The Atari ST version of Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny was programmed by Binary Vision and first published by Origin Systems in 1989.

As is possible in the Apple II original, you can import a character from Ultima IV if you want to (and have a save available), or you can go through the character creation process and make a new one from scratch. Creating a new character is quicker than was seen in Ultima IV and you always start the game in the same place (Iolo’s hut).

I won’t repeat what I said about Ultima V in my review of the Apple II original, but I’ll focus here on what’s different about this conversion.

Unfortunately the input lag in the ST version is very annoying and the game will skip over some screens during the introduction if you’re not careful. During the game the slowness of the controls is also noticeable, but isn’t quite as bad as seen in the Amiga version. Although the Amiga and ST versions were ported by different developers they appear to share the same code and are almost identical, and therefore they both seem to have issues with inputs.

I played the ST version from a hard drive, but it seemed to be an adapted floppy disk version and did have some delays when loading (which caused the music the stop on occasion, which is disconcerting). Still: it played well enough once I got going. That said: the movement of the party through the overworld is slow, which is disappointing after the excellent Amiga/ST ports of Ultima IV.

Note that there is an annoying bug in the Atari ST version that will wipe out your karma unless you’re careful. If you leave a companion at an inn, the party’s karma will drop to its minimum (thus inflating all shop prices to the maximum), so be aware of this when playing and don’t recruit anyone to your party unless you intend to keep them. There is also another game-destroying bug in the ST version that happens at random, where the game will ask you to insert the floppy disk that is already in the drive, and then crash, requiring a complete reset of the computer. I wouldn’t really recommend playing the Amiga/ST versions of Ultima V. The PC version is the one to play, if you’re only going to choose one.

More: Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny on Wikipedia
GOG: Ultima 4+5+6 on GOG.com

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny Keyboard Commands for Atari ST:

a = Attack
b = Board
c = Cast
e = Enter
f = Fire
g = Get
h = Hole up
i = Ignite
j = Jimmy lock
k = Climb up
l = Look
m = Mix
n = New order
o = Open
p = Push
q = Save
r = Ready
s = Search
t = Talk
u = Use
v = View
x = Exit
y = Yell
z = Stats
Space = Pass turn
F5 = Toggle between music and sound effects
Escape = Exit/leave battle
1 to 6 = Set active player
0 = No active player