Best of Commodore 64: Exodus Ultima III
One of the best games for the Commodore 64 was Exodus Ultima III. It was an incredible adventure game. Compared to the first two versions and other games, the third version was a noticeable improvement. If you love games like Zelda, Myst, or Nancy Drew then you’d like Exodus Ultima III.
Text based role playing adventure games had been around a while when Ultima III came out. Still, Exodus Ultima III took role playing games to a new level. It combined 2D top view for city, land, and water adventure with 3d maze view to explore dungeons. The scope of the game was vast for a Commodore 64.
Part of the appeal of the game was figuring out how to win. Nowadays, there are so many walkthroughs, guides, and spoilers online this game doesn’t have the same appeal. When it came out, it was easy to put up with the clunky fighting mechanics, slow progress, and underwhelming graphics in hopes of finding just one new clue per gaming session.
Yeah, another thing about games on the C64, they were slow. Like, five minutes just to load the game slow. Saving the game took a disk change and 30-40 seconds. Entering a city, fight, dungeon, or Ambrosia also took time.
Taking Your Time
Finishing the game could take months of gaming sessions. Not just because the platform was slow, but also because there wasn’t any shortcuts. If you got hung up on a problem, you just had to figure it out.
The game involved a lot of searching and talking. Every new city found meant new opportunities. At the bottom level of every dungeon was new discoveries.
Dungeons were a whole adventure on their own. You had to map it out yourself, bring torches, food, and other supplies if you wanted to survive.
Getting Started
Exodus Ultima III starts by creating characters and assembling a party. Once formed the adventure started in Lord British’s castle. There isn’t much there beyond a healer and several interesting characters to talk to. Once you leave the castle to Sosaria there is an adjacent city. There you can get armor and weapons because once you start exploring you will run into enemies.
Fighting is Exodus Ultima III is not very exciting. Each player takes a turn either moving or attacking. Hits or misses are basically a roll of the dice by the computer. Better weapons and traits improve the chances of a hit. But improving your party takes a lot of time. Like many, many sessions to reach the maximum.
Which isn’t such a bad thing because along the way you’ll discover the cause of all the monsters: Exodus. Finding out what, where, and how to defeat Exodus is the whole game in a nutshell. This involves exploring every city, dungeon, and part of Sosaria you can. There’s even a hidden world of Ambrosia to explore. Ambrosia doesn’t have any cities or dungeons, however, there are mysterious temples to find and figure out their secrets.
Fighting and Talking
While Ultima III has a lot of battle’s it involves just as much searching for clues. This involves talking to every person, even hidden ones, in every city. Plus a very special one at the bottom of a specially hidden dungeon.
Piecing together the clues and solving the game was incredibly rewarding when this game first came out. Since then many games have duplicated Ultima’s formula gameplay. Such as The legend of Zelda, Super Hydlide, Final Fantasy, and many more.
There made seven versions of Ultima plus an online version, but Ultima III remains my favorite. It dropped the time travel and space exploration and just focused on figuring out the solution to defeating Exodus. Hint, it didn’t involve a battle or talking, rather solving a kind of puzzle.
A Remarkably Fun Game For Being So Basic
For Ultima III, the progress is slow and the graphics aren’t captivating. However, discovering all the clues, finding all the hidden areas, and figuring out all the secrets in this game is it’s main appeal.
Similar to Myst, once you know all the secrets you can win this game quickly. But that would defeat the goal. Which is to take you on a role playing adventure.
Exodus Ultima III starts slow but finishes strong. It’s worth getting a Commodore 64 emulator and giving it a try. Exodus Ultima III may be 40 year old game, but it still holds up as a great role playing adventure game!
Best of Commodore 64: Exodul Ultima III brought to you by: David M.
I’m David M. I’ve been playing video games a long time, my pong game was fire. Now, my kids run circles around me but we always have a good time. We mostly play party and family games. Strategy and battle games are still among my favorites. I like writing about games almost as much as I do playing them. My favorite games are: Moving Out 2, Out of Space and Overcooked All You Can Eat.
