I played Ultima 8 as a very young kid and I NEVER FORGOT IT. It made a huge impression on the atmosphere of games I like most. I always chose this over golden eye. Its just so fun flawed but FUN
I played this as a teenager, and it was my first Ultima game, so I didn't have any preconceptions about what an Ultima game should be like" I liked it a lot, even though some of the mechanics like the platforming were frustrating.
My college roommate and I played this when it came out and finished it - pre jump nerf and all! It was very jarring going from Serpent Isle to this game, with no companions, etc. Frankly, this game was not bad, it just wasn't really an Ultima game. It didn't FEEL like an Ultima game. It could have been a great spin off series where you visit worlds conquered by the Guardian in order to fix his mess and recruit assistance to help defeat him.
I vaguely remember getting the Ultima VIII collector's edition at the store as a young kid... and then after my mom saw that firery pentagram on the box, made me return it for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago... ergh. Ohhh, I always wished I had kept that collector's enhanced CD package... I did eventually get a cheap version later, 90% certain it was still before the jump patch... Which made things verrrry tricky... But I'll never forget the night a friend came over and we stumbled upon the Slayer's dungeon. Pretty sure there was no escape, just had to head deeper and deeper into its abyss (already overwrote my save file). This was pretty early in the game still, and I was woefully unprepared, dying over and over with impossible jumps and situations (horray save scumming!). But after everyone had gone to sleep, in the dark, I kept fighting on, until finally obtaining that enchanted mace and escaping with my prize. To my younger self, that was an unforgettable little experience; that weapon served me well throughout my stumbling around the world of Pagan. ...Thinking back I believe I got stuck in the pyro section? Ended up buying a guidebook/novel for the game which actually was written as a story depicting what happened. Rather than just giving me the solutions, I re-read and better understood the story, and finally beat the game. (Still like any good Ultima I spent so much time just bumming around, exploring, doing things I shouldn't... like putting as many powder kegs in my backpack before igniting them all, committing a crime and then watch all hell break loose; my body parts spawning each time another keg went off, causing explosions, guards fighting demons, and who knows lol.) Simpler times...
My favourite game from my childhood. Actually.....joint first. Ultima 7: The Black Gate is the greatest group play RPG in human history. This was my fave solo RPG. Honourable mentions: Baldurs Gate 2 (Irenicus is the greatest antagonist ever.) Planescape Torment Eye of The Beholder 2 Dungeon Master Ultima Underworld 1&2 Wizardry 6/7/8 Neverwinter Nights Icewind Dale Daggerfall/Borrowing. 43 now. How time flies.
Having worked on Ultima 8, I can say that it was a perfect example of what happens to a great product (Ultima) created by a small studio (Origin) when that small studio is acquired by a large studio (EA). The mandate became "More running and jumping and climbing" because "traditional RPG's don't have as much mass appeal". It also would've been better if Richard had been closely involved in the game, but I think he felt divorced from it to a degree following the EA buyout (personal conjecture).
Thanks for this perspective! I really liked U8, played it through until getting hopelessly stuck in an area I seem to recall was out on a cliff somewhere. It turned out this was near the end and was an issue fixed in the patch. In the pre-internet days though I never saw the patch until 2/3 years after. Got the patch and finally managed to complete it. Remember that **** door with the three gods too. "I banish you to the world of Pagan, no-one here knows of _thee_, Avatar! da-da-da-da----" This, the System Shocks, Baldur's Gate and Half Life were my favorite 90's games.
Thanks for the retrospective, David (original uploader). I immensely enjoyed the game back in the days. Apart from Link's Awakening for the Gameboy this was (like you) my first true RPG. Of coruse, it's a flawed masterpiece due to EA's ridiculous deadline. But the game's dark and ominous atmosphere is sheer overwhemling and unmatched to this. You have to put so much energy into the game to get to this point, but it's absolutely worth is. Which is something most of the games nowadays are lacking. They take you by the hand and don't trust you to do anything on your own. Back then I even had to program a boot disk to start it on a Win 98 system. A quite challenging endeavor for a eleven year old greenhorn. Neno Vugrinec's meta-tonal score was propably one of the many reasons for Pagan's beautifully eerie atmosphere and the coherently dense gameplay. Most of the earlier Ultima games had great music, too, but only Pagan and Ascension both had a unique musical score based on motifs for different locations, persons and events. I especially love the simplistic but never naive feeling of the background track for Tenebrae. I made some rearrangements of these tunes. You can check them on my channel. Anyway, all the best.
