Music #30

Ultima VI

DOS

1990

Such a long way did Ultima VI come from V. The increase of production values can easily be seen. Combat and towns were no longer separated to different screens, to different modes. The world was seamlessly tied together.

19 years later, the music of this game is still as epic as ever. Ultima VI is truly what every game should aspire to be. It has a very rich textured world but is very warm (as the music should illustrate). The only real competitor to a game like this is another Ultima. No RPG has ever matched the magic (I know this because I’ve played them all).

The jump in music and visuals between V and VI is so massive. Yet, it came with a cost. The game world shrunk compared to V. Still, the game world was massive and no game today can approach its content.

Just take a look at the introduction.

Now with computers much faster, the rapid animation is a result of that. But what you can’t tell in the video was that when you are watching TV, you can change the channel by hitting a number key. On one channel, a pastor is holding up a Bible and saying, “Repent now!” And then the pastor is struck by lightning! (You know that came from Garriot.)

The introduction should give a taste of just how textured the game’s content is. The entire game is just as richly textured. Origin took its motto seriously: “We create worlds”, and it shows.

The music just comes across so warm, so inviting, none of that bombastic stuff that hammers at you in games these days.

Listen to this one. Inviting, is it not?

Ultima relied on the Rabbit Hole as Miyamoto did with Mario. The Avatar (which is your real self) would walk through a Moon Gate and enter the ‘game world’ where you, of course, would be the valiant hero and symbol of all virtues. For some reason, I keep recalling that ‘Rabbit hole’ theme being played over and over in early Mario games and even the cartoon makers caught on with Captain N being pulled into the TV or Mario and Luigi falling down the wrong pipe and ending up in Mushroom Land.

Here is Stones, probably the most enduring song from Ultima.

I could only find this song from a video from the SNES version (always avoid Ultima on a game console). But it gets the sound mostly right. Very unique dungeon theme.

Ultima VI started off with the premise of gargoyles appearing from the dungeons and taking over the shrines, and if the Avatar did not stop them, the gargoyles would overrun Brittannia. So after securing the shrines (a significant task in itself, you don’t know what you have to do to get those runes!), the Avatar and party does travel through a dungeon and enter through the underworld where the Avatar finds himself on the other side of the world (where the gargoyles are). The game psyches the player up to defeat The Big Bad Monsters only to turn the tables and show the gargoyles have a vast and advanced civilization full of art, music, and religion. On a book of prophecy, where they show a gargoyle with sword standing on a human (the reverse image of the game cover), tells how the ‘False Prophet’ would destroy the gargoyle race. That ‘False Prophet’ is, of course, you. Your accomplishments in Ultima IV and V end up destroying the gargoyles. You are the bad guy in Ultima VI.

Here is music from the Gargoyle city:

They don’t make games like this anymore.