Ultima V

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Developer(s)	Origin Systems
Publisher(s)	Origin Systems
Designer(s)	Richard Garriott
Engine	Ultima V Engine
Release date(s)	1988
Genre(s)	RPG
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX, NES
Media	Floppy disk

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988) is the fifth entry in the computer role-playing game series Ultima.

At the start of Warriors of Destiny, the player learns that Lord British has been lost on an expedition into the Underworld, and the throne of Britannia has been usurped by a tyrant known as Lord Blackthorn, while three shadowy figures known as the Shadowlords terrorize the countryside. Blackthorn enforces a strict, fundamentalist version of the eight virtues, which leads to results that are anything but virtuous (for example, citizens are required to give to charity or else face execution). The Avatar is summoned back to Britannia by his friends; together they form the "Warriors of Destiny" in order to eliminate the Shadowlords, undermine Blackthorn's rule, and restore Lord British to his throne.

It can be said that the game deals with the issues of fundamentalism and moral absolutism.

Warriors of Destiny featured much more polished writing (earlier games were riddled with some orthographical errors and uneven vocabulary) and considerably greater detail than previous games. It was the first Ultima to implement a time-of-day system in which the sun rises and sets, and non-player characters follow daily routine schedules. This game has been lauded as realistically portraying a culture living under a dictatorial regime; its tone is much darker than that of Ultima IV.

1 Version differences
2 Characters
- 2.1 The Shadowlords
3 Runic Alphabet
4 Ports, mods, and tributes
5 External links

[edit] Version differences

Warriors of Destiny was the last Ultima developed on the Apple II; the limits of that system were increasingly becoming a hindrance to further technological advance, and thus all later games were developed on PC systems. This was also the last time in which Ultima creator Richard Garriott did a major share of the actual coding; in the later parts he acted as a game designer only.

Ultima V on the Commodore Amiga

Like the previous two games of the series, Ultima V was also ported to the NES by FCI and Pony Canyon; it was released as Ultima: Warriors of Destiny in 1991. Each of the NES games had significant differences from the originals; this NES version was, however, a less faithful rendition of the source material than its predecessors had been. Introductory parts were cropped; graphics and gameplay were relatively limited (the most notable example is that the swamp ground was represented by magical poison fields); and there were few music tracks.

The Commodore 64 version of Ultima V lacked a musical score altogether, but was otherwise the same game as the Commodore 128 version.

[edit] Characters

[edit] The Shadowlords

There are three Shadowlords: Nosfentor, the Shadowlord of Cowardice; Astaroth, the Shadowlord of Hatred; and Faulinei, the Shadowlord of Falsehood. Each of the lords represents the antithesis of one of the three principles of Truth, Love, and Courage.

[edit] Runic Alphabet

Runic alphabet used in Ultima V.

Ultima V used a modified form of the Elder Futhark runic alphabet for some game text, adding some letters to make a complete one-to-one correspondence with the English alphabet (plus a few runes to represent some common two-letter combinations).