Game #177: Ultima III: Exodus (1983)

“There was a certain kind of magic about my life during the early days that makes the first three Ultimas very special. I did those entirely on my own, and there was something magical about them being utterly my own creation, utterly my own vision. I really lived to work on those games.”

– Richard “Lord British” Garriott

Ultima III was the first game to be published by Garriott’s new company; Origin Systems. The previous Ultima had been released by Sierra On-Line. Richard Garriott moved back into his parent’s house and set up residence in the loft of the family’s three-car garage. He gathered about him a close-knit collection of friends who could help create and sell games and Origin Systems was born.

Ultima III: Exodus is the third game in the series and the last installment of what has become to be known as the “Age of Darkness” trilogy. It was released in 1983 for the Apple II, C64, Atari-8 bit, and IBM PC. Later ports with enhanced graphics would follow for the Amiga, Atari ST, and Macintosh.

The amazing Ultima III box art was painted by veteran Ultima artist Denis Loubet. However, the cover was originally to feature art by Helen Garriott, Richard’s mother, which is featured below.

The other “furnishings” inside of the game’s box were also of outstanding quality. Included with the game were: The Book of Play, The Ancient Liturgy of Truth, The Book of Amber Runes, a Player Reference Card, a cloth map of Sosaria, and an advertisement for the Secrets of Sosaria.

I think more than any other game I’ve played thus far, it was important to go through and carefully read and study all of the game materials found in the box. The Book of Play was 22 pages long and contained a foreword as well as instructions on how to play the game. Topics in this book included Moongates, Towns, and a Bestiary. The writing by Margaret Ellen Weigers and Roe R. Adams is top notch.

The Ancient Liturgy of Truth is an 18 page book, containing numerous illustrations, detailing the spells of the Cleric.

The Book of Amber Runes is an 18 page document that details the various spells of the mage.

The beautiful cloth map included in the box features artwork from Richard Garriott’s mother Helen.

Secrets of Sosaria, which was advertised in the box, was a 48 page long clue book written by “Lord Robert”, which is the alias of Robert Garriott, Richard Garriott’s brother. It originally retailed for $12.95.

An Ultima III 550 piece jigsaw puzzle was sold in Japan with the finished picture being the map of Sosaria which was also included in the box itself.

Pony Canyon also sold Exodus T-Shirts and a Wrist Watch as promotional items in 1988 for the MSX-2 port.

Ultima III was the first Ultima to feature a party of characters rather than a single character. I believe Garriott was influenced by the success of Sir-Tech’s Wizardry games in this decision. There are five different races to choose from and eleven professions. An oddity in Ultima III was the ability to choose a race known as a Fuzzy. This was the only Ultima that would feature this race as a playing choice. A Furry is furry bipedal race. They can sport a high dexterity or intelligence so would make good Thief or Wizard characters.

There are eleven professions to choose from in the game: fighter, barbarian, lark (synonym for bard), paladin, ranger, thief, illusionist, alchemist, wizard, druid, and cleric.

I decided to go with an old school fighter, thief, cleric, and wizard quartet. I have never played any of the Ultima games other than the previous installments and wasn’t sure what I was in for. You’ll notice from my choice of character names that I’ve just recently finished Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Times series (which I highly recommend).

I had enjoyed Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress but the game for me was akin to John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. It had everything thrown in but the kitchen sink and seemed a “wild romp”. In comparison to Ultima II, this newest iteration seemed much more developed to me. It had a seriousness to it which resonated with me. A lot of the science fiction elements had been stripped out in favor of a more fantasy-oriented plot. I found this much more to my liking.

Ultima III: Exodus is hands down my favorite game in the series thus far. In my opinion the series turns a corner with this latest installment and there are two major changes which help it to accomplish this.

The biggest change to the game is that the dungeons are suddenly meaningful. There are seven different dungeons in the game and each of them have their own distinct personality.

There are very specific items that you need to obtain from the dungeons that are necessary to win the game. In previous installments the dungeons had merely been “window dressing” and a means to gain hit points and now exploration of these dungeons is a necessity.

Each of the dungeons contains eight levels and the foes you encounter become tougher as you move deeper into the dungeons. There are trapped spaces in the dungeon that cause each of your party members serious injury should you step on that space. It is thus absolutely necessary that you map out each of the dungeon levels so that you can avoid these traps. There are other areas where a wind will blow out your torch and you’ll have to light another. This is a serious issue because torches are not only expensive but can only be purchased at select locations on the map. Gremlins are also prominent in key locations that serve to strip you of your food. If there is any flaw with the game it is that the management of food is so crucial as to almost become a distraction. There are also magical fountains scattered throughout the dungeons that can either do you harm or heal all of your hit points. A few of the dungeons do overlap each other in that the items that you seek can be found in multiple dungeons. The Dungeon of Time is an absolute necessity to complete. You must encounter the Time Lord in the lowest level of the dungeon as he will have clues as to how to defeat Exodus.

