Ultima VI – The False Prophet

The title of this article is ambiguous. Ultima (Disambiguation).

Ultima VI – The False Prophet

Game No.	445
Voting	7.84 points, 25 votes
Developer	Producers: Richard Gariott (Lord British), Warren Spector, Dallas Snell Programmers: Axel, Alan W. Gardner, Robert Herrick Graphics: Jeff Dee, Amanda Dee Design: Stephen Beeman, David Shapiro (Dr. Cat), Amanda Dee, Richard Garriott (Lord British), Greg Malone, John Miles (Captain Johne), Herman Miller, Todd Porter, Warren Spector
Company	Imagitec Design
Publisher	Origin Systems
Musician	Kenneth W. Arnold
Release	1990
Platform	Amiga, Atari ST, C64, FM Towns, PC (MS-DOS), Super NES
Genre	Adventure, RPG 2D (role play game)
Operation	&
Media
Language
Information	Forerunners: Ultima I – The First Age of Darkness Ultima II – The Revenge of the Enchantress! Ultima III – Exodus Ultima IV – Quest of the Avatar Ultima V – Warriors of Destiny

Description[edit | edit source]

The last and probably most beautiful Ultima on the C64, "The False Prophet". The Avatar, back to Britannia through a call of help, tries to avoid the escalation of an oncoming race war between the gargoyles and the humans. However, there are humans and gargoyles who have some interests in this war and want to disturb the Avatar in his mission.

In comparison to the PC original is the C64 version very significantly pared-down. What is especially missing is the ability to use gems, which makes the mapping very difficult. There are also no horses as these were all eaten by the gargoyles in the C64 version. Two esthetic short-coming are that the C64 users will not experience the portraits of the NPCs and most of the music.

Design[edit | edit source]

The game area has a top view. The roofs from buildings are hidden as soon as you enter the buildings. Player, statistics and the interaction area for text inputs and conversations are always shown.

Animation during the introduction

Hints[edit | edit source]

The game comes with 6 disks and – as usual with Ultima role play games – the player is expected to have a bit of patience to be able to explore the game in its full splendour and diversity.

Reference for often used keys:

T-Talk    (talk with other persons or even monsters)
A-Attack  (Attack, requires being in battle mode.)
B-Battle  (Battle mode on/off)

The inventory and the movement of the figures does only work with two joysticks (simultaneously) and the most functions work only with the keyboard.

animation from the game

Solution[edit | edit source]

A solution from the magazine ASM issue September 1990 can be found on kultboy.com.
In the solutions and cheats category "Kopfnuss" the walkthrough and the maps for the game were printed on six pages.

Cheats[edit | edit source]

Say "I WANT TO CHEAT", see The Cutting Room Floor.

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
7.84 points at 25 votes (rank 143). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	9	4th April 2015 - 9 out of 10 points - 19612 downs
Lemon64	8	4th April 2015 - 7,8 out of 10 points - 40 votes
Ready64	8	4th April 2015 - 8,33 out of 10 points - 3 votes
Kultboy	9	4th April 2015 - 8,85 out of 10 points - 38 votes
The Legacy	9	4th April 2015 - "excellent" - 9 votes
Gamebase64	7	28th October 1998 - "Good"
Power Play	8	Issue June 1991 -78% Issue May 1992 - 78%
ASM	8	Issue May 1991 - 10 out of 12 points - p.102
Amiga Joker	9	Special No.3 1992 - 93% - p.14
Commodore Format	9	Issue June 1991 - 89% - p.72 Issue March 1992 - 3 out of 5 points - p.55
ZZap64	10	Issue May 1991 - 98% - p.54
Play Time	7	Issue October 1991 - 72% - p.68

Reviews[edit | edit source]

Jammet: "Ultima, the sixth part, will always belong to the absolute highlights in the game world for me. This refers to all versions whereby the C64 version is especially well done in relation to the abilities of the computer. You miss the pictures for the characters and dialogues but are in return supplied with the most comprehensive role play game. The worst competitor from the own house, Times of Lore by Origin, has as a forerunner already left quite an impression."

Sledgie: "I really like to play role play games. I also rather like the game Ultima 6, what is unnerving is the often necessary disk change and the waiting time connected to this."

Shmendric: "I have played Ultima VI on the PC and was rather astonished when I heard that it was also converted for the C64. I would not have thought it possible that the game could be converted in such a good quality, hats off! It is remarkable what has been teased out of the breadbox there."