Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny Retrospective

Just when I was thinking that the Internet needed more coverage of ORIGIN Systems and their excellent repertoire of games, RPGCodex whips up this retrospective of Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny. This was one of the first games I fired up on my family’s (then new) Tandy 1000 after the TRS-80 and Apple IIc started to show their age:

The spell system requires the purchase and premixing of reagents, all of which are available in shops (unlike Ultima 4). There are a wide variety of of combat and noncombat spell effects of varying usefulness. Magic in noncombat situations ranges from vary convenient to essential; travel into and through the underworld can involve lots of teleporation spells. In combat magic is a mixed bag; the late game availability of powerful ranged weapons renders some of the spells nearly useless.

Exploration of the world is a big part of the game. Little nooks of buildings, and small settlements in the ocean or deep in the woods can be found by diligent explorers. Searching wells and tree hollows can sometimes give valuable treasure. Also, unlike Ultima 4, there is a large gradient in the difficulty of encounters, and heading somewhere too dangerous will get your party wiped out.

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