Some of the video segments here make differences clearer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbJcOEwKJ4
While Exult basically matches the graphics of the original game, this is closer to "3D Ultima VII", with rotatable views and more interactivity in the game. It gives it what looks like a kind of voxel-ish look, mixing in original sprites with newly-modeled 3D objects.
[1] https://youtu.be/Nmy4ClXXI84?t=25 0:25 to 0:40 has a bunch of the small scale objects being replaceable, rotatable, and animatable in 3D.
[1] https://youtu.be/Nmy4ClXXI84?t=48 0:48 to 1:06 has bulk replacement of scene objects with personally chosen substitutes. (3D rotatable)
[1] https://youtu.be/Nmy4ClXXI84?t=67 1:07 to 1:25 has fixing broken geometry and creating fully textured 3D replacements.
With the current state of the engine, and the extensive personal editing features, much like the comment from VariousPrograms, it could be used as a platform for doing other games, modified quests, and multi-player MMO style games.
There's also a remake of Ultima Underworld being made in Godot: https://github.com/hankmorgan/UnderworldGodot
Hoping for these projects to succeed, both U7 and UU sound like incredible games that deserve to be accessible to modern gamers.
I couldn't have predicted that back then. Although as a kid, I did fix a "bug" in Ultima that required the floppy disk when you had it installed on HD.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL16yfJJxAM6g-4YxKGI-1...
I'd recommend some combination of the Bethesda open world games and the JRPG genre today. They're not the same, nothing really quite fills the Ultima gap that I know of, but between those two I'd call it close enough.
It's like you say, not exactly the same, but for CRPGs it's hard to go wrong with Baldur's Gate 3. It's similar enough to later Ultima in some ways that it might scratch the itch.
His other videos on other games are great as well!
His video on 7 and serpent's isle brought back a lot of memories (although my preferred origin game was Wing Commander)
:-D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_mode
It wasn't particularly popular as it couldn't play nice with protected mode environments.
There is a blogger who teaches a class on old games (I can't remember who) and Ultima IV was one that his students bounced off of immediately because they didn't read the manual cover-to-cover, which is a prerequisite for not being totally lost.
1: Or using a walkthrough, I guess, but IMO the main point of the Ultima games of this era was the sense of discovery.
- all mons ingame
- level cap
- no trading
- improved Battle Tower
Ultima VII shines with the in-game simulation, but today Cataclysm DDA:Bright Nights curb-stomps U VII in that area. Pokémon, well, it's about battling with your favourite mons, the game story it's just a placeholder with nice Japanese pixelated vistas.
Also, I'd put Slashem on par, too. Because it's damn silly and fun to raise a Samurai with Yakuza weapons, an anachronistic madness like the Discworld series (and OFC you have the Tourist role from the books too). More than strategy, Slashem/Nethack it's about lateral thinking and doing crazy stuff to advance into your goal. Throwing potions as weapons? Done. A Doppleganger Kung Fu monk doing DBZ-like attacks while using your Wand of Digging against rock based foes? OFC, done.
However, I think some artefacts can never be properly resolved (see for example the marble statue to the left at 1:53 in the video), which makes it look veird and break immersion (also the flat roofs that are supposed to be slanted/angled roofs)
Also, the U7 engine is a very complex beast so to properly implement it will take a lot of work and fine-tuning (although I guess they can use Exult as a start, which is by now pretty feature-complete)
I'll take this opportunity to mention another engine-upgrade to a classic Origin game that got me excited: https://github.com/Howard-Day/WCUnity
I'll keep this one on my list for when nostalgia strikes again...
On Ultima VII, can you play the 7th series without playing the previous ones? I mean, are these games standalone? Because Ultima IV it's always praised to be an incredible RPG to play.
BTW, Scummvm will happily play Ultima 4, 6 and 8 games too, with better controls and support.
Tbf though, Exult kept the original fixed 2D overhead perspective which is a bit hard to grock when used to what has now become the 'traditional' camera angle for isometric games.
Revisited moves the entire game world into 3D and it looks magical:
Later Ultimas, like U7 instead went for a streamlined realtime battle which was much better. That went overboard with the at the time infamous U8
Ultima VII is again perfectly playable by itself, but, yet again, it's best if you thoroughly read the manual for all the background information you need. There's an old joke of Bethesda introducing a new feature for one of the Elder Scrolls games (NPCs have schedules and go about their daily life! You can bake bread!) and the response being that Ultima VII already did that back in 1992.
Do you need to play the prev ones? hmm I would say if you play 6 and 7 together you should be ok. You could get away with them standalone probably. I would not play the expansion packs of 7 without playing the base first though. the extra 6 ones you could play standalone. But you would probably want to play savage empire before martian dreams.
Out of those my personal fav was savage empire for some reason. A remix from origin using the ultima 6 engine.
Edit: Ask, and ye shall receive https://archive.org/details/ultima-1-gfx
