Ultima. A pioneering name in computer RPGs. A series that always has attempted to give a wide amount of leeway to players wanting to immerse themselves in a deep and engaging world. The emphasis of Ultima’s creators has always been the complexity of the game world (hence their slogan “We create worlds”). Character development, however, was not the forte of games in the series (especially up until Ultima Underworld).

It could be said that of the early Ultimas, the third installment, Exodus, had the best potential. Eleven classes, five races. Two separate spell systems. Surely this could keep any character development nerds happy, right?

Well, not exactly. The class concept was implemented in a completely broken sort of way, as if it was added as an afterthought (it would be perfectly reasonable to believe this if each class didn’t have its separate cool-looking avatar). When you are almost universally advised by players to avoid certain character classes (Alchemist, Barbarian, Illusionist, and even the Druid comes to mind) because they simply don’t stack up to other classes, then you’ve failed in balancing your character development system properly. Not only this, but every class has exactly the same HP totals, and increasing levels actually hampered the party’s chance of survival as Sosaria’s monstrous denizens were made to scale to the most powerful adventuring character’s level.

Thus, the reason for A New Exodus is clear. Though not strictly an “Easy type” mod, it endeavors to blunt several annoying aspects of gameplay, and accentuate Ultima 3’s strengths. It serves to provide better distinctions between the 11 classes and 5 races, and combine the following: balance between character concepts, a smoother gradation in level of difficulty, interesting character development, balance Sosaria’s scalable monsters with desirable level up features, and in so doing minimize Ultima 3’s “annoyance factor”. It is believed that once you play A New Exodus, you will never want to go back to the stock version!

As putting a full changelog here would make for a needlessly long entry, you can read the readme (link above), or view a comprehensive changelog with screenshots at http://jeffludwig.com/ultima3/download.php.

• Ultima - Exodus (U) [!].nes - GOODNES 3.14
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