"A master piece, which seems to have been lost in the shadow of Ultima VII."

A lonely stroll along an unfamiliar forest path brings you upon a curious gypsy wagon, its exotic colors cappled in the summer shade. A woman's voice rings out with friendship, beckoning you into across the wagon's threshold and, as it happens, into another life...

A few months after my friend came over to my house with Ultima IV in his hands, I found a copy of Ultima VI for SNES from a second-hand game store. About half a year later, I found Ultima Collection, which was instantly added to my collection of games. Out of the ten games in Ultima Collection, I always found Ultima VI to be the most fascinating. Let me tell you why...

The World:
When entering or leaving a town, you no longer shrink or get bigger, as there is no 'world map.' The towns are huge, and the routes between them are not nearly as long as they were in previous Ultimas. This does not really matter, mainly because you can teleport quickly from town to another anyway and also, you will have enough to walk when you start exploring caves and terrain of Britannia. The dungeons are no longer first-person-view and they are now much bigger. Aside from the dungeons found in two previous Ultimas, there are now some caves that take hours and hours to explore completely. Not to mention the vast seas that open to you when you buy a ship.
10/10

Story:
A war has broken out between Britannians and the Gargoyles. As the Avatar, the savior of Britannia, your duty is to end this war. There is a single spot that the game starts from, but after you clear it, you are free to go wherever you want to and play through the story in almost any order. The story is mainly built from what people tell you, and there are no cut-scenes or anything that would make you lose the control of the Avatar even for a second, except for the start and end demos in the very beginning and end. And whereas the story keeps you busy, you can always stop and explore places by yourself without worrying about time limits or that something you don't do now couldn't be done later.
10/10

Graphics:
Ultima VI's graphics are a bit fuzzy, but I like them that way. Then again, you shouldn't actually wait for too much, considering the game was made over ten years ago (around 1990, if I remember correctly). There are graphics for all the items in the game. If you drop a piece of armor on the ground, you can see the armor lying there and you can pick it up or move it around if you want to. A nice addition to graphics, is that when you talk to people, you can see their face portraits. This adds nice feeling to conversations.
9/10

Music:
I really like Ultima VI's music. Although, sadly, my sound card somehow plays the songs in a wrong way, so some of them sound horrible and I often have to play without music. The music is played randomly on ground level. If you do something that stops and music (like talking to people, or turning the music off) and then starts it again, you will hear a different song. There is only one theme for each place other than ground level (each dungeon/cave has same music), though.
10/10

Controls:
Ultima VI has probably the best controls system I know of. You can use both mouse and keyboard to do most things, and the lack of either shouldn't keep you from playing the game. Executing commands is easy and simple. Just press a key from your keyboard (e.g. A = Attack; B = Begin/Break off combat; C = Cast a spell...) or click one of the buttons in the lower part of the screen with your mouse, then target and use the command.
10/10

Gameplay:
I just love the gameplay of Ultima VI! Whereas it may seem bad for some people that people and items move on such big tiles (when you walk, you move from one tile to another), my personal opinion is that it makes things nicely simpler. It's really easy to target your spells, attacks and where do you wish to move/drop a person/an item. And we shouldn't forget the fact that you can look at anything on the screen without getting a ''There's nothing there'' answer. It will always tell you what the object is (e.g. ''You see grass'', ''You see darkness'', ''You see Nystul''...).
Another big plus on the gameplay of Ultima VI, is the huge variety of spells. About 3/4 of the eighty(80) spells in Ultima VI are the type you can expect to find from typical RPG's. But if you look at the spell chart, you may see spells such as Animate (makes an object become a living being that walks around), Ignite (ignites a nearby light source, such as a candle, which you can actually light just by ''using'' it), Trap (creates a trap, such as ''explosion'' or ''poison'' to a chest or a door that blows of when you try to open it), Magic Lock (creates a magical lock to a door/chest that keeps you from opening it) and Clone (creates a clone of a living being). I am certain that you don't see spells like these in typical RPG's, because they are ''not useful when it comes to getting to the end of the game.'' Also, because of things like these spells, Ultima VI's replay value is practically infinite. There's always fun stuff for you to do, places to explore, monsters (and people) to kill, seas to sail, etc. etc.
10/10

Challenge:
If you look everything from the walkthroughs, Ultima VI won't be a very challenging game. Most of the challenge comes from exploring huge caverns, fighting really strong monsters (like dragons and daemons), keeping your party members alive and the fact that you need to talk to a lot of people and figure where to go next and how.
9/10

Overall:
My personal opinion is that Ultima VI is still one of the greatest master pieces in the gaming history. A classic that has almost been forgotten behind the shadow of Ultima VII, VIII and many newer RPG's. The freedom that is typical for all Ultimas, huge world, interesting story, great music, excellent gameplay and easy controls make this game one of the best there is. I suggest this game for everyone who can handle old-school graphics, and especially to those who like to have the freedom to do almost anything you want to.
10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/12/03