NES Obscurity Quicky!
permalinkSince no one reads these anyway and I'm feeling lazy...that means it's time to gripe about weird bits of the Character Creation process in the NES port of Ultima: Exodus!
Don't CREATE a scene!
The character creations screen starts promisingly enough, with a parade of all eleven character classes doing their two-frame dance!
Never let it be said that Ultima: Exodus gives you a stingy choice of classes to pick from, or a sausage-fest of seemingly-all-male characters (except the Ambiguously Female Healer) like some NES RPGs I could mention (hint: I'm talking about Final Fantasy).
Of course, only four or five of the character classes are useful for anything other than "providing you with a really cool and different character icon," and "sucking" (mostly the latter).
I don't want to know how fuzzy your wizard is.
The other really confusing thing about the NES's Ultima: Exodus character creation system is your choice of species*
*: Oddly, your species doesn't matter immediately. Instead it just creates your maximum stat limits for later in the game when you start "buying up" your stats in the magical salad land of Ambrosia.
Before we look, how about we guess what to expect, based on other RPGs: you can bet your +5 Charm Shield there's going to be Human, Elf, and Dwarf. Most games will thrown in "Gnome", like some sort of off-brand dwarf who serves no purpose of its own...and sometimes you get "halfling", in case "gnome" wasn't impotent enough for you.
But this game? Human, Elf, and Dwarf are joined by...
BOBIT and FUZZY
The "Bobit" is the Wisdom-centric character. If we're feeling charitable, we can say, "gee, they probably meant 'HOBBIT', but were worried about the Tolkien Estate's lawyers tearing them a new HOBBIT-hole."
The "Fuzzy" is the species that can achieve the highest Intelligence score, and honestly, I'm not sure WHAT uh, pipeweed they were smoking when they decided to call that species "Fuzzy." You can only imagine how difficult it would be, as you make your party's introductions over drinks at the Prancing Pony or Fancy-Steppin' Barded Warhorse With Full Travel Pack (and ye Optional Lance Mountings) or whatever quaint tavern that you've chosen to rest and tend to your wounds:
"Hail and well-met, my good barkeep! Allow me to introduce my comrades-in-arms, the brave men and women who venture forth with me to free our kingdom from this blight that afflicts it like a poxy pox of poxiness (and junk):""First, meet AXEY, the dwarven fighter, known throughout the realm for the might of his armor-splitting battleaxe!""Next, barely visible behind his Cloak of Conceilment, is the mysterious elven thief known only as STABO. Many a villain has felt the cold steel of his blade in their back, and he hath rendered useless the locks and traps laid by our enemies!""That noblewoman you see, curing that orphan's leprosy, is none other than HEALY the bobit cleric. She suffered banishment from her religious order because of her great need to succor the wounds of the world, and not secret herself away in a cloister while the beasts pillage outside.""And me? Why, I am master of the dark arts and the most intelligent man in this or any other plane of existence; for I am called BLAST, and I am a fuzzy wizard...""Hey...""Stop laughing at me!""Dude, I can TOTALLY blow this entire inn up! I can! Stop laughing at me! I am a Wizard, and my species is FUZZY, so its entirely accurate to say I'm a FUZZY WIZARD...""Gods dammit, guys...uhhhh, the innkeeper said they didn't have any rooms so we have to leave. Yes, again. And yeah, Axey, that's really what he said. No, I'm sure he was laughing about something else."
Sad, really.
Well, now that you've read all that crap (or not), here's some GOOFY CHARACTER NAME/PROFESSION COMBOS to amuse you...you can even try to decode them, like personalized license plates!
Goofy Character Name/Profession Combos
TNDAR the BRBRN
WALKR the RNGR
STNHG the DRUID
GNDLF the WZRD
— carlmarksguy, 2012-09-28
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Yeah, despite his party having an awesome set of names ("AXEY, STABO, HEALY and BLAST" totally sounds like something from Roald Dahl or Harry Potter), they need a better public relations character. If HEALY wasn't always so busy walking around in circles to regen her MP and heal everyone, she'd probably be a better choice for group mouthpiece.