Game #104: Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress

Ultima II is the second blockbuster sequel that we’ve played from the list of 1982 CRPG offerings. The first was Wizardry II: Knight of Diamonds. Where Wizardry II was essentially the same game albeit a different scenario; Ultima II is completely different from it’s predecessor and goes completely off the rails.

Ultima II was the “Big Trouble in Little China” of 1982.

Big Trouble in Little China starring Kurt Russell was directed by John Carpenter in 1986. It was a horror, martial arts, fantasy, action-comedy that had everything in it but the kitchen sink. If you’re wondering what a horror, martial arts, fantasy, action-comedy looks like; you have to see it to believe it. If we’re being honest; I loved it.

I make this comparison because Ultima II sports a medieval fantasy setting complete with towns, towers, and dungeons. However it also involves time travel using time portals, outer space travel whereby you can visit and explore all of the planets, throws in for good measure KGB agents, phasers and force-fields and has you piloting frigates, bi-planes, and rockets. It has everything in it but a kitchen sink lying washed up on the shoreline.

In Ultima II the manual explains that the evil Mondain (who we slew in the first game) was training an apprentice. A protegee with amazing, magical abilities. Years later this apprentice made herself known as Minax; enchantress of evil. Her reign was terrible indeed and resulted in what appears to be a nuclear holocaust in the year 2111. If it were not for the time doors, no living things would have escaped. A small group on Earth, yes this sequel for some reason now takes place on Earth, believes that if someone were to go back in time and slay Minax, that it will then unravel all of the terrible devastation that she’s wrought. Honestly the story is a bit of a mess. I am not even sure how or why there are time doors scattered all about but Richard Garriott admitted in an interview that he was heavily influenced by the movie Time Bandits while developing the game. So the ultimate goal is to travel back in time, seek out Minax in her evil fortress, and assassinate her so that you can change the current timeline.

There is so much to unpack here that I wanted to try to provide some form of organization. In order to travel back in time to defeat Minax you are going to need four things:

• 1) the force field ring
• 2) the Quicksword
• 3) 9900 or more hit points – I won the game with only 300 hit points left – it was very close and took me multiple tries
• 4) power armor.

Ultima II is really all about grinding. Grinding, grinding, grinding. Senseless grinding. On the surface there seems to be a lot to the game and the multiple items seem to add layers of complexity. However the way in which you obtain these items reveals it to be simply a facade.

Let’s start at the beginning with character creation. I took my time with the manual before beginning play as I was sure there might be clues located within that might be necessary to complete the game. In Ultima I the dungeons figure very prominently in the game. Your hit points increase each time you leave a dungeon based on the amount of experience you gained. I noticed that there is a spell entitled Surface that clerics can learn which immediately take you to the surface from anywhere in a dungeon. I felt that this spell would have been a game changer in the first Ultima so I decided to create a cleric. I learned two things right away when I began play. The first was that I didn’t even have torches or a light source for the dungeons. Secondly, and most importantly, your hit points do not increase in this game after you leave a dungeon! The only way that you can increase your hit point total is to pay, or bribe, Lord British. Each time you pay Lord British 50 gold pieces he raises your hit points by 300. This decreases as you advance in levels.

Once I learned this I scrapped my current character and created a Dwarven fighter. You will find that you have to constantly pay Lord British to increase your hit point total to avoid death. This involves you having to slay many, many, many creatures because this is the only way to obtain gold to pay Lord British.

When you begin play you only have the clothes on your back and a few gold pieces. I would recommend purchasing chain and an axe to start play. You are going to find it extremely hard to pay for food to survive and to also bribe Lord British for hit points. The answer to this dilemma lies with a village to the south. It took me quite some time to reach this solution. I was barely getting by until I entered the village to the south of the castle in the 1990 A.D. era. I started to steal food from a fish n chips stand and then would run off before the guards caught me. I would then enter the village again and wash, rinse, repeat. In this fashion I never had to rely on food again but I was forced to steal my food throughout the entire game.

One of the key things about this game is to take your time in the villages and towns. Talk to every single individual. Leave no stone unturned. Most of the messages are stock replies or in game jokes but you will find the valuable information that you absolutely must have to win the game by talking to these individuals. One of the huge pieces of information I learned was to offer gold to the clerk at the Hotel California in San Antonio (Garriott was a huge Eagles fan). If you offer him gold he will sometimes raise your abilities by saying “Alakazam!” You’ll need to give him a minimum of 100 gold pieces in order to get this affect. Sometimes he will merely thank you for your generous contribution. This is the only way in the game to raise your attributes. You must have an Agility of more than 41 to equip a Phaser and you have to have an Agility over 49 to equip the Quicksword. So you’ll need to grind to get enough gold to pay the clerk until you finally have your Agility over 50. So paying the hotel clerk in this way becomes rather expensive in addition to bribing Lord British to raise your hit points.

One of the huge differences between Ultima I and Ultima II is that in this sequel you will find that you will need to find and obtain many different items which you need to progress further in the game. There are many different items that you’ll need and I’ve made a list of the following items and what they do:

• Boots – protect from leg paralysis spells
• Cloaks – protect from arm paralysis spells
• Green Idols – protect from sleep spells
• Strange Coins – temporarily negate time (you’ll want to amass as many of these as you can for the end game)
• Keys – necessary to open locked doors
• Helmets – allow a magical view of the outdoor map
• Blue Tassles – necessary to board a pirate ship (a necessity in order to even have a remote chance of winning the game)
• Skull Keys – necessary to board a plane
• Brass Buttons – necessary to launch and land the plane
• Ankhs – necessary to board a rocket ship
• Tri-lithium – necessary to launch and land the rocket ship and to execute Hyperjumps in space
• Torches – illuminates dungeons and towers

Now here is the shocking part of this game. You don’t find these items by killing creatures on the overland map or in dungeons. You can only get these items by killing thieves. You can encounter thieves on the overland map, in dungeons, and in towns and villages. You must murder the thieves to acquire these items. I spent a good while murdering thieves in order to find Blue Tassles so that I could board a pirate ship.

