Ultima: The Black Gate

"Lord British Has Done It Again"

Storyline: 9/10
The storyline involves your character, who has been to the world of Ultima before, finding a portal outside his house and entering it to return to Ultima. Many of the characters from Ultima:The False Prophet (including Lord British, of course) are still in this game, and that's definitly a good thing, considering the evils that have befallen Ultima. But you can find that out for yourself. Also, The Black Gate's storyline starts off completely different from the traditional go to king, find out about problems befalling kingdom, go to next dungeon type of story.

However, if you played Ultima:The False Prophet and found yourself banging your head over getting stuck, you'll probably need a strategy guide (hey, I needed one too). Also, unless you are really high levelled, the battles will kill you faster than you can blink. I had my character go fight a scorpion and die in one hit.

Gameplay: 8/10
The game plays almost like Secret Of Mana or Seiken Densetsu 3, except with a very different layout. Like SOM and SD3, it's a realtime RPG, with sword-swinging and mace-flailing everywhere. But instead of simply going up to a chest and pressing A, this has a cursor system (like Shadowrun's), which is very easy to use, and you can do a lot with one cursor. Also, the battles play out a lot better than the predecessor, and use a simpler format with fewer bugs (there were a FEW in The False Prophet's battle system, and you know it).

Graphics: 7/10
This game has improved upon its predecessor graphically that it's not even funny. The other game had sort of dated looking graphics (but was still a good game), and this one has improved upon it in every way. Take the party formation as an example. In Ultima:The False Prophet, the party walked around in a box, never moving out of position except for battles. In The Black Gate, the party members move a little more freely, and in the style of Secret Of Mana. Also, the sprites look ten times better than the old one, and actually make use of the 16 bits of SNES glory.

Sound: 7/10
One of the few games that I've played on the SNES with sound that you won't go insane after listening to it for an hour. The music actually sounds decent, but probably not good enough that someone who absolutely hates music in an SNES game would be better off going and buying a CD to listen to while playing.

Rent/Buy: Buy.

This game is really great once you get into it, but most players will need to resort to a strategy guide.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/02, Updated 10/31/02