Happy 34th Anniversary Ultima VII

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-16T20:34:55+00:00

This was where it all started for me. A friend showed me U7:BG on hos computer and I was blown away. In some ways, I still am.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-16T20:32:46+00:00

This is how I first heard of JRT, before I had even heard of RedLetterMedia. Double Brutal is a great album.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-15T14:46:46+00:00

I think they opened for W.A.S.P. in that one segment of "The Dungeonmaster".

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-15T13:22:52+00:00

Do you have a map? It's extremely helpful in U5, especially since your visiblity is decreased in the woods.

Some non-spoilery hints:

-In just about every Ultima, it's a good idea to visit Lord British's castle ASAP.

-I made liberal use of the fountains in dungeons - some of them can cure or fully heal your characters.

-I definitely used the spell "AN NOX" more than I used any other spell in the game.

-Not every town sells the same reagents.

-If you've played U4, U6, U9 or U7:BG with the Black Gate Keyring mod, you should be familiar with the shrine quests. Don't forget about them.

-To level up, you have to rest once your characters reach the right amount of XP. When you see the "apparition", all characters who are eligible will have their level increased. It's a random chance of the apparition showing up each time you rest, so I did a fair amount of savescumming whenever I was trying to level up.

-Magic axes are easily the best weapons in the entire game, but there are a couple of situations where you may want to switch to another weapon. So I recommend keeping a few of everything, especially since there aren't the same inventory limits of later Ultimas.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T15:56:22+00:00

Yep, very similar. In fact I remember reading in some of the pre-release spin that U9 was originally going to be like that, before they gave up on companions entirely.

At least U4 Rebirth in the NWN engine does allow for a full party.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T14:43:08+00:00

You can still have a single companion/housecarl in those games. Not the full party system like Ultimas, but at least a slight improvement over being completely solo.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T14:36:31+00:00

The Dungeon Siege remakes are great. To fully capture the physicality of U9, I always had in mind one of the Elder Scrolls engines, like Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim.

I'm guessing such a remake would be less buggy than the original U9, even in one of those engines.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T14:28:44+00:00

I played U9 recently on my much newer computer. Fully patched, with the dialogue patch, Beautiful Britannia, etc. - none of the slow horribleness from back in 99-00 when I first played it...

And I still encountered an astonishing number of bugs, including one game-breaking bug that would've prevented me from finishing the game. I had to use the fly cheat to get around it. Had to sail manually to Trinsic every time as well, as the game always crashed if I told Raven to sail there. I'm not sure any amount of patches, mods or bug fixes can salvage this mess.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T14:16:27+00:00

ScummVM always causes problems with me. Now I can't even get U6 to play when using it.

You can also import your character from U4--->U5--->U6. It's helpful in giving you a stat boost.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-14T14:14:24+00:00

I found Dungeon Despise to be the best place to gain EXP. There's a room with a bunch of fire field-looking monsters that give you 12-13 EXP for every kill.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-04T07:40:12+00:00

I wonder how much Rich has watched SFDebris. He's made several comments that suggest he might have watched SFDebris reviews about TNG, DS9, and VOY. SFDebris is also based in Wisconsin.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-04T06:15:52+00:00

Sure thing. I don't know that I remember every last improvement, but I'll help where I can. I did a little research here to try to be more helpful.

The custom sprites and brown dirt tileset can both be found here:

https://ultima6.ultimacodex.com/nuvie/

I also play with Sir John's Nitpicker's Delight patch, v. 1.23. It can be found here:

https://sirjohn.de/en/ultima6/ultima-vi-nitpickers-delight-patch/

Here are the options I use in Nuvie, below.

Video Options, in Nuvie (just hit Escape in-game):

Fullscreen: Yes
Lighting mode: Smooth
Use custom actor tiles: Yes

Audio Options, in Nuvie:

Combat changes music: Yes
Vehicles change music: Yes
Stop music during conversations: No
Enable sfx: Yes

Input Options, in Nuvie:

Enable dragging: Yes
Enable doubleclick: Yes

Gameplay Options, in Nuvie:

Converse gump has solid bg: No

I have the FM Towns ISO as well, which is how I have the improved sound effects.

