Ultima 8 - procrastinatory aid

I'm replaying Ultima VI through DOSBox. I got this game when I was 8 or so and had no idea what an RPG was, how experience building/leveling up worked, and especially the plot of this game. With the help of some walkthroughs, last night I got farther than I had in years of playing it on my x386. That is to say, I have liberated two shrines and leveled up every party member once. It's a lot of fun. Whenever I get bored of going through the walkthrough, I go to Cyclops Cave to gain experience and lots of gold. Good times!

Things are a bit confusing tho, I think most walkthroughs are missing things, so I've been having to follow a few at once. For example in Moonglow to get to the catacombs you are supposed to get a key from someone that opens the crypt. Well, the key only works once you are in the catacombs, and the door to the entrance is locked. I figured it used to same key, and when it didn't, I wasted lots of time running around, trying to find out why. I never did find that key and ended up just having to pick the lock.

I like this game's sense of humor. At one point my party was bravely walking through the countryside, killing cats left and right while "Hail! Britannia" triumphantly played in the background. And one of the songs is a really clever medieval MIDI take on "Stairway to Heaven".

Every review I read/see about Ultima 8 is incredibly damning, esp with regard to the platforming controls.

Grab your Hoe of Destruction! There's a new Ultima game from BIOWARE

LOL I gave up on Ultima 6 a while ago. I think I started playing Knights of Xentar, which was far more console-style.

I love these video reviews of every game in the series. Spoony is a funny dude. He's just finishing the review of Part 9 and he just destroys it (along with 8). He likes the other ones, for the most part:
http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/game-reviews/ultima-retrospective/

If the forums on SA are any indication, Spoony going thru some weird shit lately

His review of Johnny Mnemonic is awesome.

i installed ultima vi and quit in a fit of rage the first time i played because i couldn't find anywhere to sleep the first night where I didn't get attacked by tons of random headless and shit and then we wandered into a marsh and everyone died :-(

For a proper U6 experience, I recommend Nakar's LP story:

http://lparchive.org/Ultima-4-5-and-6/

Writes a walkthru of the games as a longform narrative with screenshots and a proper bent sense of humor

the chapters titles are thus:

Lord British's Castle, Where We Wrestle With Gargoyles & The User Interface

Of Mice & Crazy Sewer-Dwelling British-Impersonating Men

In Which Britain's Kind Citizens Ignore Our Bungled Robbery Attempts

In Which Ultima VI is Most Thoroughly Broken

Nicodemus, The Most Clever Man in Britannia

Semi-Intentionally Misleading is Totally Not Dishonest, Iolo

Good Old Britannian Stereotyping

A Brief Smith Restrospective

In Which Everyone in Britannia is Outed as Gigantic Wimps

The Mouse That Roared

Britannia's Greatest Detective - The Skara Brae Clone Caper

Hey Everyone, Check Out How Humble This Guy Is!

Catacombing, and This Game's Obligatory Lord British Murder

I Can't Blow Someone Up Every Update

Post-Shrine Housekeeping

It's Been Like 100 Years, They Know Buccaneer's Den Is Full Of Pirates By Now, Guys, They Just Don't CARE

The False Prophet Revealed

Of Two Men Found in the Underworld in U5, One Joins the Party

This is All Lord British's Fault, Somehow

In Which A Balloon is Already Half Assembled Because Someone Read Ahead