- What is it?
- The game that moved the
Ultima series to the PC,
1990,
DOS/VGA.
- What computer or emulator will it run on?
- A 386.
- Tags
- Hercules, Roland.
![[Ultima VI screenshot]](http://www.lauppert.ws/screen1/ultima6.png "click for more RPG screenshots")
It's a story of racial tolerance told through the lens of fantasy. Broad in scope and ambitious in storytelling, Ultima VI: The False Prophet is a great game today despite the need to emulate it with programs like MoSlo. A few plot problems aside, this is a game that is well worth playing as you are completely immersed in the fictional realm of Britannia. —From the old Ultima VI Project page
With Ultima VI, Origin switched from the Apple ][ to the PC as the main platform. The game had VGA graphics, AdLib/Roland music, and a pretty weird perspective, kind of a mixture between top-down and isometric that tends to give me vertigo. This view had debuted two years before with Times of Lore.
Ultima VI was the last Ultima game to be released for a wide variety of platforms, even still including the C64, though the new graphics looked rather strange at 160×200.
Journey once again to Britannia, land of magic and adventure. Uncover the mystery of the gargoyles in this exciting sixth episode of the award-winning ULTIMA saga.
All New Graphics and Sound Technology!
- Stunning full color graphics and vivid animations
- Captivating original music scores
Cinematic Storytelling at its Best!
- A classically written ULTIMA saga of fantasy and myth
- Illustrated by leading graphic artists and animators
Simulation of a Living Fantasy World!
- Thousands of colorful places and characters to discover!
- Hundreds of fascinating conversations and puzzles
- A fully interactive world where everything has a purpose - bells ring, clocks tell time, cannons fire; IF YOU CAN TOUCH IT, YOU CAN USE IT!
Hours of Non-Stop Entertainment!
- Immediately begin playing and enjoying
- Long-term play value; you may never see it all!
Just like the contemporary Bad Blood, Ultima VI plays all the sounds over the PC speaker. For the music, there are various choices, including the Multiwave Innovation (Innovation Sound Standard), a little known and little supported sound card featuring two SID chips. Most likely you will have to do with the AdLib music, which I found more annoying than soothing, as one reviewer described it. Roland MT-32 is supported, but a generic wavetable device won't work under this setting. Under Windows, you can emulate it with a card of the AWE32 family:
Yes Ultima VI can have wavetable sounds if played in a Windows 95 DOS Box (Not native DOS). This requires a recent set of Win95 AWE Drivers and the AWE Control Panel - check your driver / setup disks or Creative's FTP / WWW site. Have a copy of the MT32 Soundbank (synthmt.sbk) handy also, as you'll need it.
What you need to do is:
- Fire up the AWE Control Panel and turn on MPU401 emulation. (Found under 'Device')
- Select the MT32 Soundbank as necessary (Synth tab)
- Select MT32 / LAPC-1 in the Ultima VI install / sound setup
- Fire up U6 in a DOS box and enjoy!
This is a quote from Michael Fleming's Ultima and the AWE FAQ. I have not tried it out myself.
Right at the beginning of the game, Lord British will ask you a question. If you answer it correctly, he will give you a key that opens the castle gates. Without it you cannot leave the castle. So, in case you got a copy with the manual missing or something, here are the answers to the questions:
For a native speaker of German, as I am, these questions are pretty funny.
