SNES-port of Ultima VI

The Super Nintendo port of Ultima VI came out three years after the original game was released. The port was surprising in that it stayed quite faithful to the original game, something that wasn't a given after the NES-ports of the earlier games.

While the graphics for the intro and outro were re-drawn, the in-game graphics are very similar to the PC version (tile graphics of the world and inventory screen), although with a slightly improved color palette (notably the roads and dirt lose the reddish aspect of the original PC version for a better looking brownish look). The music is the same as well, only in better quality and also includes a few more tracks from Ultima V that were not in the original PC version such as Britannic Lands. The graphics are better in a way, since the world is seen in fullscreen. However, the sheer size of the original game (several megabytes) meant, that Origin had to cut several things out of the port, or it would have never fit into the limited memory of the module.

Also the limitations of a console controller rears its ugly head. Since the original Ultima VI was fully mouse driven in combination with the keyboard, the control scheme on SNES had to be significantly changed, making the game harder to control.

Nintendo Power praised Ultima VI's storyline, depth, and complexity, but felt the view was strange, and the object cursor and combat was awkward. The game received a 3.3/5 for graphics and sound, 2.8 for play controls, 3.4 for challenge, and 3.5 for play and fun.

Changes
Listed are the changes to the game, apart from the graphical and audial representation. These had to be done to fit the game into the module or because of technical limitations:


 * Several pictures and texts from the intro were removed.
 * There is no character creation, the player only enters a name. There is also no option for a female Avatar.
 * The conversations use a tree-system, meaning that the player actually has to learn about a topic, before they can ask the person about it.
 * There are no character portraits.
 * Also all NPC dialogue had to be streamlined and shortened in order to fit the game into the module. This was used for censorship as well (see below).
 * Since the game is fullscreen, thus logically no mouse support, the control scheme is much more complicated with several sub-menus.
 * The world is less detailed. Small things like chair and the ability to sit are gone. There is also less interactivity, such as looking at paintings is now absent.
 * The following spells are missing:


 * Steal
 * Trap
 * Summon
 * Slime
 * Eclipse


 * Buildings and the overworld are all separate maps.
 * The maximum party size is reduced to six instead of eight.

Censorship
Additionally, the game was censored. This was due to Nintendo of America's censorship policies at the time, since they wanted to be a "family friendly" company. The following censorship was done:


 * Several text changes in the intro. Also the picture of the Gargoyle priest with the crossbow bolt in his head was removed.


 * Also the Gargoyles no longer have horns (possibly the censors felt they looked like devils).


 * Killed enemies don't leave any bodies behind. They just vanish.


 * There is also no blood.


 * The text during the combat was changed. "X barely/lightly/severly/heavily wounded" becomes "X gets Y points of damage". "X killed" becomes "X is defeated".


 * It is impossible to attack civilians.


 * The spells "Kill" and "Mass Kill" were renamed to "Destroy" and "Mass Destroy".


 * It becomes clear that most of the removed dialogue was critical stuff, for example the perperator in Empath Abbey. The remaining dialogues were changed to eliminate words that were on the black list.


 * There also is censorship in the manuals and at least two pictures were altered.
 * The Daemon in the picture in the bestiary lost its horns, hairy crotch and tailtip, and its trident was turned into a normal spear.
 * The Gargoyles in the picture in the bestiary lost their horns to make them look less diabolical.

Japanese Port
A Japanese port of Ultima VI was also released for the Super Famicom. It was identical to the SNES port except the text was translated into Japanese.