There was another console port to the Sega Master System though, which more closely resembles the PC version.
#Ultima iii classes manual
The manual instead describes the process, but strangely, Hawkwind replaces the gypsy. Instead after entering a name you jump right to character creation. The whole opening sequence is removed from the NES port. So okay, there were some false memories involved, but they weren't as totally out of the blue as I thought they were for a moment there.
and to fit in with the rest of the memories, therefore, I mentally transposed the ankh to Britain. And then over the years, rather than remembering that as something that I realized would have happened had I been playing a ranger, I somehow came to remember it as something that actually had happened. When I came to Skara Brae and noticed I could only talk to the ankh after recruiting Shamino, I probably realized that if I'd been playing a ranger I would have been in trouble, and that I'd have had to kill Shamino or one of the other people there to get to it. So either I'm misremembering the class I played and I'd actually chosen Spirituality and played a ranger (and slaughtered Shamino before reloading), or I'd discovered the potential problem with talking to the ankh if you're playing a ranger and then somehow came to conflate it with my own experience.Īctually, the more I think about it, the more I think that second one is probably what happened. Except that I could have sworn I played a bard, in which case I wouldn't have had any problem. Also, it wasn't children on the other three sides, but that's a detail.) So my memories weren't entirely fictitious. (At least, he was in the way in the original Apple II version (which is the version I played) the issue was fixed in later versions. okay, it turns out there is an ankh like I remembered in the game, but it's in Skara Brae, not Britain, and it's Shamino who's in the way, not Iolo. Did I just somehow manufacture that whole false memory out of whole cloth and then convince myself it was true, and have I been vividly remembering for years a supposed event from the game that never actually took place? Weird. What the hell? Why do I have such distinct memories of the ankh business I described above when in fact no such thing was apparently in the game? For a moment I wanted to think maybe there was a change in a later version when the problem was recognized, but I can find no evidence that this is the case. There is no ankh in Britain you can talk to you find out the Mantra of Compassion from a jester. Or so I distinctly remembered, except that now that I look at some maps and guides to Ultima IV to double-check my memories I find that in fact nothing that I wrote above is actually true (aside from perhaps the first paragraph). So I ended up killing Iolo, talking to the ankh, and reloading. The only way to talk to the ankh is to slaughter Iolo or, worse, one of the children on the other sides of the ankh. Only Iolo's a bard, so if you're playing a bard. So the idea is that you're supposed to talk to the ankh after you recruit him. One of those people, however, is Iolo, who joins your party. But the ankh is surrounded by people on all four sides. Why? Because to find out the mantra of compassion, you have to talk to an ankh in Britain. Which happens to be the one class that makes it impossible to win the game without either consulting a walkthrough or committing a highly unvirtuous act and making up for it later.
I did try to answer honestly when I played this as a kid, and I ended up going with Compassion and playing a bard.