Ultima II - The Revenge of the Enchantress

History: Ultima was a success but due to financial problems with the original publisher, California Pacific, Richard Garriott was forced to find another publisher. Furthermore, he wanted to find one who agreed to release the game with a real box and a cloth map and finally came to Sierra On-Line. Graphics and gameplay have not changed much compared with Ultima I, but since the game was written in Assembler, it was much faster than the original version of Ultima I. Later, when Lord British founded his own company Origin System and the rights for Ultima II went back to him, another version of Ultima II was released. There have been only minor changes like removal of the Sierra references. This new version has never been re-released as a seperate program, it was included in the first Ultima trilogy. Thus the Sierra version seems to be the only independent version with cloth map and a seperate box which exists.

Near a town in the countryside with a horse, a plane and a ship parked nearby.

Lord British's Castle is appropriately located in England in this game.

Background: After Mondain's death, his evil apprentice Minax has taken over control over the land. You are summoned again to defeat the evil enchantress in her castle, Shadow Guard. There are fewer quests than in the previous games but more places to explore. The towns and castles look better, they now have scrolling tile graphics and you can talk to the inhabitants to get useful bits of information. Famous NPCs like Dupre and Sentri are introduced, as well as some famous programmers. A new game element, the moon gates appears in Ultima II. These magical gates allow you to explore five different time zones and if you are able to find a spaceship you can also travel to ten different planets. You can also explore some dungeons and towers but there are much less different monsters here compared with Ultima I. Magic also plays only a minor role in this game, your main goal is to find out which items are needed to confront Minax and to defeat her in her castle in the time of Legends.

An audience with Lord British. You can replenish your hit points here.

You can talk now to all townsmen. Here the hero stocks up his supply of junk food.

Recommended Version: Ultima II is mute in all versions, there is no background music. The PC version is CGA only, but after applying a patch it is one of the best versions which is currently available. The graphics are upgraded to EGA tiles and saving the game is now possible on other planets, too. The original Sierra version comes with an oversized box and a cloth map, these maps became a de-facto standard in later Ultimas.

The dungeons and towers are still black and white vector graphics and look all the same more or less.

Fighting a low-resolution orc in the dungeon depths.

Statistics:

Single-player game
4 character classes, 4 races
9 different magic spells for 2 magic classes
Dungeons 3D, Outdoors/Buildings 2D
On-Screen-mapping: Yes (No in dungeons/towers)
Save game option available only on surface of Earth (also on other planets in patched PC version)
Ten planets with cities, villages, dungeons, towers and castles plus outer space, Earth also has five different time zones to explore

Oracle clues are very useful for the advanced gameplay but also very expensive.

To solve the game you will also have to warp through space and land on other planets of the solar system.

Morale: Another "Kill-the-foozle" game with no special story depth. Many consider this game a hoax, it does not play in Britannia but on Earth where you meet several famous programmers. The Ultima 2 engine has inspired many games in its time, including Questron II (SSI), Wrath of Denethenor (Sierra) and the Shareware games Hera, Shadowforge and Wraith. There is a fan-made remake called Enilno in the works which plans to extend the plot significantly and also gives the player the opportunity to return to Britannia.

Earth