 6/10

Exodus is a menu-driven game, so it's sort of hard to screw it up totally. There was one slight issue I had in the beginning though. I didn't realize that there was a second page of commands to the menu. This could be my fault though, so I can't blame the game on this one. When you try to control your party, they walk around kind of slowly. Try to walk through the bushes and you'll slow down even more. The battle system has a few problems with it though, the biggest being once you select a command your guy executes it right away, so if you make a mistake you're out of luck if you want to "re-do" the move or make another.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10

The best way to do this part would be to break it up into the good and the bad because there ARE some good things about the game that deserve merit. For starters, a player has a giant pool of possible characters to create. There are many different classes ranging from Fighters to Wizards to Paladins and Thieves to choose from. There are also some cool spells that your characters might be able to learn. They even have a living version of the classic "Turn Undead" spell that works on orcs and goblins! There are also 4 different marks, or tattoo by branding, that you can find hidden in the depths of the dungeons. The mark of Kings is needed if you want to advance past level 5, so I suggest that you find it first. Some, like the Mark of Fire will protect your party from lava should you walk into it. Take heed, for if you touch the mark to get it you are also damaged because you're getting branded!

There is a ship you can also get in the game, and it helps travel immensely. If you get it and find the whirlpool you can go to a secret land called Ambrosia. Here you'll find extremely difficult monsters and 4 shrines that can advance your statistics up to 99! While here, don't forget to have each one of your guys pick a special flower because that will be the key to a warping item later. Speaking of warping, what Ultima would be complete without the famous Moon Gates? By watching the waxing and waning of the two moons you can gauge when the moongates will appear.

And let's not forget, it's all about the freedom to do what you want to do, right? Yes, this is true even in Exodus. In fact, I'll give them props because it's one of the only games I can think of that actually lets you attack ANYONE you see! Is a little girl blocking your way to the armor shop? ATTACK!!! Of course, you'll only get minimal experience points and have an entire squadron of guards coming after you, so try to use this option sparingly. Unlike Quest of the Avatar, no one expects you to be a goody-goody so don't worry about loss of virtue in this game because it doesn't exist.

But what if you're running out of cash for those more expensive weapons like the silver bow? Well, by killing enemies you'll get a treasure chest that can hold up to 100 coins but that's the slow way to do it. You can get massive cash fast by looting the townspeople. Yes! There is this one shop in particular that must have about 50 treasure chests behind the counter. And if you look hard enough, you'll discover a way around the counter and into the back room to attempt to take the chests' contents for yourselves. Of course, you'll be seen very easily and they will call the guards, so be careful if you try this. (Or, use the warp item you got from the Ambrosia quest to escape without a fight!) If you have a thief in your party, put him in front and dive into a good chest-filled dungeon to gain even more gold. A thief is important to have in front because he will be able to avoid most of the traps that are also in the dungeons with you.

Oh, and let's not gloss over the fact that this game features NO random battles while on the overworld map screen. This is a huge boon because the dungeons have WAY too many random battles. You can see the enemies coming at you on the overworld and you can try to avoid fighting them altogether if you wish. And although I can't prove they increase your walking speed or movement rate, you can purchase (crappy-looking) horses for your adventurers to ride throughout the countryside.

And for the last of the "good" section, the most powerful weapons and armor can be found by using the silver and gold picks (pickaxes I suppose) in special areas to dig them up. To make things even better, every class can use this mystic armament, making even the lowly Alchemist a semi-worthy warrior.

Okay, now it's fun time! There are so many bad points to the game that they too deserve their own section so here we go! For starters, like many, MANY other games of this ilk we are once again infected by generic-itis when it comes to character creation. In a lame attempt to cover their tracks, FCI decided to call their "Hobbit" class a "Bobbit". HAHAHAHA, I'm not even kidding here people. And just WHAT is a "Fuzzy" supposed to be? I don't even want to ask.

And although a good point was there were so many classes to choose from, all but a few of them are completely useless. Why make an Alchemist or Illusionist when you can have a full-blown Wizard or Cleric? Why on Earth would you make a Barbarian who can't use any good armor or spells when you can make a Paladin who can? Do you see what I mean? The classes are horribly balanced and unless you're looking for a big challenge most classes will go untouched in Ultima: Exodus.

Oh, and your party will need to get themselves ready for the big adventure, so let's all head on down to the local graphical mess they call a town and start buying straight away! Hmmm.. well I suppose my Wizard will get a dagger, and my Cleric will get the mace. My Paladin and Thief? Oh, swords all the way! Only enough for some cheap cloth armor but no biggie yet. Hey look, my guys sure like to eat food at an alarming rate.. No matter, we won't run out..

