NES-Port of Ultima III

The NES-Port of Ultima III is the a console port of Ultima III to the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in 1989.

Description
At the time of the NES port's release, six years had elapsed since the release of the original. As such, the graphics were overhauled considerably. The new design for Ultima III was similar to that of many Japanese designed role-playing games, and additional creature animations and cutscenes were added to the game.

The sound and music to the game was also reworked, carrying over none of the tracks of the original. The NES opening theme was later re-imagined as an instrumental image song known as "Hitomi no Naifu" ("Knife of the Eye"), which was released in conjunction with the game. An album known as the Exodus "Ultima Mix" CD, has been produced with remixes of the soundtrack.

Given the need to adapt to an NES controller, the interface was changed such as that most of the game's mechanical controls and player character statistics are accessible via pop-up windows, rather than through a keyboard parser. The window displaying the shifting moon-phases, however, remains unchanged. Movement is also portrayed differently in the port, with all party members represented as following a leader, instead of having the party displayed as a single sprite.

Differences from the Original

 * The game added a short introduction sequence with the party appearing before Lord British. In this in-game event, Lord British is portrayed with a cross on his scepter, rather than an Ankh.


 * The gender of character's is fixed dependent on their character class (Ex: Mages are all male. Clerics are all female.) and the "other" gender is not an option during character creation.


 * Related groups of monsters have differing artwork each individual subtype, whereas the PC versions used a single graphic to cover broad categories of creatures (Ex: daemons-gargoyles-manes).


 * Virtually all NPCs in the game have different dialogue from their PC counterparts. In addition to this their sprite artwork portrays men, women and children of varying ages, rather than depicting NPCs as belonging to specific character classes.


 * There is an additional shop type not present in the computer versions, a "Casino" where the player can win or lose gold by playing rock-paper-scissors.


 * Healers (called hospitals in the game) are only capable of curing poison and colds (an ailment unique to the game), and attempting basic resurrections of the dead. They will occasionally fail in the last endeavor, forcing players to seek out the services of a temple to recall their companions.


 * Additional items and quests have been added to the game. The player must now obtain special Golden and Silver Picks to retrieve the Mystic Armour, and the party may also undertake the optional task of picking flowers in Ambrosia that they might be given useful artifacts known as Compass Hearts.


 * It is not possible to flee from combat.


 * Lord British will resurrect a single member of the party should the entire group be slain in combat.


 * There is an endgame sequence following Exodus' defeat, in which the player must escape the rapidly-collapsing Castle Death.

Trivia

 * Although FCI is credited for the port, the game was actually produced entirely by Origin. The reason were problems with Nintendo's developer licensing restrictions scheme, which forced Origin to nominally have a third party sell the game.


 * The MSX port of Ultima III is identical to the NES version.


 * The singer for "Hitomi no Naifu," Noriko Hidaka, also appears as a character in the game, giving the player the Compass Heart; the character's theme music also has its own image-song counterpart, "Haato no Jishaku" ("Magnet of the Heart"). Hidaka's character was renamed to Sherry in the English version.


 * Some of the races in the game are renamed in the Japanese (but not the English) version. Humans and Bobbits (under the name kobitozoku, or "Little People") remain the same, but Dwarves are now "Beasts" (kemonozoku) and Fuzzies become mazoku, a term referring to demonic or magical beings that could be translated as "Demons" or "Mystics."  The elven race's usual fantasy direct transliteration (erufu) is replaced with yousei, a word that can also mean "sprite" or "fairy," perhaps in reference to the race's more diminuitive stature compared to the popular Tolkien image.


 * The NES port has a bug that can short-circuit the plot. The Four Cards aren't actually needed; it is enough to make it to Exodus himself. This can be done the quick way just by misusing the Moongate to the Isle of Fire until a pirate ship spawns in the small pond behind the snake (impossible in the computer versions), enabling access to the castle. Once Exodus has been reached, the game will behave as if the player already has all four cards, even if they really don't.


 * A one-episode anime was produced in Japan but never published.