Ultima

Also known as: N/A

Developer: California Pacific

If you plan to see the first Ultima to the end, you've got to have a proper mindset. If you start the game and immediately head to a dungeon, you probably won't last too long. However, since Ultima is an older RPG, you've got to approach it like one. What I mean by that is, you'll want to spend a decent amount of time, especially in the beginning of the game, grinding. You'll want to gain experience, obtain funds, and make yourself nice and powerful before advancing on. However, back in 1981, when Ultima was first released, you were rewarded for all of your grinding for an absolutely amazing game for its time. It's almost hard to believe that this game came out in 1981. Sure, there were some games, like Odyssey, that pushed some boundaries of the time, but Ultima didn't just push boundaries, it toppled them over. Ultima starts out simple enough, where you can enter the nearby castle and town, observing your surroundings from a top-down perspective, to purchase and sell items. From there, you may enter a dungeon or two, where the viewpoint changes to first-person as you make your way through the 3D hallways within. As you continue on with the game, you'll find yourself traversing waters, launching into space to shoot down alien spaceships, and even traveling through time to battle one of the most annoying boss fights that I've ever experienced. The downside of Ultima, if you were to play this game today, is that while it feels ahead of its time for when it was released, it also feels very outdated today. Unlike most RPGs of the 90s and later, where opening chests, equipping items, etc. can mostly be done with a single press of a button, there are different keys that are used for different actions. A is for attacking, for example. While most keys aren't too difficult to remember, it definitely doesn't hurt to have a little "cheat sheet" handy to remind you of which keys to press on your journey. Anyway, for its time, Ultima was absolutely amazing…it was an adventure that truly feels like a huge, epic quest. While it lacks many modern conveniences, for its time, Ultima was, quite possibly, the ultimate RPG.

Review added: 04/16/2026