(An hour later) WAAAAAA!! My god, we are all starving! I don't understand it, we had 100 units of food each just an hour ago! And every 4 steps we also get hurt because starving really hurts!! Quickly, through the rubbish we call a forest and to the town's bakery! Oh no, we have been attacked by a pack of monsters! No fear, for we have many powerful weapons at our disposal to lay waste to these filthy creatures now. WHAT!? Wizard, you've just thrown your SINGLE dagger away and now you are bare handed? Fool! Fortunately we have swords! But what is this?? Our enemy is situated 50 feet to the north of us. Let us begin the fun task of TAKING 10 COMBAT TURNS to reach our dreaded foe! (And let's all hope we remember what we were going to do by the time we get there!) No matter, with our generous dexterity and aforementioned swords we should be able to kill these puny foes handily! WHAT!? Hmmm, every time I try to hit one of them while they're on the "second frame of animation" I miss? Impossible, for I am a skilled Paladin! Let's try it again.. AGAIN I MISS!?!? Oh no, let's retreat! WHAT?!! WE CAN'T EVEN RETREAT THIS HELLISH COMBAT SCREEN? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Okay, enough with the role-playing, you guys get the idea. The combat system is just awful. Not only does it take forever to even reach your enemies, some of the tough ones like dragons and balrogs will start slinging deadly "effect all party members" spells at you. This makes 80% of the 5 weapons found in the game completely not worth getting at all! The only way to go here is with the projectile weapons like slings, bows, or the best one the silver bow. The "ultimate weapon" is a sword and if you use it you'll be forced into the crawling towards the enemy strategy, which sucks! It's also a very common assumption that no matter your dexterity if you attack an enemy during a certain frame of animation you'll always miss. I haven't 100% proven this theory but it sure did seem accurate to me. And believe it or not, you cannot retreat. At all. This is just fine and dandy for the first 1000 battles you'll get into, but after awhile it gets annoying. Especially if you're trying to steal chests and the guards keep attacking you!

And the endgame is just silly. As I said before you have to fight a castle (or the evil mechanism that it represents, or whatever). Once inside, you'll be accosted by all manner of deadly beast, but none more humiliating than the castle's floor tiles! Yep, so not only do you have to crawl towards your foes (because you're forced to use the mystic swords) but now the enemy is also invisible! Yay! When you finally get to the end and figure out the "puzzle" of sorts, the castle starts to self-destruct! The screen starts to shake like crazy and boulders start falling from the ceiling, and it's VERY annoying because your guys also walk very slowly even though they are at the cusp of getting squashed by a gigantic crumbling stone castle! And to make matters even WORSE, one time I was even trapped inside the castle when a boulder blocked my path! And to make that even WORSE the ending is absolutely HORRIBLE for the amount of time you have to sink into this game just to beat it!

CHALLENGE: 9/10

Sure, it's challenging but not in a good way. Control problems and an awful battle system seriously test the patience of an old-school gamer such as myself. I shudder to think what somebody weaned on Final Fantasy 7 will think of this game!!

REPLAYABILITY: 3/10

I guess with so many different classes to choose from, there will always be some draw to play this game again after you beat it. But since SO many classes are completely useless, I sure as hell wouldn't do it! I guess this would be a great game for those who'd like a wicked challenge. (Calling all Final Fantasy 1 solo thiefers!!)

PROS:

+A lot of classes to choose from
+Excellent dungeon music
+No random battles while venturing on the overworld map
+Ambrosia is a cool place
+You can attack and kill anybody who blocks your path
+You can steal some merchant's treasure chests!
+Turn Goblin? Oh yeah!
+Everyone can use the ultimate weapon and armor

CONS:

-Awful graphics and story
-Too many classes are weak, obsolete, and unnecessary
-Too many random fights in dungeons.
-If you never find Ambrosia, your stats will never increase past their initial values
-Not a wide selection of weapons and armor at all
-Does dexterity even do anything for landing hits?
-You fight a castle. 'Nuff said.
-Melee weapons are next to worthless because..
-THE COMBAT SYSTEM ABSOLUTELY BLOWS and...
-YOU CANNOT RETREAT BATTLES!!!

OVERALL: 5/10

This is a very average game with giant flaws all through it. It does have some bright spots in places but overall I have it a 5 out of 10. The sequel, Quest of the Avatar for the NES is about 1000x better in every way. At least they learned from their mistakes!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/06