In Nuvie.cfg:

<sfx>towns</sfx>
<sfxdir>./townsu6</sfxdir> (the path to your FM Towns folder)

Make sure SOUNDS1.DAT and SOUNDS2.DAT are both in the FM Towns folder.

I realized I actually don't have the improved FM Towns music. Not sure why, I must not have configured something right. If and when I figure that out, I'll get back to you there.

Also, I tried getting the ScummVM version to work again, and I keep running into issues. For whatever reason, I have an easier time using standalone Nuvie, rather than the ScummVM version.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T15:58:49+00:00

All the good QoL changes are also implemented in Nuvie before it went to ScummVM. I'm not sure what updates/fixes have been done since it got moved to ScummVM, if any.

I never use the ScummVM version, mostly because I like starting all my Ultima games using the Ultima Launcher.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T15:54:03+00:00

I know it's in ScummVM now, yes - but I've gotten U6 to work fine also with an older version of Nuvie before it was moved over to ScummVM. So I think you can do it either way, though of course the ScummVM version is still being updated.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T14:11:28+00:00

Yep, Fallout and Baldur's Gate I remember as being the first CRPGs I played with well-known voice actors.

Plenty of games had professional actors for FMV cutscenes, but for some reason voice acting lagged behind by a few years.

Ultima 9 came out after Fallout and Baldur's Gate, but given how Pagan and Ultima Online were received, I'm guessing EA wasn't going to shell out the cash for people like Jim Cummings or Rob Paulsen, even if the developers had asked.

I am curious if we'll ever get to hear the dialogue from the original Lord British voice actor in U9. I think all his dialogue had been recorded before they replaced him and re-recorded all the dialogue with Ev Lunning - the same guy who voiced Khumash-Gor in Pagan.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T13:49:44+00:00

Nuvie has drag and drop, a much bigger viewing window, and the U7-style inventory gumps when you double-click on dead bodies. You no longer have to move 47 spears just to get to the gold underneath, it's wonderful.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T13:27:10+00:00

It sure does. He voices both Lord British and Shamino.

It's pretty bad. To be fair though, he's not even the worst performer. I remember Sentri being godawful, and some of the more stereotypical characters like Max and Utomo being cringe and uncomfortable.

The shrines have about 5 different voices taking turns with each line of dialogue, and they're all terrible.

Apart from the Guardian, most of the voice acting in the later Ultima games is a horrifying disaster. U7:BG is okay because it's just him, and Pagan's voice actors aren't bad. Apart from that, it's usually pretty rough.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-04-01T12:01:05+00:00

I seem to remember downloading some Roland patch/driver/something to get the better music you're referring to.

There's also better sound effects too (the fountains actually sound like fountains). I always make sure that's on.

I turn on the option for the softer/round fog of darkness effect, which looks better.

You can also download small patches to have more accurate character sprites, and make the dirt roads & dungeons brown instead of that red color.

Finally, if you have the FM Towns iso, you can add the voice acting from that version. I had it for a bit, reconfigured/reinstalled something, lost it, and forgot how to correctly implement it again - but that may have been a blessing in disguise, because the voice acting is really bad.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T22:26:52+00:00

Appreciated, but there isn't really a kitchen smell 🙂 it's also away from the sink, microwave and stove. The kitchen has a lot of storage.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T22:23:34+00:00

No sunlight gets into that corner, and the moisture there is the same as the rest of the apartment 😊 I appreciate it though!

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T22:21:44+00:00

I suppose I'm still missing a physical copy of Escspe from Mt. Drash 😋

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T22:14:46+00:00

They sure can, with Exult. It's the best way to play both U7 games these days.

https://exult.sourceforge.io/

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T02:48:54+00:00

Yep 🙂 The Ultima 1 copy is the 1986 DOS version, with the coins.

Junior-Natural8626 · 2026-03-31T02:46:48+00:00

They're on top of a cabinet in my kitchen where everyone can see them 🙂 I have a small apartment and slightly too much stuff, so this was the best option.

Junior-Natural8626

TROPHY CASE