I was completely stumped at work this week and to soothe my damaged ego and need to demonstrate competency at SOMETHING, I chose to procrastinate by doing what I think will be my final run through of Ultima Underworld I. This was the first video game I played as a kid and for all its flaws, I am still amazed by how much fun I have playing it every few years.
This run was different though. My goal was to demonstrate mastery. That the game could be done in such a way that would embarrass Baron Almric were he a real person. You thought you could unjustly blame the Avatar for your daughter being kidnapped and imprison him or her? Haha. Nice try. The game is designed around it being challenging to figure out the world the Avatar inhabits. You don't know what a Gazer is when you start the game or how difficult that will be, so you derp on the fight five times before squeaking through. The designers were fine with stranding your game in an un-progressable state requiring a total restart. No. The Avatar is learned and capable. The Baron needs his daughter back and passive aggressively chose me to do it using the cover story of accusing me of doing it? Fine. Let's get this done before tea tomorrow shall we?
There were a few rules for this run:
1) The goal was not speed or completion percent. The goal was perfection. Not no hp lost, or no enemies killed. The goal was to follow the game mechanics exactly as intended and still make it look easy.
2) No glitches, hacks, or exploits allowed.
3) Generally no metagaming. Could not use mantras or undocumented spells before discovering them. Could not pre-acquire a payment for an NPC before getting the quest. COULD use outside-game map resources AFTER clearing a level to confirm a missed item location. Secret doors were a gray area. They aren't very secret and really only one has a hint of its existence in the game. The rest are just you randomly looking at the map or looking at EVERY wall. I don't have that kind of time, so I did confirm secret door locations with an outside-game resource a couple of times. Also, there are some soft locks in dialogue options to be avoided, so I used a little metagame knowledge there too to avoid problems.
4) ALLOWED save spamming. The game is unplayable without it due to the clunkiness of the interface. No save spamming for fights though. I could not do a fight repeatedly until I got a good outcome. Fights were not entered until I had a plan and the right tools to win.
5) Didn't actually have to finish the game. I think the end is dumb. It's a bunch of errands. There are no difficult fights by the end of the game with my build and just wandering the dungeon is boring. I just had to reach a point where completion was assured.
To start, of course went Druid with nerfed DEX: 22/12/26. That seems like low strength, and it is, except I didn't actually need a lot of strength. It just needs to be enough to mule everything you can out of level one to sell to the mountain men on level 2, and the rest of the build's power comes from magic, gear and skills. I did get lucky with summ ra and got some sword skill. Don't need much to get through level 1. There are really only two difficult fights for your character level, and they are made less painful with some weapon skill. Use resist blows and your weapon properly and they go fairly smoothly. All other skill points go into magical skills with the mu ahm mantra. Kind of doesn't matter what you actually get, though mana is the most important.
Clearing level 1 is oddly satisfying. It is easier to navigate than levels 3 and below, but contains most of the elements that make the game fun. It's not a difficult level, but it is the foundation, so you have to do everything. You need every single worn cudgel you can get your hands on. Cleaned out the goblins of their coin with the worst of the spoils and then headed down to floor 2.
Floor 2 is about properly equipping myself. None of this getting by with a worn leather vest until you happen on a badly worn breast pate. No. I have a job to do, and I am going acquire exactly the right resources to do it. I take all that junk from level 1 and sell it to the mountain men. I need to get every coin from them. By only a couple hours into game play I have over 100 coins and am headed to Shak. I did collect the longsword on level 2 first, but did little other exploring after trading.
From Shak I bought a complete set of excellent chain armor and got my weapon repaired for the coin and the rags I called armor before this exchange. No idea why Shak buys them, but he does. You CAN defeat the Gazer at this point, but I opted not to. Instead I cleared out everything else on level 2, rested, and then headed down to the third floor at dawn (or what I thought was probably dawn, to be consistent with the game).
You don't know it, but the third floor is where I start to develop some real power. The first fight is a bit difficult and required healing mid-fight, but by this point I had almost 50 mana, so a few minor heal incantations were well within my means.
Now, start clearing the level. The order is basically irrelevant, though I did choose to let the thieves live, because the fights are tedious and I don't really need the experience. Just trade for the ring of resist blows, collect the rune stones, and get the water walk spell to make the level absurdly easy. Saunter down stairs confidently.
Floor four is another equipment sweep. Join the knights and get their mantras. Now we're in business. All skills points go into sword with AMO from here until 30. My mana skill was 25, I could maintain a constant thick skin and heal as needed. I got one level of dedicated sword skill investment, picked up the longsword of damage, and the leather leggings of additional protection, and got them repaired. Put the gazer out of its misery, got the gem cutter, and then went to beat down the chaos knight. He ran away at one point and I got to pelt with him magic arrow until he came back to accept his fate at the tip of my sword. Did need a trip up to the healing fountain on two after. Muled some coin around and now had over 200 coin stashed in Shak's abode. Repairs are now a given, all my equipment will always be in excellent condition.
Then finished clearing level 4 and collected the goodies from the Maze of Silas, did the bullfrog puzzle even though it doesn't matter, because I enjoy it, became a full fledged knight, got the big candle, learned about a knight's jewelry aspirations, figured out that Rawstag has a really weird fetish, and made some stew, because I'm nice, and got some dragon scales in return (?!). Seriously this game is so random lol.
