Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress



Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress is the second installment in the Ultima series. It was released on August 24, 1982 and published by Sierra Online for the Apple II, IMB-PC and Atari 8bit. They were the only company that agreed to Garriott's conditions. Later conversations for the C64, Atari ST and Macintosh followed.

The second installment of the series is also the strangest of them. The game deals with several time episodes of Earth, mixed in with numerous pop-references, science-fiction and travels through the solar system. The game is also quite buggy and has many areas that are simply empty (some of the planets of the solar system have really nothing on them). This total flipped-out mix of themes looks really odd today, but wasn't that strange in the early 80's. Still, today it is considered the weakest installment of the series.

Coming with the game
The release of Ultima II included these things with the game:
 * The Book "The Second Age of Darkness".
 * A cloth map of Earth, togeth with the codes for the Time Doors.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Player as the Stranger this time hasn't the task to save Sosaria. Instead, he/she has to save Earth itself from the Enchantress Minax. Minax, lover and apprentice of Mondain, is quite angry over his death by the Stranger's hand, and swears revenge against him/her. Manipulating the timeline, she let Earth die in a atomar holocaust in 2111.

The Stranger, having escaped from the changes in the timeline at the last moment, has to decypher the mystery of the Time Gates, which enable time travel, to reach Minax and prevent these horrible events from happening. Gathering the only weapon that can kill Minax, the Quicksword Enilno, he/she travels back to the Time of Ledgends, and confronts Minax in her castle, to kill her. With her death, the timeline returns to normal, with no one remembering the horrible events that happened in the changed time.

Spoilers end here.

Despite all its flaws, Ultima II was quite a success in 1982, sold well, and made enough money that Richard Garriott could found his own company, Origin, which in the future was the publisher for all the Ultima games developed. Of course, the venture with Sierra had some unwanted results as well, more below.

Trivia

 * Sierra Online was the only company willing to support Garriott's idea (and spend money on) putting a cloth map into each copy of the game (this was, before Origin was founded).


 * On the same note, Garriott's unhappiness with Sierra Online caused Ultima II to be this strage mix of themes. Also, Sierra's long unwillingless to sell the rights caused the game to be never remade. Even the title cover isn't in Origin's hands still. This all caused the founding of Origin.


 * One of the first games (apart from text adventures) ported to the Atari ST.


 * First original release of a Ultima game on more than one system.


 * The last Ultima NOT published by Origin.

Upgrades
Ultima II looks really ugly in its original graphics on a IBM-PC. A Upgrade Patch exists which not only converts the CGA-graphics to 16-color EGA graphics, but also builds in a frame limiter, fixes a number of bugs and inserts new commands into the game. That way, the game is still playable today.