Of all the big holiday game releases this year, four have become standouts to me. I prepurchased Dragon Age: Origins in early 2009, back when I thought the game was going to be released in early 2009. I don’t regret that purchase, because the game looks amazing. Mikeyface‘s hype machine has got me sold on Borderlands. I’ve already prepurchased the game on Steam, and plan to get playing on the 26th when it’s released. Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 both look amazing, but I’ll have to wait to pick up copies of those, as I’ve got far too much gaming on my plate for the time being. In anticipation of the Borderlands release on the 26th, I’m struggling to finish playing Final Fantasy XII, which has turned out to be a very long and very time-consuming game. But it’s a fun game, and I can’t help but compare it to another RPG from my youth: Ultima V.

Back in my days on the Commodore 64, I played through many Ultima games. I first got Ultima III and was amazed at its workings. Ultima IV was even better. But I never finished either of those games. I later went back and got the first two Ultima titles as well. Yet somehow, the one that really struck a chord with me was Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny.

Ultima V was far more than a series of dungeon dives and fetch quests. To my fifteen-year-old mind, Britannia was a coherent world full of realistic people and places, and a storyline that has stayed with me to this day. Ultima IV had been all about understanding the eight virtues: Honor, Valor, Compassion, Honesty, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, and Spirituality. In Ultima V you learn that Lord British has been lost on an expedition to the underworld and that his throne has been usurped by the evil Lord Blackthorne. Blackthorne enforces tyrranical parodies of the eight virtues, and you later learn that he is in fact merely a puppet controlled by the three Shadowlords who’ve imprisoned Lord British in the Underworld. So you’ve got to travel the world, slowly gaining companions, learning the magic words that open the eight dungeons, each of which you’ll need to visit for different reasons, then follow the path of Lord British’s expedition to find where in the underworld he fell and thus retrieve his amulet. Through similarly convoluted quests, you’ll need to locate his sceptre and crown in different places, and learn the correct song to play on his harpsicord to open a secret panel and retrieve a certain sandalwood box from his personal chambers. The complexity and coherence of the game is astounding when you realize that it was made in the mid-eighties.

As I play through Final Fantasy XII, visiting and re-visiting towns until they become familiar, I begin to sense something that I haven’t since playing Ultima V two decades ago. Rabanastre feels like home in the same way that Britain did in Ultima V. Visiting the Sandsea tavern is like staying at the Wayfarer’s Inn. I like the way that certain items just aren’t available at certain shops. In order to buy everything you want, you might have to visit two or three very far-flung towns. The teleport crystals in Final Fantasy XII provide quick transport similar to Ultima’s Moongates. And while in Ultima V you could travel via ship, horse, hot air balloon, magic carpet, or grappling hook, Final Fantasy XII allows you a private airship.

Final Fantasy XII uses much the same magic system as its predecessors: base spell names like cure, fire, and haste with different suffixes (-ara, -aga, -aja) indicating the spell’s power and area of effect. Ultima V had a far more complex magic system: you had to learn which magic words to use and then combine them in different ways. And then, they wouldn’t work unless you’d puchased or gathered the correct magical reagents. Two of these: Mandrake Root and Nightshade, could not be purchased – you had to travel to a certain spot and dig them up.

Each of these games also has many optional side missions. Ultima V allowed you to travel to find the plans for the legendary HMS cape, which would rig your ship to travel like the wind. It let you find magical glass swords which would kill any creature with a single hit, but then shatter. You could join the underground resistance, or infiltrate “The Suppression” and sneak into Blackthorne’s castle. There was even a companion who’d join your party and then betray you. No – Yoshimo wasn’t the first betrayer in a video game.

Final Fantasy XII has an elaborate series of hunts in which you’re commissioned to locate and kill creatures. Similarly to Shadow of the Colossus, sometimes finding the creatures is more difficult than killing them. You’re then rewarded not only by the one who hired you, but also by the guild itself. Similarly, you can find and defeat “espers”, whom you are then able to summon to help you in combat.

Both games have enormous worlds that you could spend many hours exploring. There are entire dungeons and large areas in the games that I’ll never even visit. If I now had the time that I used to when I was 15, it’s possible that I might spend as much time with Final Fantasy XII as I did with Ultima V. But my life is very different now, and so I’m rushing to complete Final Fantasy XII before Borderlands comes out on October 26th.