The second significant change in the game and for the series is that it is important that you take your time to talk to every character in each of the towns. There is actually quite a bit of text throughout the game and if it comes to a point in the game where you are stuck or not sure what to do it is likely that you haven’t talked to enough people or the right person.

It is from Britain and Castle British that you learn general game details and hear the first rumors of marks and cards. In each of the towns you explore you’ll find that the rumor or text shines a spotlight on another nuance of the game or an important clue. So there is a lot of “sleuthing” and recording of information to be done. This lent a seriousness to the game and a cohesiveness that the prior games lacked.

There are other unique changes in this Ultima sequel. In many cases on the map you are limited to line of sight only and a fog of war comes into play. Once combat is initiated the screen changes to a tactical format which would have a great influence on the Final Fantasy franchise and many other future games. Each of the characters can be moved and choose to Attack or Cast Spells and some strategy becomes involved at higher levels.

One aspect of the game that caused me to become “stuck” more than once was the ( O )ther command. This command allows the player to enter a command not given in the normal list of keyboard commands. So when you hit O on the keyboard you’re asked which player and then it drops to a prompt. Now the Book of Play gives you examples to type in such as Jump or Kiss (which are never used in the game) I offer that you consider the commands Dig and Pray. It will save you a lot of time and heartache.

Food and gold are not easily obtained in this game. The encounters serve to deplete your hit points and your food depletes with every step you take. You are constantly struggling to obtain gold. Food, healing, better weapons and armor, and raising your attributes all compete for your hard earned coin. Thus you will find you are constantly grinding so that you can increase all of these things.

There is a lot of grinding that you’ll need to do in this game. You’ll want to have each of your characters at about 2500 hit points and your cleric and wizard with enough spell points to cast the highest level spells before you venture into Castle Exodus. You will want to have eight different magical or special items in your possession as well as both exotic armor and exotic weapons. There are also mystical shrines that you can find to boost the attributes of your characters – but you will have to tithe quite a bit of gold.

Castle Exodus and the encounters within are extremely difficult. Items that you found in the dungeons and elsewhere in your journeys must be brought into the castle with you. There are 10 different necessary items that you’ll have to have in your possession in order to be victorious. The final encounter with Exodus and the realization of just what Exodus is; is a pretty interesting reveal too.

There was one bug or flaw in the game that I encountered that became somewhat frustrating. Once I had completed the game I did some internet sleuthing and discovered that many others had experienced the same issue. I was almost ready to believe that there was something wrong with my copy of the game and that I was going to be unable to finish. Here is what happened: late in the game you’re going to realize that you must get your hands on a ship in order to complete the game. You cannot buy a ship or raft like in previous versions. The only way to obtain a ship is to randomly encounter pirates, defeat them, then take their vessel. Late in the game there was some issue with the aquatic “spawning” and there were just not any creatures or ships being spawned. To make matters worse the whirlpool moves about the game at a high rate of speed on these new machines; possibly destroying the ships that do get spawned. When you exit your ship and explore the countryside; much of the time these ships are destroyed by the whirlpool even though they are “parked”. So late in the game I must have wandered about at least 10,000 turns and spent quite a bit of gold on food just looking for a ship. Just as I was about to throw my hands up in the air, I finally encountered one and was able to move on. I probably spent at least two real hours of time wandering about waiting to encounter a ship. This does seem to be an issue with all versions so be aware of it.

This is definitely my favorite Ultima game thus far. It checked a lot of boxes for me. The dungeons were fun to explore and very relevant to the game this time. Rather than dealing with one character you’re dealing with a party of four and the new tactical combat screen would go on to influence the entire genre and industry. The great amount of text in the game and the great number of clues and sleuthing that was involved also resonated very strongly with me ( I spent hours going back over everything trying to figure out how to get by the serpent to Castle Exodus ). The game sold very well for Garriott’s fledgling company and allowed them the luxury and time to work on future installments of the series. This was the first game as well to direct winning players to mail the company to receive a completion certificate. Here is an example of someone’s completion certificate that I found on the internet.

I purchased the game from GOG and played the game on my PC. It took me well over 25 hours to beat and now stands as my favorite game in the series. I purposefully avoided providing any maps or spoilers or specific walkthrough for this entry because this is a game that is still easily accessible and I am hoping that many decide to take the time to finally play it. There are many other sites out there who have already created maps and walkthroughs and probably have already done a more exhaustive job than I could have. I think I’ve shined a spotlight on some of the more important aspects as well as firmly establishing my opinion of it. I did feel a sense of dismay that I never made the effort to play this one when I was much younger.

Next up on the docket I am going to continue to run with the Ultima theme and play Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash. Until next time…