Ultima: Escape from Mount Drash

Maker:
Sierra On-Line
Year:
1983
Systems:
PC (Windows) / VIC-20
Genre:
Action
Tags:
Misc. Fantasy / Fighting / Sword & Sorcery
Language:
English
Median Rating:
1/5

Archived Thoughts

Thoughts by Herr M. (06 Apr 2013) – VIC-20

Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash is a real rarity: It was created by a friend of Richard Garriott around 1983 and without further ado Sierra labeled it as Ultima, although it ultimately had nothing in common with this role playing series, with the exception of some names and said friendship. Produced in very small numbers for the VIC-20, a system which on top of that was declining in popularity, a retailer is said to have thrown almost all copies off a cliff somewhere (E.T. anyone?), which is why the game was thought to be lost for a long time. Finally, some copies appeared on well known auction sites, where they reached prices as high as $3000 (in words: three thousand US Dollar). And actually that’s the end of that. I have nothing more to say…

But since some of you might be curious what it plays like nevertheless, or probably are thinking about giving it a try themselves, I give you my warn… um… opinion in one sentence:

Being a prisoner with no name or character (sadly you are denied to chose even one of the two), whose sole distinction is his rank, ranging from ‘Qwimby’, a term whose meaning certainly is beyond anybody but the author, to the usual military ranks, misplaced as always in a fantasy setting, but especially in Sosaria, in which the story, according to the manual, takes place, up to the ‘Questor’, a title hard to beat for its ridiculousness, in the dungeon of Mount Drash, that is 15 levels of boredom, all of them consisting of a small maze of same dimensions, being almost identical to each other, with the entry at the lower right, the exit at the upper left and, after a certain level, two yellow squares, so called ‘gems’, that open up the exit, at the remaining corners, your single goal is, by fighting, meaning you encounter guard creatures, which move outside of combat only if you take a step yourself, and have to try to time the precise moment, when the monster, suddenly storming freely towards you, will skewer itself on your sword, which is unnecessarily complicated, because of the absurd combat mechanics, consisting of shifts between a ready stance and two attack positions, one of which is absolutely impractical, and the fact, that there is exactly one distance, which at least is the same from monster to monster, at which you can kill your opponent, before you are a goner, and casting from a list of believe-it-or-not three magic spells, to wit random teleport, put monsters to sleep and remove walls, the last one being of special significance, since it makes the whole maze thing quite redundant, your way through, to reach one of the most bland congratulation screens, that at least offers no spelling mistakes, but some formatting errors, before you are back at the beginning, where the same old story, not one iota more entertaining or demanding, starts over again, exactly as if you had lost all of the generous three lives earlier, or if you exceeded the time limit of 100 seconds per level, probably because you got stuck with the counterintuitive controls, which ask for down to turn left and a return to step forward, and would be standing here too after a short ‘You lose, Cadet’.

Has this been a painful read? Well almost as painful as trudging through this game. It’s similarly fulfilling too. If you want the short version: Escape from Mt. Trash is boring. This real Qwimby should only get a mention as curious side note to the Ultima series in 1 out of 5 cases.

Those of you who read the whole review, I would like to congratulate:

*You have gained some knowledge and truly earned the title

READOR*

Thoughts by Pheonix (30 Jul 2014) – PC

This is a short and simple game. It was converted from the original Commodore Vic-20 game for Windows only. The conversion is designed for 320x200 resolution and doesn’t re-size. I played it in Windows 7 64bit fine, though I had to lean to within inches of my monitor to see what was going on (320x200 is rather tiny on a 1366x768 screen.) I also tried it in XP mode, but it still wouldn’t resize. Finally, I tried it on my Windows 98 Virtual PC build and it played with the same re-sizing issue, though there were issues on load forcing me to load it twice every time. There may be settings in Virtual PC allowing a re-size, but I could not find them (Virtual PC gives a message “Virtual PC has disabled live resolution switching.”)

The game play itself is simple, just move through the dungeon from level to level, avoiding or fighting monsters in the way. In the beginning this is rather simple as there is a map showing the location of the exit and monsters. As you advance things become more difficult (map disappears, monsters disappear, a gem is needed to advance.) You also have a limited number of spells you can use.

Overall, the game is only really good for a few minutes of play. It gets old rather fast and becomes boring. Even when it first came out the graphics and game play were simplistic. Even considering the source platform (Vic-20,) it isn’t really all that good. For a die hard Ultima fan, there might be a slight amount of nostalgia involved. Though many Ultima fans don’t consider it canon, as it wasn’t written by Richard Garriott, or even really approved by him. Sierra had it written and released during the time they had all rights to the Ultima name (Richard Garriott later won those rights back when founding Origin Systems.)

The game is slightly better on a real Vic-20 as it includes music and sound. Though it is only “slightly” better as the music gets rather repetitive after a while, and may actually detract from the experience.

Box

VIC-20

Image Image

Screenshots

PC (Windows)

Image Image Image Image Image Image

VIC-20

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

Files

User Lists

Videos

If you still wish to know more

TGOD button #1 TGOD button #2