Never played the ancient Ultima's my neighbor did. He was always older than me when we were growing up. So he got to play all the cool stuff. I play regular UO now, custom of course but Ultima is the best. They need to remake all the Ultima games. Just not with the new new ugly style. Microtransactions ordeal.
Never played 8, first ultima game was 7, which I regard as one of the best rpgs ever despite really poor character advancement (a favourite element of mine) folowed by savage empire and underworld (all in one software package that came with my PC ~1995). Ultima 8 looks horrible to me. Character looks too big for doors, animations look horrible. Speech font looks unreadable to me. Now I do not remember 7 looking this bad, but it obviously will have been worse. Perhaps its that they were trying harder with this and pushing technical boundaries but I maintain it looks awful.
When i was a kid i played U8 for a while but didn't get very far. Despite this i always found it very fascinating (still do). As you mentioned, what created most of the problems was most places looking samey: a map showing your character and the main POI would have improved the experience ten times. Another thing is the absence of any record of information such a journal: expecially for my bad english at the time i couldn't understand and remember anything. Finally that inventory should burn in the pits of hell:just make a list of items name coupled with their images. Already with these small things the experience would have been so much better...
ultima 7 was my first, and it was the most enjoyable and immersive game id ever played. This was in the early 90s. Then I tried U8 thinking it would be an improvement in every way. It wasn't.
Great story premise. Poor execution of a game with a limitation aspect. Following with, Ultima Onling been released years later, it's a nail in the coffin for Ultima series
I think the problem with the whole narrative is it's so wildly out of character for the Avatar. In face of anything, he is literally the personification of the virtues. It's just shy of, say, the Buddha going on a demon summoning killing spree. If they did go this way, though, Ultima 9 could have been interesting. Because you wouldn't be the Avatar anymore, at all. Sad U9 is completely irredeemable and killed the series.
You can ABSOLUTELY un-alive Beren! It'll just take you wood, assorted debris, and many, many hours of gameplay to build him a nice stairway to the fountain near his house. Game becomes extra hilarious after he's in The Lurker's domain, you can be a criminal to your heart's content. Do what you will with this info.
Ultima 8, before the patch, was a painful experience. It was called "Super Avatar Brothers" for a reason, not just because of all the mushrooms but also because of the terribly implemented jumping sequences that were EVERYWHERE. It could have been a great game. But it wasn't. It was half-assed Ultima. Ultima VII/Serpent Isle had nicely realised portraits for NPCs...Ultima 8 had...badly pixellated and rendered characters with no portraits. If anything can speak of the influence of Electronic Arts on the Ultima series, Ultima 8 is IT. Ultima VII and especially Serpent Isle, had very deep and intricate plots. And in between THAT was the unparalleled excellence of Ultima Underworld II. Ultima VIII had none of that. The great dialog was missing. Even some of the damned books you could read were just copies of what was in Ultima VII....which made no SENSE as "Pagan" was a prison world that had no attachment to Britannia OR Serpent Isle. The plot was crap. How about the Necromancer plot where you were sent off to find "The birthplace of Moriens," the first Necromancer? Not only did it not make sense...why was he born in the catacombs...but this quest HAD NO ENDING on the release of the game. They just didn't bother to write it into the game until the patch, after an outcry. People literally wandered around those damned catacombs for MONTHS looking for something that WAS NOT THERE. Not until the patch. Only THEN could you find the "birthplace of Moriens" in the catacombs, and all it was was someone's crypt surrounded by sparklies. Oooh. Ahhh. Get bent, Garriott. And yet, I am wistful of what could have been. The cloth map that came with the game shows places that don't exist in the game UNLIKE other Ultimas. Too bad. The promised (and actually finished, but never released) Lost Vale expansion could have added a LOT to the story. I had the original release and the "voice pack" that came later. Not nearly good enough. BUT...even if you slogged through this game, through it's lackluster and threadbare plot and managed to get to the end...the ending was worth it. You earned it, the Avatar is finally going HOME...after being on this almost empty world, YOU wanted to go HOME...and then...well...the sudden and surprising ending happens (with the Avatar's new clothes). It was the cliffhanger that inspired hundreds of theories and hopes until the godawful mess that pretended to be Ultima 9 appeared (after being DERAILED for years by the squirrel of Ultima Online). Ultima 8 was a true Ultima, as frustrating as it was. And it promised so much more. The real crime was the game calling itself "Ultima 9" or rather, "Ultima: Ascension." The ONLY good thing that came out of Ultima 8 was "Crusader: No Remorse"...an excellent shooter based on the same engine. Given all the leaks and history that has come out since Ultima 8 we now know they actually based the prototypes of Ultima 9 on this crap engine, breaking with the tradition of writing a new one each time. That's right, Ultima 9's rotten history can be traced directly back to Ultima 8's engine. A lot of love went into creating Exult so we could continue to enjoy Ultima VII and Ultima VII part Two. I could care less if they finish "Pentagram" so we can suffer through Ultima 8 again. What a waste and a missed opportunity.
