Ultima II

The gameplay is very similar to the previous game in the series, Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness. The scope of the game is bigger, in that there are several more places to explore, even though some of them (like most of the Solar System planets and the dungeons and towers) are not required to complete the game.

In the game, the player has to travel to several different time periods of Earth, using time doors. The periods are the Time of Legends (a mythological period), Pangea (about 300 to 250 million years ago), B.C. (1423, "before the dawn of civilization"), A.D. (1990), and the Aftermath (after 2112). The player also has to travel to space, where all the planets in the Solar System can be visited.

From the game's story, the player learns that the lover of the dark wizard Mondain, the enchantress Minax, is threatening Earth through disturbances in the space-time continuum. The player must guide a hero through time and the Solar System to defeat her evil plot.

The young Minax survived her mentor's and lover's death at the hands of the Stranger (in Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness) and went into hiding. Several years later, Minax got older and very powerful, more so than Mondain once was. Minax wanted to avenge the death of her lover, so she used the time doors created by Mondain's defeat to travel to the Time of Legends, a place located at the origin of times. From there, she sent her evil minions to all the different time eras; she also used her dark powers to disturb the fabric of time and influence men, who ultimately destroyed each other in the far future, nearly wiping out humanity.

Ultima II was Garriott's first program that he wrote completely in assembly language instead of interpreted BASIC. Playing speed and reaction time were vastly improved over the original release of Ultima I. Since Garriott was attending the University of Texas at the time it took him almost two years to create Ultima II, including learning assembly in one month from Tom Luhrs, the author of the popular Apple II arcade game Apple-Oids.

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, as were the time doors themselves. California Pacific Computer, which published Garriott's first two games, had financial difficulties and did not pay full royalties; when other publishers approached him Garriott insisted on including the map. Sierra On-Line agreed and provided Garriott, who had left the university, with technical assistance as he developed his first major assembly language project.

Softline in 1983 stated that Ultima II "continues the interplanetary saga with a creative programming flair far beyond the scope of most fantasy or adventure games". The magazine concluded that "Lord British has another, greater hit on his hands ... the ultimate in real-time D&D type fantasy games for the micro". Computer Gaming World in 1983 gave Ultima II a positive review, noting many improvements over its predecessor, particularly in the amount of detail.

The magazine praised the large size of the game world, even though little of it is necessary to complete the game, suggesting that additional scenarios would be added leading up to an "Ultimate" quest. In 1991 and 1993 the magazine's Scorpia called it "a good sequel to the original game". K-Power gave the game 7 points out of 10. The magazine described it as "an animated graphic adventure game" and stated that Ultima II "is more sophisticated and has a quicker pace" than its predecessor, with a "fascinating" world.