It wasn’t the first game I played, nor the first I was really drawn in by but Ultima IV on the Master System just seemed like a miracle. There could be an entire world with a rich history, populated by diverse characters where I got to step into the role of the protagonist of a story like in a fantasy novel only I had the freedom to make my own choices about how to respond to the story, the gameplay rewarded careful thinking over twitchy reflexes and the game world was so big it expanded into real world artefacts. I had no idea of the potential of the medium until I encountered that game but it all unfolded before me once I had.
It wasn’t the first game I played, nor the first I was really drawn in by but Ultima IV on the Master System just seemed like a miracle. There could be an entire world with a rich history, populated by diverse characters where I got to step into the role of the protagonist of a story like in a fantasy novel only I had the freedom to make my own choices about how to respond to the story, the gameplay rewarded careful thinking over twitchy reflexes and the game world was so big it expanded into real world artefacts. I had no idea of the potential of the medium until I encountered that game but it all unfolded before me once I had.