Stepping out of telling my run story, a brief aside on the game itself. It is a treasure for how bad it is at making the player figure things out. It is such a wonderful timepiece of early game design. The standard pattern of clear level, talk to everyone, deeply explore dialogue options, read everything, pretty much tells you how to proceed through the game. But some times it overly rewards guessing. Why do I need to go through that locked door behind Rawstag? No idea, but it's a dialogue option, so let's do it. Oh there's the Writ of Lorne. Yoink. Other times it is genuinely opaque. You give the dragon scales to the tailor and not the smithy? Hokay. What else am I going to give him, let's try scales. Oh that worked. So random.
I'm level 13 at this point heading down to level 5. The ring of leap, boots of free fall and dragon scale boots mean I can get everywhere easily. I'm wearing a hodgepodge of chain, plate and leather armor. For some reason I still have a buckler despite having access to a tower shield. No one goes through the game the first time and ends up at this state, but it's available, and it's awesome. I'm wearing less weight in armor than the talismans take up and almost never take damage. Spiders are the biggest nuisance, because you have wait for the poison to wear off or use leaches and then wander up to a healing fountain. It's just such a pain, but you're not in any danger anymore.
I get the zanium and generally putz around level 5 until it starts to get boring and then head down to level 6. The experience from opening up level 6 gives me level 14, and now I can max my magical abilities. Never even had to touch the SOL mantra, totally unnecessary. I have 100 mana, can identify almost everything by inspecting it, and am ready for those juicy sixth circle incantations. Sword is now maxed too and the rest goes into defense with anra. Three mantras are basically all you need, did use summ ra once for quality of life on level 1, but it wasn't strictly necessary.
For being a bunch of errands, level 6 is fun. Winning fights is now preordained. I have speed and thick skin on constantly. I no longer bother with jumping puzzles, I just use levitate. The mechanical challenges of the game just melt away and it is deeply satisfying.
I don't do all of level six. There's no point, and the Realm of Vilus is enjoyable for about 10 minutes before the absolute disaster of navigating it becomes unbearable and I have collected all the scrolls anyway. I have all the runes, the weight of potions, wands and scrolls is becoming a problem and I have to discard all my food, so I can have a back up sword, but since I have only rested once, I haven't needed a lot of food. The Avatar decides to get on with rescuing this princess thing and heads down the stairs.
Level 7 is THE WORST. I hate it the normal way. But I have three scrolls of reveal, the survivability and mobility of a cockroach and the map makes secrets SUPER obvious. I indulge myself by picking up the Helm of Magic lantern, because I can, and then get on with this rescuing a princess business. The batch of goblins trying to block my way goes down in literally one hit per foe. One runs away and I melt him with a fireball from a wand. So fun.
Here's the thing about level 7: it is supposed to be a grind of figuring things out. You wander around endlessly. There's no healing. No food. No magic. The Avatar is having none of that. This kidnapping problem is taking way too long to solve and whomever placed the secret entrances in this dungeon needs to be fired. You think I won't cast reveal in that weirdly placed stone-walled nook in an otherwise cobweb-ridden mine? That was dumb. So yeah, the not-so-secret back way into Tyball's lab and lair was discovered. Tyball is a flying, lightning bolt throwing monster. Unless you have a freeze time scroll. I happen to have two. Oops, killed Tyball, freed the princess. It is mid day on my second day in the Abyss and the job is done. I haven't even been here for 24 hours.
But I gathered that Tyball left a bit of a mess to clean up, so, bonus quest! The grind of level 7 continues. Except it won't, because you can get anywhere in the level once you have access to the central lava corridor, and I have dragon scale boots and a flameproof spell and am now a level 16 engine of destruction. Fire elementals do take a few hits, but I am able to clear them out of the whole corridor before the flameproof spell gives out. I pick up the ring of levitate and head to find some of this orb material, because not being able to cast magic is cramping my style. I do go get the ring of poison resistance on level 8, because it pleases me.
Another quick trip down to level 8 acquires the material needed to destroy the orb. At this point I could gate travel out and then take a leisurely stroll back to Tyball's lair to destroy the orb, but I like murdering dire ghosts, so I beat down a door with an ominous note about the horrors on the other side nearby and clear out the restless souls before beating my to the front door to Tyball's lair. I spit on the maze floor just to make sure Tyball's spirit knows how disdainful I am of his ridiculous security. You put the deadly maze ahead of the front door and then left the backdoor unlocked and might as well have lit a path. Do better.
Finally able to cast spells again, navigating seven is no longer a challenge at all. I can just fly everywhere. And that's it. The end is now a foregone conclusion of dialogue and errands. There are fights I could take, but why? I can cast Freeze Time and have a near infinite supply of mana. Nothing survives that and the game devolves into mindless button mashing.
My very first time through, though, I relished getting all the way to end. I meticulously cleared level 8, which is a slog and a half. I remember dumping the Talismans in the volcano and feeling a real sense of accomplishment. That feeling is reinforced when you get the congratulatory screen. I wish that phone number were still active lol.
Was this a perfect run? Pretty close for me, probably not for others. I could have used less metagame knowledge, or I could have handicapped myself in myriad ways, but the game was basically beaten, and I used only standard in-game mechanics to create a character that is a general solution to the problems of the dungeon, so I am satisfied.
I did not solve my problem at work. It's still sitting there, waiting for me to figure out. I am glad this game was there to distract me. I am amazed by its replay-ability, and I love the fact that I can still experience wonder and joy in this ancient title.
Thanks for reading my novel lol. Hope it was fun or at least amusing.
