Ultima Trilogy I II III

Ultima Trilogy I II III is a compilation of Ultima I, Ultima II and Ultima III, released by Origin in 1989. It was available for the C64, Apple II and IBM-PC.

Its contents are:


 * All three of the games. Ultima I was the 1986 rewrite, even on the Apple II. Ultima II was altered to remove all references to Sierra (Origin had regained the rights to the game from them).
 * A combined handbook for all three of the games, called Ultima Trilogy Manual.
 * Three cardboard maps (one for each game).

Note that the real cover art for Ultima II isn't used on this collection's box. That's because Sierra for years was unwilling to release it to Origin, regardless how much they were offered. In its place is a mock-up adapted from the original cover of Akalabeth.

The Apple II version of this box set contains a rewritten version of Ultima II, distinguished by blue borders around the gamplay/status areas and a custom text font (with lowercase letters). The Ultima Trilogy was the only time this version of the game was made available, and it is notable as the final Origin product written for the Apple. The C64 and PC versions contained the original, unaltered Ultima II for their respective platforms.

The IBM-PC and C64 versions of this compilation were later included in the 1990 release of the Ultima Value Pak in their original form.

Other Versions
The japanese edition of the compilation for the FM-Towns computer was released in 1990 and had numerous differnces to the original package. This was unavoidable, since the games hadn't been ported to this computer before, and technical advance made the originals dated. The compilation was sold on a CD-ROM.

All three games got a complete graphical overhaul and a high-quality intro each. They also got CD-quality music (the first two games originally had no music). For more detail, see Computer Ports of Ultima I, II and III. Included as well was a message from Richard Garriott to the fans concerning the port. It was also included as an CD-audio track. Lastly, the box contained paper maps, an operation manual and a game manual.

There also are Korean and Chinese (Taiwan) editions of the compilation. While the software is the same as the western PC edition, the manual got fully translated. However, while the version in Taiwan got the fully color maps, the Korean version only has greyscale capies of the maps.