Episode 1 leaves you wanting more... (Spoilers)

So I’m one nice, shiny Shroud to the good and able to reflect on the Episode One story I have played through.. And if you add all the paths of Love, Truth & Courage together and bolt-on the Path of the Oracle (the “collection phase”!) then you end up with a pretty entertaining quest, worthy of an Ultima title and which leaves you wanting more...

Hopefully those who have been playing regularly since the game went persistent have managed to revisit the main quests & enjoy them after they were completed and properly fleshed-out for official release.



I liked the variety in the story which can be well illustrated by considering the various dungeons. For example:

Malice is a conventional fight-through ending with a confrontation with Anapa, the antagonist of the Love Path. We learn that the events along the Path of Love are all a product of Anapa’s grand scheme to lure himself a spirit talker(!) I nobly tried to talk him out of his wicked ways but he wasn’t having it . So I did the decent thing and beat him up instead.

Artifice is a rare thing - a dungeon with no fighting! Existing purely for the story, this provides the entertaining background to the Path of Truth climax and realisation that the pilgrims who have turned their back on society are far from useless - their bones make excellent raw material for turning into weapons! (I hate wastefulness...)

The best, in I my opinion, was the Boreas Colossus dungeon - an unexpected and entertaining mix of various puzzles ranging from a Krypton Factor-type shuffle the blocks about puzzle, to chess puzzles and even a bit of riddle solving with a dragon. Good stuff. (Incidentally, the Krypron Factor is an old UK TV gameshow.)

And when you finish, and visit the Oracle for your Shroud, it manages to leave you questioning your own decisions and whether a more open-minded approach is best rather than slavishly following the virtues (which are drummed into you in Ultima IV style along the quest). We momentarily leave the Oracle and Arabella to their "difference in perspective" whist we all await some more...

The only problem I see is the awful clipping disaster of the Shroud itself. For the time being I will stick to the Heraldry clasp cloak as one has standards of appearance don’t y’know!

 

My only complaint about the main story line was Artifice in general. In a single player game of "old" it could have been the temptation that it was set up to be in that you would have been able to partake of the sins inside thus trapping yourself and earning a Game Over in the process. However, with the current setup, that would not work, so it comes off as a of a cheap tour. Further in it does get better and a petrified Boreas staring down at you was creepy as could be.

Overall though, it DID have an Ultima feel to it which is the desired result. However, to put things in perspective, this is like closing the book on Lord of the Rings when the hobbits make it to Bree. (or only watching the first movie).

 

Awesome, welcome to the glorified towel club.

The shroud is cool but yeah it makes everyone look identical and it's hard to get rid of it since you need the stats. Haven't seen too many evil shrouds yet.

I naturally wanted it pretty bad tho since it seems like you know, required clothing

 

Don't need the stats, don't use it.

 

There is an interesting book out there that is against the virtues it seems and it talks about those that "wear the clothing of the dead" in a disdainful way.

I did get alot of vibes of trying to subvert those that slavishly follow the virtues in this game, although it didn't quite all come together as well as I thought it could.

Hopefully we get more interesting stuff that makes things more clear in Ep 2.