A definite product from an adolescence child.
The game starts off pretty much where the 'unofficial' title Ultima 0 (Akalabeth: World of Doom) left off. Lord British, in the depths of some dungeon, defeated the Wizard Mordain leaving Lord British the king-pin of Sosaria.
Of course Mordain was still alive as he still had the hold of the Gem of Power and enslaved Sosaria and her neighbouring kingdoms. None of the other Lords are willing to take on Mordain head-to-head hence you, the Avatar, arriving from some unknown planet (actually it's Earth) to answer Lord British's call to defeat Mordain. And why not! You are the Avatar and having in procession great weapons that none of the creatures ever use even though the merchants sell them at a bargain price...
Here is where the game turns for the bad.
I understand that fantasy is fantasy however fighting creatures with blasters with a reflective shield and yet no one else can have procession is something of an issue. I was hoping that my bows and arrows were the deadliest weapon around however since the light sword came about and buying a shuttle...
OK, OK. I'm getting a bit rough. At the time of the game was made the game was rather cool. The new improved version (the original dated 1980 and the improved version was made in 1986) the colours and graphics were good. Not great, just good. The locations of the castles and towns were simply superb. It does make sense that the castle can be wedged next to a forest and the town close to the sea or lake. The mountain ranges, forestry areas, grass steppe designs makes the game feel life-like and wanting to explore more of the land.
However the dungeon design is a downer. Again, the location and names of the dungeons (e.g. Advari's Hole, Scorpion's Hole etc) are cool but the dungeon itself is pretty much like Ultima 0, a random mess - no real purpose other than completing a quest from a king to kill so-and-so. Let's put it another way - I was so damn proud of myself killing off monsters on level ten only to realise that killing off monsters on level one has the same effect - another words - once exiting the dungeon I do obtain pretty much the same 'ratio' of hit points. Confused? Let me explain further. The more you kill in the dungeon (and it doesn't matter what level or toughness of the monsters killed) the more hit points you can obtain once exiting the dungeon and no, your endurance doesn't count. Well, to my knowledge it doesn't. Another way to increase your hit points is to purchase it from the king; any king will do.
The level advancement, character choices and spells play very little in this fantasy game. What does this mean? Well, playing a wizard has a slightly more advantage then playing a fighter as you can cast spells from amulets. Personally, whoop-de-do. Try playing a thief character to a fighter and spot the difference.
Shooting off into space also places a question mark with me as fighting 'aliens' (as the game puts it) looks remarkably like tie-fighters in the Star Wars movie. However it was pretty cool anyway. It reminded me a little like Star Raiders from Atari. I cannot argue with that!
I wish there was more history to the game. For instance: some of the locations on the map (e.g. Where Hercules Died, the Metal Twister etc) when passing through them are nothing more than just forest or whatever with the occasional wandering orc. I wish there was a 'unique' monster there to make the locations more interesting. However the ‘sign posts’ places elements of surprises and caught my attention (for a little while).
Other than that, the game overall was good even for it's time however I feel too much emphasis was placed on 'spacey combat' and not enough 'fantasy'. Wouldn't it be better that a harpy did actually popped out of the mountains in the location 'Horror of the Harpies' in the 'Land of the Feudal Lords' then say defeating a thief with your blaster?