Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems
Genre: RPG (2)
Exodus is one of the most ridiculous games I have ever played through. I still can’t believe I didn’t give up halfway through. How crazy is this game? If your party dies it autosaves and you have to make a brand new party to save up money to resurrect the dead people. You raise your stats on a hidden island only accessed by sailing into a whirlpool. You can earn a resurrect spell but it sometimes turns your party member into ashes which in turn can be cured by a spell that uses actual stat points. Have you ever played a game where spells cost actual stat points? Because I certainly have and I sure feel accomplished now that it’s over.
Exodus is an important game for several reasons. The most signifigant is that it was the first Ultima game, and one of the first overall, to use a party of multiple characters. The party has four characters and I probably spent three or four hours just getting together a party that could stay alive. As soon as the game starts you start running out of food so you have to be able to earn money quickly. Luckily the normal battles are actually one of the easiest parts of the game. Yes this is a game where the battles are no problem but walking around kills you. Still there’s something exhilarating when everything starts to click and the game really gets going. For the record I went with two paladins and two wizards. Ranged attacks will save your life in this one.
This is a very old school RPG in that it gives you almost no information on what you’re actually supposed to do. The land is much smaller than in the first two Ultima games but to compensate the quest is even more obscure. The only true goal is to defeat Exodus, but to do that there are items to collect. Several of them are hidden in the game’s well designed dungeons. This is a good game if you like old-fashioned dungeon crawling. They are all a uniform size and easy to map, but small enough to not get super lost in. The second main key for beating the game is character building, and as I already mentioned it’s kind of a pain. Levels are gained by talking to Lord British in his castle every 100 experience points, but this only raises HP. To raise stats you have to go to the city of Ambrosia and pay 100 coins per point. Of course to get there first you have to find a boat. The only way to do this is wander around the shore waiting for a pirate ship to show up. Then you have to sail with the wind and find the whirlpool. When your ship is docked the whirlpool will come and destroy it like nobody’s business, but when you actually want to sail into it the whirlpool suddenly develops a boat phobia and runs away. Then you finally get to Ambrosia and have to find the shrines which are well hidden and spend all your money. It’s that easy folks! I did the math and if I wanted to max out everyone’s stats I would’ve needed 120,000 gold. With an average of about 40 gold per chest that’s 2,800 battles. I wonder how many battles it takes in something like Dragon Quest? Luckily people in towns drop treasure chests just like monsters and respawn as soon as you leave the city. It’s frustrating but a lot more fun than it sounds.
I’d say the hardest part for me was getting used to the controls. I do not have very much experience with PC games so there was a bit of a learning curve. It didn’t help that many things that would be automatic in later games had to be keyed in. For example you have to pick a direction when you want to talk to someone which means more keystrokes. The characters all have individual gold, so when you are in a shop there can be some money juggling going on. A trip to the store which would just be pushing X in a modern console game might look more like J,1,T,down arrow,B,N,F,Esc. It doesn’t help that some commands are split. The command for equipping weapons is R but the command for equipping armor is W. You push E to enter a town but B to board your ship. Every spell has a different letter which you have to memorize. I am so used to drop down menus which show all the spells at once. As time goes on the commands will become more streamlined, but in 1983 it was still a novelty to use as many keys as possible. It certainly looked impressive in the manual, but in practice it could get frustrating.
If I sound like I am ranting a bit that’s mainly because this game left a strong impression on me. It’s one that I will be thinking about for a long time. I felt like I had to struggle for every inch of progress. This all adds up to a game that is going to be ranked fairly high even though it is absolutely ridiculous. It may be frustrating but it is also distinct. It may be vague but it also fun and exciting. Somehow all the individual frustrating pieces come together to make a great game. I would’ve felt like hot stuff if I got this game for Christmas in 1983 when my console gaming friends were getting the first wave of Atari shovelware. Oh your controller has one button? It takes me more buttons than that just to ride my boat.
1. Super Mario Odyssey
2. Galaga
3. Exodus: Ultima III
4. Pac-Mania
5. Mickey’s Racing Adventure
6. Metro-Cross
7. Gaplus
8. Dragon Spirit
9. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)
10. Red Sea Crossing
11. Baraduke
12. Gamma-Attack
13. The Legend of “Valkyrie”
14. Galaxian
15. Evoland
16. Gyruss (2600)
17. Looney Tunes Racing
18. Birthday Mania
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