at 17:00 and 18:14, according to your descriptions, these are badly designed maybe on purpose, at that time, they did this kind of things by misguiding you to sell their clue books, if someone remakes this, should remove this kind of things, retracing and wasting time are the worst enemies of playing games.
couldnt play ultima 8 30 years ago, its user interfaces were the worst. I hope that someone remake U8 with dungeon siege or something related. should you have a consideration redesigning the inventory system like kyrandia style or or monkey island style or something large at least and never overlapping, the fonts. and remove the idea about clicking books to increase intelligence, also make simple saving and loading game menu, i like this kind of rpg stories. i will pay $100 or name the price.
With a little more fine tuning and a little less jumping it could have been a real classic with not only good role playing depth but also fun combat like Diablo. But to combat felt too unwieldy. Nontheless I played it a lot back in the day but never got around to completing it because I had too much homework from school. And also X-Com/UFO the first game would eat up a lot of my time.
I started with U6, and played 7 and Serpent Isle. I loved them, but just could never get into U8. The story seemed thrown together, the avatar had on that helmet, and the jumping around just really turned me off. Sorry guys, it was just never for me. I never liked the action mechanics.
I never realized that dispel magic portal would get you through that door. When I played (which was some time in the 90's) I eventually managed to climb over the wall to get into the room. Don't ask me how, because I don't remember... I finished the game, but I did not get that door opened.
I am an Ultima fanatic. I have played 3-8 and yes, the best game was playing U7 part 1 and 2, then playing it again when the expansions came out. U8 was OK. Not great, just OK. After playing U9 for 30 mins I nearly barfed. Anyway, the best thing about U8 isometric is that it brought about Crusader No Remorse/No Regret.
Ultima 8 was a fine game. It was my first contact with the Ultima series when I was young. I remember waiting for the gem storelady to go take a walk at night only to steal all her stuff. I don't remember how I got her to leave while I was still in the shop but I did.
Ultima 8 was a great concept and could have a huge hit if not for two things. First, the stupid decision to put platform mechanics into an Ultima game in an attempt to compete with console action RPGs. Second, close to half the game was cut to rush it out the door (same thing that killed Ultima 9) which left quests that just never go anywhere and vast areas that are simply empty and unfinished.
13:10 - Hmm... Dragon's Dogma does AI Companions the best of any game. They learn from you, they get better the more you fight and show them how to fight. My pawn by now can dodge almost any attack in the game and counter attack accurately. There's no NPC I trust more than my pawn to have my back.
To this day I hate Ultima Online with a passion. That thing killed the series. I have played everything Ultima including Savage Empire, Martian Dreams and the Underworlds. I have not yet played Ultima 9.
Most people believe in ghosts and it's actually less people that don't in modern society, but obviously you never hear anything on the T.V. or internet that makes it obvious for everyone. Sceptics are definately not as common. I have proof of the paranormal.
This is the last Ultima game I played before college (yes, I mostly stopped playing games in college, madness I know). So when I restarted like a happy clam with Ultima IX, I felt like i had been stuck in Pagan. I couldn't believe the series was basically scrapped. Turned me off rpgs until Bethesda's Oblivion and FO3
i played these back in the day but right now that top down/isometric view is dizzying. EDIt- OK that was only at the beginning. It seemed better when you were playing 8.
