Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny Tileset

The tileset posting continues! Ultima 5 boasts 512 tiles (compared to the 256 of Ultima 4), and one can easily tell the difference when playing both games. Overall, however, there is a lot of wasted nonsense like the pink "Shadow Realm" tiles, "sitting down" tiles, and the four-frames of animation for everything.

The class sprites are greatly reduced, no more Tinkers, Druids, Paladins, Wizards, Rangers, Fighters, Shepherds, or Bards... instead characters use either the "Rogue," "Knight," or "Wizard" sprite. Yet, with the lack of diversity, the artist uses space within the tiles more more effectively by filling in more space (so there is less black) and making everything look realistic through shading and eliminating the representation of unimportant/awkward sprite features such as necks.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I'm making good progress in Ultima 5, although some of the new mechanics are annoying at best. Picking up loot has become a veritable chore, and the DAY/NIGHT system is poorly implemented as far as I can tell. Basically there is nothing new to explore at night, and the towns and shops close down in the dark.

On the positive side, the player is no longer burdened with protecting his or her Avatarhood, and can lie, cheat, steal, run away from fights, and murder like the good old days of Ultima 1-3.

The Rise & Fall of a Mummy Summoner

This is a record of two epic Mummy Summoners. After the death of my Tengu Summoner, I decided to try Mummy Summoner out in Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Along the way, I took screenshots to document my adventure and to help others survive the early game as a Mummy Summoner.

After I found an altar of Sif Muna, I joined his religion. With Rank 1 Piety, Sif granted me the ability to channel magical energy (gain MP) at the cost of food. Because Mummies don't need food, the ability was free; my formidability in a battle subsequently increased dramatically. Taking down this play ghost was no problem.

With this power I could summon vast hoards of imps and canine familiars. Somehow this guy died, however, and I had to start over.

Menkaure's usually a son of a bitch. My guys had him surrounded, however. Notice how my army is drastically smaller without Sif Muna's channeling ability.

Eustachio draws near, command?

He's a unique summoner, so we had a little summoning battle.

He was totally outclassed by my thrall of imps.

I soon found the Temple and started worshipping Sif Muna again, although for this battle with Edmund I did not yet have the channeling ability.

It didn't take too long for me to find the lair and gain favor with Sif Muna. Now I was able to raise platoons of monsters once again.

Clearing out the Lair seems like it's gonna be cake.

Even this hive of Killer Bees didn't phase me... at first.

I go all-out with the summons and channeling and more summons. However, the Killer Bees are in another league and they slaughter anything and everything I can summon. Even though I set up my guys perfectly, the Bees walk through my army like it wasn't even there.

I make a run for it, but it won't be enough. A few rounds after the above screenshot I fall to the swarm. Let this be a lesson: Killer Bees require a stronger summon than imps and canines. Maybe my Ice Beasts would have been able to do the job, but other than that it's hard to know how I could have done better. Some games you get lucky and find another spellbook, other games, like this one, you are forced to deal with your default spells for a long time.