Let's Play: Ultima VII Part 2, Serpent Isle

Let's Play: Ultima VII Part 2, Serpent Isle

Unread postby RavynousHunter » October 9th, 2015, 12:14 pm

Foreword

Just to get it out of the way, this will be a text/image-based LP. The reasons for this are many, but the main one being that Serpent Isle is an old game, it was released in 1993 and, as such, doesn't really have much in the way of voice work. There's a few recorded sound bytes from the Guardian and some magic space snakes, but that's about it. The other big reason is that I intend to...derail things, a bit. Make it more about the characters and less just "dude plays a game." As a final note, I'm using the Avatar Pack for Exult, since it offers more than the Aryan Superman/woman, Hispanic dude/gal, and Black dude/lady.

Introduction

Ultima is a hell of a drug. Ultima VII is a hell of a game. It and the series (prior to Ultima VIII, where things started sliding downhill fast) have been the inspiration for a lot of western CRPGs that came afterwards. The ever-popular Elder Scrolls series was directly inspired by the Ultima Underworld series. In many ways, Ultima VII once again set the bar for video game storytelling by providing a massive world in which players could screw around. Ultima VII Part Two is...a little less on the interactivity side, but the story it tells is still very good and holds together quite well, minus some minor issues near the end due to the game being rushed by EA. I've decided to start with this because it is a lot of fun to play, and also a lot of fun to break. Aside from cheats (which are abundant and quite powerful), there's lots of little ways you can game the system to reduce early grind. In fact, most of the Ultima games haven't really been about the grind, but just telling a story. I likely will, if all goes well, go back to Ultima IV or so and tell the story of Dave from the beginning. Think of it kinda like Citizen Kane. Except with snakes that talk in your mind.

I'm, as you may have guessed, playing Serpent Isle under Exult. Exult's basically an engine built to run the Ultima VII games on modern platforms, while providing a lot of nifty extra features that don't exist in the originals like allowing an arbitrary number of save files, ability to take screenshots, and a couple of hotkeys that make life on the ground easier to manage. If you, yourself, want to play Ultima VII, I suggest you get it from GOG (its either free or really cheap, can't remember which) and then grab the latest snapshot of Exult. With that said, let's get to the meat and potatoes, shall we?

The Story So Far

Lord British's Castle, eighteen months after the destruction of the black gate and the dismantling of the Fellowship.

Image

Image "When did Castle British get a poorly-lit room with gigantic columns?"
Image "Around the time we ran out of money for renovations because someone spent 18 months gambling in Buccaneer's Den, Dave."
Image "Hey, its not my fault I thought the casino would keep letting play the games rigged."
Image "Whatever. Look, we found an enchanted scroll and a map in Batlin's belongings."
Image "I'm not even gonna ask why it took you guys a year and half to rifle through Batlin's shit. Let's just look at this scroll, already."

Image

Image "This is going to be one of those quest-starting things, isn't it?"

Image

Image "Well, crap."
Image "Batlin! In the unlikely event that the Avatar stops me from coming through the black gate-"
Image "Because the solution 'blow shit up until the problem goes away' wasn't something a child could've thought up."
Image "Will you shut up? I'm trying to listen to the floating, gigantic, red face."
Image "-to follow the unwitting female human Gwenno to the Serpent Isle. There I will outline my plan to destroy Britannia."
Image "'Destroy Britannia?' I thought he just wanted to conquer us. Now, I'm confused."
Image "Maybe he means that he'll destroy it metaphorically by taking over."
Image "Neat. Well, guess I'm off to Jhelom to see if I can-"
Image "Hold it, right there."
Image "You're gonna send me to the Serpent Isle, aren't you?"
Image "You'll have backup."
Image "Cool, can I bring Spark along?"
Image "Dave, I didn't approve of you dragging a child along on your last quest, why the hell do you think I'm going to let you take him to a completely different world?"
Image "I took care of him, I was responsible!"
Image "You gave the kid a shotgun!"
Image "Hehe, yeah, I did. So, I take it that's a 'no' on the Spark, then?"

Image

Image "Then, he got real mad."
Image "I think it was less that and more you trying to get Sherry, a mouse, to join us."
Image "Hey! I thought she'd like to get out of that crappy castle and go somewhere new. Kinda like she did when we solved the gargoyle problem."

Image

Image "Since when has Britannia had an icy tundra with massive, snake-shaped pillars that are an obvious portal to another world?"
Image "Dupre, come on. Nobody in Britannia thought to look at the only organized religion on the planet when people started getting ritualistically dismembered."
Image "Yeah, the average Britannian citizen seems to have the same mental capacity as a squirrel."

Image

Image "Gentlemen, if we don't make it through this alive, it has been a pleasure."
User avatar
RavynousHunter
 
Posts: 89
Joined: April 12th, 2014, 7:01 pm

Return to “%s” Console Games, Computer Games, & MMORPGs

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

cron