Ultima Side Note: Worlds of Ultima and other Ultima titles

Before I dwell on the official Ultima spin-off games that spun from Ultima 6, I think it would be best to start with a bastard child of the Ultima series. That would be Escape from Mt. Drash, as a game pushed out by Sierra On-Line wanting to make a quick buck from the success of Ultima 2 which they published.

Escape from Mt. Drash was made with the blessing of Richard Garriott by his friend Keith Zabaloui. The platform it was made for was VIC-20. Now, apparently, the whole game was a bit controversial, as apparently Sierra even denied its existence for a while, as they weren't that keen on pushing a game for a dying platform that was VIC-20, or something in that vein. Nowadays the copies of the game are collector sought items.

The game itself is just a rather simple maze game, in which you have to escape from the mazes of Mt. Drash. Occasionally you must fight some enemies at increasingly tougher levels. The further you get, the less information the games overhead map shows you of the levels. In the final stretches, you won't even see the map that was previously drawn automatically and have to resort to only to the first-person view to navigate.

Besides its name, Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash has very little to do with the Ultima series. It's merely a curiosity that got slapped a moniker of a better-known game as an attempt to increase its sales. So, you know, as convoluted mess the official canon of the first Ultima games is, Escape has nothing to do with it. But time to move on to the more official direction.

When Ultima 6 was in development, there was a glaring problem that rose its head. The development of a new engine was expensive and if history was anything of an indicator, Origin would use the new spiffy RPG engine only once and start a new one for their next Ultima title. It would be nice to get more mileage out from the engine before discarding it, so a plan was hatched to develop a spin-off series, which was later known as the short-lived World of Ultima series.

The first of the two games was a pulp adventure inspired by the Savage Empire, where Avatar, the embodiment of the virtues of Britannia, is swept through a moon gate into an entirely new world. This world, the valley of Eodon, is more primitive than Britannia, inhabited by humans, dinosaurs and insect-like Myrmidex.

When Avatar arrives, this time as a preset character of a blond, square-jawed adventurer, he is set upon a task of uniting the tribes of the valley of Eodon against the Myrmidex. This isn't a simple task, as you'd imagine, as the tribes themselves are in a state of unrest. This sets him the additional task of figuring out what is the problem between the tribes before they can go against the Myrmidex.

The second game in the series, Martian Dreams, takes place immediately after the Savage Empire. Avatar receives a visitor, a red-haired woman, who gives him a diary written by his old friend dr. Spector. The diary describes how to use the Orb of the Moon to travel back in time, so as the adventurer he is, Avatar does just that and ends up in the Victorian past, just for the time to take part on a rescue mission set towards Mars, where several famous people have stranded thanks to sabotage.

As Avatar arrives, it becomes evident, that there indeed is life on Mars. Beasts roam the planet and the old civilizations of Mars have transported themselves to another dimension with Dream Machines, so it is up to Avatar to help them return to their old world as well as remove the source of pollution that forced them to leave ages ago.

As both of the games were made with Ultima 6 engine, they play more or less the same way. This series wasn't an attempt to reinvent the wheel, it was an attempt of generating more sellable games with the expensive game engine. Sadly, the games didn't sell enough and the future plans were placed on hold. There were plans to make a third game, based on Arthurian legends, which sadly never saw the light of day.

The critical reception didn't set the world ablaze on either game. The Savage Empire was seen as a little snack before the next official Ultima game. Not as a great game, nor a bad one, just something little to do in between. Of Martian Dreams, some noted, that it was actually more of an adventure game disguised as an RPG. But again, it got more of a lukewarm reception.

Personally, I've played Martian Dreams through once and as far I recall, I liked it. The Savage Empire, on the other hand, I have never managed to get into. Theoretically, I should like it, as I do love the whole b-monster movie vibe it has, but for some reason, I've never really managed to get into it. But I do intend to try if I ever get as far as playing them again for this blog.

Both of the Worlds of Ultima titles belong to the official series canon, as far I've gathered. They expand on the idea that there are other worlds besides Earth and Britannia (formerly known as Sosaria). This was something that was explored even further on the official series as well, 

As a final note in this write-up, I'd like to mention a couple other Ultima titles as well. One was developed for Game Boy and SNES, the other for iPhones and iPad. I know very little of either one. The first one is an action RPG called Ultima: Runes of Virtue, the second Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, which was always free to pay (read microtransaction hell), an online action RPG that was meant to come for Android devices as well, but never made past its initial hurdle on iOS devices. That despite EA trying to peddle it hard to Ultima fans.

There are actually two Runes of Virtue games for both Game Boy and SNES. As I said, I've not played them myself, but based on what I've seen of them in the glorious world of Youtube, the Game Boy versions are actually far superior to the more colourful SNES versions.  Ultima Forever was meant to be a new launch for the series, a retelling of the 4th game in the series, but turning it into a nickel and dime peddling game for EA. Thank your maker that didn't pan out. Although, I do have to admit I quite liked how it looked graphically.

Do Runes of Virtue games belong in the official series canon then? I have no idea. Like I said, I've never played any of them, but what I've seen of them, you don't even actually play as an avatar despite Lord British and co. call that main character Avtar. In fact, you get to choose between Iolo, Shamin, Dupre and Mariah, who all were Avatars companions in the previous game. With that in mind, maybe the games were canon and it was just avatars buddies taking care of business when he was busy doing something else.

EA tried to do something similar in a web browser form as well, with a city builder game called Lord of Ultima. It had little to do with Ultima, it was more or less an attempt to squeeze money from people who would get pissed for waiting for the buildings to finish. I recall playing it and had it not have the insanely long waits you could handle with money, it could have been a decent addition to the genre it was a part of. The game ran from 2010 to 2014 before EA axed it. Interestingly enough, there is a fan-made iteration of the game called Crown of the Gods that dropped all mentions to Ultima and uses different art assets as well. It is still running and as far I know is also actively developed.

There was another spin-off series of Ultima, which did not only get rave reviews but also rose the technical bar by being a bit ahead of their time. But more of those later.