Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire is the first release in the short-lived World of Ultima series that was designed as spin-offs from Origin's lucrative Ultima games. Each game would take you, the Avatar from Ultima, into new worlds and time periods that are unrelated to Britannia.
In Savage Empire, you are transported to the lost land of Edon, which looks just like Earth thousands of years ago... except that humans coexist with dinosaurs. Here, you meet up with several familiar faces such as Shamuru (who looks and talks the same way as Shamino from Ultima), and learn that you must help the village unite all tribes before you can go home.
The game is based on the Ultima VI engine with slightly different graphics to add to the ambiance, and some modifications to tone down Ultime VI's focus on real RPG elements. For instance, Savage Empire has a lot more character interaction than the Ultima games, and unlike Ultima VI, characters will jump into conversations whenever they feel they have something pertinent to add. This greatly enhances the game and makes you feel like you are talking to real people with minds of their own. Spellcasting is also vastly simplified, with only nine spells and three reagents.
In contrast to stealing as a way of life in Ultima VI, you are free to take whatever you want in your quest, although your pack is limited to 16 items no matter how heavy they weigh. Since the game is more of an adventure than RPG, this limit is slightly annoying in mid-game when you want to carry more items. As in Ultima VI, you are able to interact with the environment in a realistic manner: picking branches from trees, digging clay from a riverbank etc. Many puzzles are fun and require more brains than brawn (getting rid of the hungry Tyrannosaur is my favorite), although sometimes you need to trek all over the map to find one small item that you overlooked earlier.
Overall, Savage Empries is a great and unique game that may not appeal to die-hard RPGers who crave complex RPG elements, but will be a lot of fun for everyone else. Two thumbs up!
Review By HOTUD
Comments and reviews
If you're looking for Martian Dreams, it's grouped under the "U" category with the rest of the Ultima stuff.
Savage Empire was sort of like Ultima VIII.. just a shift in tone and pace of the game that sort of put some Ultima fans off.
The game was more adventure-based (Ultima 6 already being more adventure based then U5 and other previous Ultimas, which focused heavily on RPG & combat and leveling up).
The main issue with the game was that the map was so huge. You would spend forever wandering around trying to figure out where to go and what to do next. And that was just on the overworld. When you got into the underworld, it was just a complex maze that was a massive pain to figure out where to go and what to do, often leading to dead ends and back-tracking.
Some of the puzzles were also a bit obtuse.
The shift from fantasy with magic to "land of the lost" adventure was just too big of a shift for some people. Origin was trying to expand and experiment with the Ultima series, via Ultima Underworld and then the one-off Ultima Worlds.. but, while they got cult followings, they didn't have enough audience to keep going.
St. Haborym 2: actually, comments @ /game/ultima-worlds-of-adventure-2-martian-dreams-1az show it has been around since at least 2011-01-16... :-B
Wot, no Martian Dreams?
excelent
For more information on the Ultima series, check out http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Main_Page
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.