That's an interesting observation - one I never heard before, but it seems to superficially make sense (I'm no Zelda expert, though). We actually have a Legend of Zelda chapter as well. What do you think about that Matt?
Hi, Bill and Rob!
I really loved reading about Rob's experiences with Ultima in the computer lab at school. That sounds like some really great times. I didn't have anything comparable to that, unfortunately. We had a computer lab at my high school, but they quickly found out my friend and I were "dangerous," especially after we put a funny program on the teacher's computer that mimicked DOS. Everytime you tried to type something into it, though, it'd say something like "I don't want to do that right now, I'm having my period!" We thought it was hilarious, but it was trouble. Funny thing was, the principle didn't seem to know what to make of it, so we didn't really get punished.
I also liked the emphasis on world exploration vs. maze games. I agree with that; thinking back on it, I can't think of many games (Phantasie comes to mind) where you have a big "overhead map" instead of crawling around in dungeons. Most games of the period seem to think that dungeon crawling is where it's at. The top-down perspective and tile-based graphics seems to make it easy to make big overland maps; it'd be harder to represent something like that using first-person wireframe graphics, I think. Bard's Tale is the first game that really tried to tackle that, and even there you only had one city (later games expanded it). Still, I don't think you really got the same sense of scale. I remember playing Morrowind and finally seeing that a world like that was huge; you had to be able to see things far off in the distance and know you could travel all the way there.
I'm not quite sure I understand the Zelda comment. I see some similarities to Ultima; the top-down view, for instance, but the gameplay seems really different with the arcade action on each screen. It definitely stripped out most of the RPG elements of Ultima. I can't remember who, but somebody made a good case that Wizardry was more influential on JRPGs, which I can see clearly in Dragon Warrior/Quest--but I still see a strong Ultima influence. I might say that Ultima is closer to Final Fantasy (the original), or perhaps Phantasy Star.
There's a story in one of these books about how Lord British was shown a JRPG and he felt it was a ripoff of Ultima II or III to the point where he threatened to sue them if they released it. They took it down immediately. I'd have to dig up my books to find this story, but I don't think the author gave details. In general, though, it seems Americans and Europeans were far more willing to make close clones than the Japanese (Gates of Delirium, anyone?)
That's an interesting observation - one I never heard before, but it seems to superficially make sense (I'm no Zelda expert, though). We actually have a Legend of Zelda chapter as well. What do you think about that Matt?
Hi, Bill and Rob!
I really loved reading about Rob's experiences with Ultima in the computer lab at school. That sounds like some really great times. I didn't have anything comparable to that, unfortunately. We had a computer lab at my high school, but they quickly found out my friend and I were "dangerous," especially after we put a funny program on the teacher's computer that mimicked DOS. Everytime you tried to type something into it, though, it'd say something like "I don't want to do that right now, I'm having my period!" We thought it was hilarious, but it was trouble. Funny thing was, the principle didn't seem to know what to make of it, so we didn't really get punished.
I also liked the emphasis on world exploration vs. maze games. I agree with that; thinking back on it, I can't think of many games (Phantasie comes to mind) where you have a big "overhead map" instead of crawling around in dungeons. Most games of the period seem to think that dungeon crawling is where it's at. The top-down perspective and tile-based graphics seems to make it easy to make big overland maps; it'd be harder to represent something like that using first-person wireframe graphics, I think. Bard's Tale is the first game that really tried to tackle that, and even there you only had one city (later games expanded it). Still, I don't think you really got the same sense of scale. I remember playing Morrowind and finally seeing that a world like that was huge; you had to be able to see things far off in the distance and know you could travel all the way there.
I'm not quite sure I understand the Zelda comment. I see some similarities to Ultima; the top-down view, for instance, but the gameplay seems really different with the arcade action on each screen. It definitely stripped out most of the RPG elements of Ultima. I can't remember who, but somebody made a good case that Wizardry was more influential on JRPGs, which I can see clearly in Dragon Warrior/Quest--but I still see a strong Ultima influence. I might say that Ultima is closer to Final Fantasy (the original), or perhaps Phantasy Star.
There's a story in one of these books about how Lord British was shown a JRPG and he felt it was a ripoff of Ultima II or III to the point where he threatened to sue them if they released it. They took it down immediately. I'd have to dig up my books to find this story, but I don't think the author gave details. In general, though, it seems Americans and Europeans were far more willing to make close clones than the Japanese (Gates of Delirium, anyone?)
Matt Barton, Managing Editor
Location: St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Email: matt@armchairarcade.com