It gets worse. You must have the ability to unlock the doors you’ll find in the towns and villages. Only the guards have these keys. So you must murder several guards as well in order to steal their keys so that you can unlock doors. Be very careful here as the guards are very tough to kill and they will gang up on you. Some of the guards too are invincible and immune to all forms of attack. You can discover which ones are invincible by transacting or talking to them. If they respond with “Pay your taxes!” then you’ll be able possibly murder them. If you get “funny there is no response” then these guards are invincible.

So to reiterate; the game is all about grinding. You want to get into combat often so that you can acquire gold in order to bribe Lord British to raise your hit points and you also want to acquire a lot of wealth so that you can also pay the hotel clerk to raise your abilities. You’ll want to continue to grind in this fashion until you are strong enough to begin to take on the guards.

Which brings us to the pirate ships. If you can acquire a Blue Tassle and board a pirate ship you can then use the cannons to fire upon your enemies. You easily obliterate them and as you move around the coast and islands they line up as cannon fodder. This greatly speeds up your level advancement but it is still mind numbing grinding as you pummel your F key numerous times.

You’ll also want to purchase Power Armor at some point. You’ll need it for the end game and it costs roughly 2450 gold pieces so again you’ll have to do…wait for it… more grinding.

Once you have your abilities at a respectable level (a minimum of 50 Agility) and have your hit points at 9900 or above, then it is time to gain possession of the Quicksword, the only weapon which can wound Minax. You’ll discover where the location of the Quicksword is by talking to everyone in the towns and villages. Santre, who is imprisoned in one of the jail cells in San Antonio, will give it to you for 500 gold pieces. So you had best get grinding for that 500 gold.

Now story-wise this makes absolutely zero sense to me, but I just went with it, I learned that I needed to find Father Antos and get his blessing and that he was likely on Planet X. I learned from a different area that the coordinates for Planet X were 9,9,9. I then had to make my way to Pirate Harbor, steal a rocket ship from KGB agents, and blast off into outer space. I then Hyperjumped using coordinates 9,9,9 to Planet X. You want to make sure you have enough Tri-lithium to launch, land and Hyperjump otherwise you will strand yourself in space. When you land your rocket ship, you can only land on grass or you will instantly blow up. True story. I spent quite some time messing around with this portion of the game.

Once you land on Planet X, there is a lone castle there and within you will finally discover Father Antos and get his blessing. Once you get his blessing you return to Earth using 6,6,6 as the coordinates.

Having returned to Earth with Father Antos’ blessing, you want to head back to San Antonio and find an old man by a tree within the town. If you offer him 900 gold he will give you a Force Field Ring (but only if you have Father Antos’ blessing). You will need the Force Field Ring to enter certain areas of ShadowGuard, the dreaded castle of Minax. So if you don’t have 900 gold pieces on you, guess what, more grinding.

Once you have the Force Field Ring, the QuickSword, have your hit points over 9900, and possess Power Armor, you are then ready to travel through a time portal to the Time of Legends. In the middle of the Time of Legends you will find Castle Shadowguard.

Shadowguard is extremely deadly. It’s a lovely place that includes a Torture Chamber and a Museum or art gallery of all of her greatest evil accomplishments. The Force Field Ring will allow you to pass through the Force Field areas but the demons within the castle are extremely deadly. Try to avoid contact with them and this is where the Strange Coins you’ve collected come into play. The coins Negate Time and when you use one of the coins it slows time around you and allows you to move past your enemies or take several actions while they are frozen in place. You’ll find Minax in the northeast part of Shadowguard. If you wound her with the Quicksword she then teleports to the southwest corner of the Castle. You’ll need to avoid all of the enemies by Negating Time as much as you can and make your way to the southwest room and wound her again. She’ll teleport back to the northeast corner. You need to keep doing this until she perishes.

I played the DOS version of Ultima II and it took me an entire week of playing on and off to finish. I probably spent roughly 20-25 hours with it. This one had everything in it but the kitchen sink as I’ve already outlined. In an interview Garriott admitted that he enjoyed the medieval pieces the best and I believe by the third installment all of the future-like stuff will be gone. I will be sure to report back to you when and if I ever make my way to Ultima III: Exodus. While I enjoyed the Wizardry sequel quite a bit; I did not enjoy this sequel as much as I thought I might. The story didn’t make much sense nor did the time travel from era to era (though the time portals did look super cool and were executed well). I couldn’t wrap my head around paying Lord British to give me hit points nor could I understand why I had to steal my food the entire game and kill castle guards in order to take their keys. There was definitely a lot that went into this game developmentally and conceptually and it is a huge step forward in scope from Ultima I but the execution of it’s points left a lot to be desired. Now that it is behind me I feel a sense of accomplishment at having finished the second game in such a classic series. The game was not easy and it took quite some time to find all of the clues that you needed in order to move the game forward. My understanding from all of the reading that I’ve done is that the games become immensely better going forward so I’m looking forward to the next sequel in the series.