Ultima 2: Revenge of the Enchantress

The game contains a number of bizarre quirks when examined in context with similar fantasy games: The game's world map is identical to real-life Earth (although far quicker to traverse); the player must visit such mundane locations as San Antonio, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom; dungeons and towers are completely irrelevant to the plot, and offer no true incentive to explore them; modern-day and futuristic weaponry is used; and completely incongruous pop-culture references and in-jokes abound, such as an NPC cleric named "Sister Sledge" who only says "We are family!"

The game is known to contain numerous design flaws (such as large map areas that contain no reason to visit them) and bugs, and shows general signs of being hurried onto the market before being properly finished and tested.

Ultima II was the first game of the series to be coded completely in assembly language rather than in interpreted BASIC. Playing speed and reaction time were vastly improved over the original release of Ultima I. In fact, when running the games on one and the same computer, Ultima II is the fastest game of the series due to its relative simplicity.

Ultima II was the first game in the series to include a cloth map inside the box, which would become a staple of the franchise. This map, which illustrated how the Time Doors were linked, was inspired by the one seen in the film Time Bandits. Two versions of this map were produced. The first version is of a heavier and thicker material. This map can be found in the large boxed (8"x11") Apple II and Atari 800 versions of the game. Later production runs of the game featured a much smaller box and a lighter weight map.

All CD-ROM based re-releases of the PC Ultima II, including 1998's Ultima Collection, are missing necessary map files for other planets, rendering the game unwinnable. Modern computers also generate a divide by zero error when attempting to run the game. These issues are addressed in a series of official patches, which are available from a variety of Ultima fansites. The game is known to run without errors and at an acceptable speed in a DOSBox environment, provided the missing map files are present.