Ultima: The False Prophet

"Hail Lord British! Three Cheers for the Avatar!"

Ultima, the False Prophet was an epic game full of detail when it was released, and it’s still an epic game full of detail today! Yes, this single game has more innovation and sheer fun then many games that you can find today. For instance, the main character, usually known as the Avatar, is very customizable. You change his name, since none is actually given to you, as well. Instead of other games like this where you pick your class or have it chosen for you, your character is a Jack of all Trades, sort of. You see, old games like Wizardry allowed you about 6 characters with classes you picked, and that felt like a fairly good way of doing things. An old Ultima game gave you a class depending on which questions you answered at the start of the game (Apparently, I’m a bard.). While the main character is a bit of a “Jack of all Trades”; he has plenty of room for improvement at level up. You see, you don’t level up in the standard tradition in Ultima. I never completely figured this game out, but depending on which shrine you go to when you want to level up, you gain different attributes. This means from your standard Jack of all Trades, you can increase your stats depending on how you want to play. Very non-linear gameplay, if I do say so myself. I also quite enjoyed how characters speak in this game. They speak with “Thou” instead of “You” and such. It kept the game feeling new and original for a long time. The Magic system was another great addition; you need a spell book to hold your spells, and the correct alchemy-style ingredients! Nightshade and other items like this are required every single time you want to cast something, which isn’t too bad, since you can hold a ton of items, and most spells aren’t that picky with ingredients, usually one or two different ingredients will be plenty. One spell in the game is “free”, and it teleports you back to Lord British’s castle. I haven’t figured out everything in this game, and I have no manual, so I may be partially incorrect on a few things. Now, where shall we start?

GRAPHICS: 9/10
Graphics have always been a fairly easy thing to judge in the SNES era of games. While these graphics aren’t the best looking on the SNES, they get the job done. I really like how in all the Ultima games I’ve seen, everything is on a certain camera angle; everything looks slanted and very well done. While this is a bit… pixilated, I didn’t mind too much. Though sometimes it’s hard to tell what something is. Is that a fountain? A beam of electricity or is it something else?

SOUND / MUSIC: 2/10 “Yikes! My ears! They burn!”
The Actual sound of the game doesn’t need a review; it is very basic and difficult to describe. Not extremely realistic.

Music… ugh, I’d be ashamed to have this as elevator music. This is the kind of music that makes people want to kill other people. I’m serious, sadly. It is like The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind in terms of music. EVERY song in the game except battle music can be heard at any time and loops itself constantly. With the exception of the one or two dungeon songs, every song can be heard randomly; when you leave or enter an area a new song plays, and loops until you go to another area and another song is randomly chosen! Battle music isn’t anything special either… I suggest turning off the volume or keeping it low just for the sake of your sanity; if you’re insane, it will make you sane. If you are sane, it will make you insane. Run away. Fast. That’s my method. I’d gladly replace the music in this for utter silence at times; but they would lose more points in music for having no attempt to actually create any…

GAMEPLAY: 9/10 “Oh boy, another huge section…”
Not really. Most of the gameplay elements were covered at the top of the review. It is very golden gameplay; you use ingredients to cast spells, which is always fun searching through forests (and shops) to find something you need. One fellow in the game sells most of the ingredients you’ll ever need, thankfully. I like this magic system a lot, however. I wouldn’t touch it; it’s as close to perfect as this mortal realm will ever see. Brings a tear to my eye, you know. The system for anything non-magic is a tad basic, though. You, on your turn, you can move, attack (with a long range weapon if you’re in range, and if you use a melee weapon, depending on which it is, you have to be in point-blank range.) or finally, cast spells. Maybe a couple other options I’m forgetting, like inventory. Oh, I remember, a great thing is that most anything in this game is able to be taken! Yes, see a lovely potion on a counter? Take it. Sadly, this may be called “Stealing” and it lowers your karma, and I have no idea what Karma is for. It’s just good to have a lot of it. Some people though, like Lord British, allow you to take anything in their house/castle, and taking the remains of an enemy or looting a chest in a dungeon is fair game, thankfully. Oh yeah, that brings us to making money. No random encounters, enemies will just appear somewhere you can’t see yet, and march towards you. They have a CHANCE of leaving a chest full of random (usually useless) items, like swords and clubs that are weaker then the stuff you start with and worth nothing or nearly nothing, though sometimes then can drop a ton of gold, and then we’re all happy.
Now, the point of this game is to find the shrines and liberate them from the Gargoyles, which I will go ever later in the story section. This can be fairly hard if you don’t have any Ultima lore. Some things are nearly impossible to figure out unless you know what to do, and sadly, GAMEFAQS has no great walkthroughs. Sigh. Well, it’s a good game even if you have no idea what you are doing. Took me a long time to figure out you had to go to a shrine to level up. At the beginning of the game, they tell you to take a book to the Lyceum, which I probably spelled incorrectly, but it seems like a huge library, I think. Though I can’t say because I’ve never been there! I can’t for the life of me find where it is. They tell you it’s on the same island as a town that I can barely spell, and the spell checker won’t like that. I never found it, and it got me ticked off because I have no where to go, I need to find a flying machine of some sort, I think. I hope you have better luck then me at finding that place. Party Wise, you start out with 3 other people, famous Ultima characters: Dupre, Shamino and Iolo, which the spell checker also hates. And that should conclude this now much bigger then I previously thought it would be gameplay section.

STORY: Difficult to Judge.
The story in this game has ties from all the other Ultima games, and I’ve only played this, the Black Gate and Runes of Virtue. Basically, Gargoyles are invading Britannia, and taking over the shrines. It sounds very old and worthless as a story line, but there are some major plot twists that I never saw coming. Keep that in mind.

REPLAY VALUE: Also Difficult to Judge
It depends. There aren’t too many ways to play this, except for your style of combat, and the combat is only fun when you are using a lot of magic and such, in my opinion. The replay value is strictly based on how much you like the game and how much playing again with a different style of character would appeal to you…

TO BUY OR TO RENT: Buy. If you found a place to rent this, buy it anyway.

In Closing, this is an excellent game worth your time. It will keep you busy for as long as you want it to. Follow the story directly or smite stuff all day, it is up to you, lads and ladies.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/04