Part 23: Closing Thoughts

It was enjoyable playing the Black Gate again. This is the second time I have completed it, the last being before my first child was born around seven years ago.

What I didn't get this time was the wonder, and the sense of exploration. Because I know almost every part of the game world, there were very few surprises. The closest I got to that sense of wonder was in the final dungeon as I made my way towards the Black Gate.

I've been thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of the game, and I wanted to expand on those below.

Themes

For a game made in the early 1990's Black Gate is incredibly complex in terms of the content it covers and the depth of ideas.

The first and most obvious theme was the role of organised religion which was explored through The Fellowship. My interpretation is that the game is critical of some aspects of organised religion - particularly where the masses are taught to accept directives from above without questioning the impact they could have on the world around them.

The class system was also explored in pockets throughout the game. The over-arching plot here was how Lord British and his advisers and the Britannian Tax Council were seen by many working-class citizens as taking advantage. It was hinted that the reality of the situation was blown out of proportion by The Fellowship to create animosity between the people and Lord British, but it was still a theme that was covered and was the driving force behind some of the minor plot points (like the statue being defaced in Serpent's Hold).

Race was really covered in the previous game Ultima VI: The False Prophet, but there were more than a few loose ends to tie up in Black Gate. The human and gargoyle populations had mostly reverted back to old hatreds, expelling most gargoyles from the mainland to the island of Terfin. Vesper was a dark and violent place and there was a real sense that this racial hatred would never be dissolved completely. Is that the message of the game? That racial tension is something we can't really overcome? The game also takes the side of the minority - the gargoyles. It is the humans in the game who show the greatest hatred and ignorance.

Richard Garriott loves his philosophical systems:

• The eight virtues and the three principles they stem from (Truth, Love, and Courage)
• The three Gargish (gargoyle) principles of Control, Passion, and Diligence and their own set of eight virtues.
• The Triad of Inner Strength that The Fellowship promote - which is really about subservience

There's a whole (and much more complex) set of systems to come in The Serpent Isle too. I really like these, and as cookie cutter and simplified as they are when you think about them in the real world, they are something unique that makes Ultima games just a little bit different and interesting. What other game deals with value systems and makes them centre-stage in the game?

The runic language is another structure in the game which gives it a little added depth. I think it is genius how this language is explicitly tied in with magic - each spell is a set of runic words and each word has a 'power' meaning. It ties things together, and it feels right.

Another very minor theme was pollution and the environment. This was explored with the Britannian Mining Council and the pollution around Lock Lake, as well as the deforestation of the Silverleaf forests for the delicacy of its bark, and how that was impacting the Emps.

The final theme I noticed was that of numbers three and eight:

• The eight virtues, with their corresponding towns and shrines.
• The eight anti-virtues with the corresponding dungeons.
• The three human and gargoyle principles, and the Triad of Inner Strength
• The three generators
• The Avatar's three great companions

The less specific theme I think is how many aspects of the game are grouped together.

History

Perhaps my favourite thing about the game is the enormous sense of history. Because it is the seventh game in the main series (not including Ultima Underworld, Savage Empire, and Martian Dreams) there is a huge amount of material behind it. I remember reading the manual when I first obtained the game as a child, and it contained a concise version of the history up to this point. It made everything I came across in this game so much more meaningful.

It gives a real sense of gravitas to everything. Every location in Britannia has historical relevance to the past games - from the shrines, the towns, the dungeons, the people - the entire Forge of Virtue story was about the remnants of Exodus from Ultima III.

I like the setting of this game. A lot of time has passed since the Avatar was in Britannia and everything has sort of fallen apart. The virtues are no longer being upheld with great vigor - people have forgotten, fallen into old habits. This is a world which has just kept going, without any major crisis, but there are cracks emerging on the edges of society. I think it raises an interesting question - in long periods of peace and prosperity, how do we keep the lessons of the past (during not so pleasant times) in the forefront of our minds so that we make the right decisions moving forward? Otherwise history is doomed to repeat itself.

Characters

The Guardian was a fantastic villain. I loved the concept of a villain who is incapable of directly affecting the game world - so he has to use his guile and rely on others to enact his will in Britannia. I even love the idea of this uber-powerful villain who moves between worlds destroying them. I think it fits nicely into the Ultima world because it exposes to Britannia to something fresh and new. Everything about the Age of Darkness games was about stuff happening in Sosaria (Britannia was part of this bigger world before Exodus). The Age of Enlightenment is really all about picking up the pieces after the Age of Darkness. What I like about The Guardian is he brings a foreign and very different style of evil to Britannia.

One of the things I don't like about the game is the number of companions. A party of eight seemed overcrowded, and we never go the chance to get to know most of the party - most of the interesting dialogue came from Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre with a few cameos from Spark. Origin must have agreed because in Serpent Isle the party limit was four (mostly...).

Another thing I didn't like was the corny characterisation of the Fellowship members. In every town most people who were members of The Fellowship had this shit-eating grin on their face and acted like total twats. It was very linear - the people in The Fellowship were irritating beyond belief, and everyone else could see them for what they were. I think this could have been a lot more subtle and dynamic.

One of the things I didn't like about the NPC's in the game was how they related to of space. The game world is pretty small - it takes only a few moments to walk from one end of most towns to the other. Yet there are people in the towns who claim to have lived there all their life but have never managed to meet other people in the same tiny town who have also been there their entire lives. It doesn't make any sense, and I found it took me out of the story and the world.

Mechanics

The level of detail in the game for the time it was made is breathtaking. Even by modern standards, the detail is impressive.

A few notes:

• The automatic combat AI was a double edged sword. It made controlling a party of eight possible, but sometimes the party went and did some seriously stupid stuff which cost them their lives.
• Keys. If it wasn't for Exult I would have spent a LOT of time sifting through my collections of keys at every new locked door I found. Luckily Exult has a feature where if you hit the "k" key it will simultaneously use all the keys you have in your possession. How I dealt with keys before Exult is a mystery.
• The Forge of Virtue was OK in terms of the story, but the power it gives you ruins the game. Having a main character who is more powerful at the start of the game than he or she usually would be at the end (keeping the Black Sword in mind) is bad game design. It takes away that sense of progressing the Avatar and getting stronger as the game goes on.

Trivia

Just for fun:

• My favourite location? Probably Yew and Yew Forest. It's one of the places filled with the most secrets and interesting interactions in the game.
• Favourite character? Probably The Guardian for the reasons I mentioned earlier. I quite like Sullivan the Trickster - we hear about him all over Britannia and finally get to meet him right near the end of the game - and his dialogue did not disappoint.
• Favourite weapon? The Magebane. I didn't even use it this game, but it is the most bad-ass looking weapon in the game by far, and perhaps the rarest (I know of two).
• Least favourite enemy? Definitely liches. Those guys are broken - they just cast Death Bolt as soon as they see you and you wake up in Paws and have to re-load. That's just bad game design.
• Favourite enemy? Stone harpies - because they were one of the only enemies that were an actual challenge after completing Forge of Virtue.

I'm considering doing a similar play-through of Ultima VII Part Two: The Serpent Isle. I need a break first, then we'll see how we go.

Closing Thoughts

Ultima VII: Black Gate is to video games what Shakespeare is to theatre. It is so rich and complex for the era it was made that I genuinely wonder how any group of human beings could have made it.

My closing thoughts would be only how disappointed I am that we didn't get sequels to this game to live up to the potential that this game promised. The Serpent Isle is pretty amazing, but it all went down hill from there.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you got something out of it.