The ultimate Ultima retrospective series has now covered Ultima 4 and Ultima 5
We previously pointed you in the direction of Majuular’s Ultima retrospectives when he was only up to Ultima 3, but if you haven’t watched them yet, well, now you’ve got even more catching up to because Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar and Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny have now been thoroughly retrospected upon in hour-plus videos combining history, analysis, and actually playing the games today.
You may well be familiar with the story of Ultima 4, a CRPG whose influence is still being felt today—it’s the game responsible for all the Big Moral Choices other games have. But Ultima 5 is comparatively overlooked, a follow-up whose influence hasn’t been traced as thoroughly, which makes Majuular’s retrospective feel particularly worthwhile.
Ultima 5 is an early example of the “make it darker” sequel, a game that takes its predecessor’s philosophy and starts pulling at the edges to see how it frays, as the sequels to Knights of the Old Republic, Monkey Island, and Baldur’s Gate would attempt in later years. And like a lot of those games, there are places where it succeeds (thanks to the atmospheric shift of having you go from hero to outlaw), and places where it fails (like the infamous Child Room).
Majuular goes beyond the influence of these formative Ultimas on the western games that would follow them, and also traces Ultima’s influence on the JRPG. It and Wizardry were the two series that found followings in Japan, leading to Dragon Quest and an entire alternate branch of the RPG family tree.
The competition Ultima 5 faced in the west isn’t skimped on either, and it’s wild to think that it came out in the same year as Wasteland and Pool of Radiance—both of which would found competing CRPG dynasties. If you’re a student of RPG history, this is definitely worth your time.
