Ultima™ 8 Gold Edition

SUMMARY: A solid game as a whole, but it does not live up to the grand expectations that come from continuing where Ultima VII left off. Expect a dark and great atmosphere with some interesting story telling, amazing (for its time) animations, and more platforming and hack'n'slash combat than past Ultima games. The GOG edition works perfectly with SCUMMVM so that you can benefit from the enhancements worked on from the Pentagram project. PROS + Beautiful world with smooth pixel animations (it was gold standard for 1994) + Enjoyable soundtrack + Challenging. Combat is not strategic but the enemies are not approachable without leveling up a bit. Also expect lots of hard-to-find items that are needed to progress the story. + In-depth lore. While the game was far from complete compared to the original vision, there is plenty about this world to learn and love. Expect to read lots of in-game books to give you an idea of what the history was or where to go. NEUTRAL = Solo; No Party system. I didn't mind this so much considering the direction the story took the game, but I did miss the banter between my in-game friends and the strategy around how to position each one to assist the other. = Complicated spell system. I am torn on this one. On one hand, I expect spell casting to be a bit more involved and requires a lot of cross-referencing books. On the other hand, the amount you have to keep track of and it requires you to throughly organize your inventory to ensure you don't miss a single element, lest you get locked out of progression because you forgot one bit. SAVE OFTEN. CONS - I wanted to see the Avatar apply the virtues to this world rather than adhering to this world's rules, but The Guardian doesn't leave much choice. - Combat is basic hack-n-slash. Less strategy required. - I wanted more. The world feels deceivingly large due to the dungeons, but the map is minuscule. I wanted to see and explore more and wish they had completed the original game as-intended.

I haven't played GOG version yet but I have played a diskette original version of Ultima 8 lots of times. And again later with a few patches. This game is not perfect. Has a many issues. From annoying combat to cluttered inventory system to the way spells are cast to the endless platforming jumping and deadly water and so on. The story is also a bit choppy at times and some doors lead nowhere, boss fights are non existent and no party system. Okay. I agree. Is not the same as previous Ultima. Yes. It is true. Look at my rating? Perfect 5 stars. Why you ask? Well. Is simple. The atmosphere of the game feels real, feels gloomy, feels like you are in a cursed island trapped between 4 titans controlling the destinies of these humans. All the objects in the world are there many useless but they can be moved around taken used controlled. Beds can be slept in to pass time, books can be read. The music is fantastic. The characters are believable and they even react when you appear to be taking their stuff or moving things around. They close open doors. They study, meditate, sleep. Is a real world. And you enter that world is not about you, the Avatar, is about them. For me this world of Pagan, the four elements and four magic systems, the rituals and spells are all very original and different and I have never seen or played a game in set in a similar world. And that is why I gave it 5 stars.

Ultima VIII is where the franchise started to descend into utter suckiness. Rushed out by electronic arts in about 8 months, less than half completed with most of it's functionality and storyline slashed and burned to meet the deadline. Dialogues with Important NPCs are incomplete, several maps and quests are incomplete, there's also a romance sub-plot that's also incomplete. Every single treasure chest in this game is trapped with a goddamn explosive (literally, I checked. Even if you have a key it explodes).Incredibly ill-advised focus on Isometric platforming (Especially before the game was patched)over instant death-lakes. The Boss Fights are a joke, almost to the point there are no boss fights. All that you do in them (repeat) all you do, is select an item from the inventory and click on them. That's it. The magic system in this one is so needlessly convoluted and requires so much busy work it feels like an open-book test at Hogwarts. Say goodbye to a neat spellbook from Ultima VII, The combat is just button mashing, it requires less involvement than original Diablo, most of your enemies are just Zombies and Ghosts, the leveling system is so easily exploitable it's insane. Want a max STR from the getgo? Just thwomp the NPC Devin right after you start off the game. As a plot critical NPC he never dies, never fights back and never even gets mad. Only thing that bore any resemblence to awesomeness is the ending, where you return to see a charred wasteland and a giant fortress of the Guardian - Britannia has fallen... Only it didn't, because EA were greedy cuntflaps and Ultima IX contradicts every other game in the franchise. In UVIII you also don't have any party members, which was disconnecting because we didn't travel alone since Ultima II. It's also a complete disconnection from the Avatar-ness, the paragon of goodness and righteousness is a cold and calculated murderer who wreaks untold destruction on the world of Pagan to return to Britannia. This game is downright horrible, and yet it's much maligned Sequel Ultima IX Ascension is WAY, WAY FUCKING WORSE than this one.

Just to get this out of the way right now, I actually played this game back in the day and formed my opinion about it long before Spoony ever made his review. Let's just ignore for the fact that this is an Ultima game, because that is mostly immaterial to the fact that this is a poorly made, poorly designed game. The controls are confusing, the art is bland and uninspired, the sound is annoying, the plot is unfinished and boring, and the gameplay just isn't fun. Quests and dungeons are always tedious, when they are not frustratingly impossible, and what little RPG elements there are, are superfluous and little more than window dressing. As well, the end game plays out more like a series of point-and-click adventure puzzles that what you would expect in an action game, which really leaves you wanting at least one decent boss fight; something that, sadly, never comes. Look I am not an Ultima fanboy, not by any means. In fact, I first played Ulitma 8 at around the same time I played most all of the others, via the Ultima Collection released back in 1998. The only other one I played before that was Ulitma 3 for the NES. Believe me when I say that this is my honest opinion about a game that I actually have experience with: this is a terrible game, and not worth your time.

This game stands as an icon of just how long EA has been gutting and ruining otherwise promising gaming franchises, solidifying its position (at least for me) as the "Game Developers Graveyard" where once great gaming companies go to die (Bioware and others are there now, and you can already hear their death-rattle as well). The Bad: The game itself was a sloppy mess; poorly constructed, badly paced, cut down to a fraction of what it should have been, and of course rushed out the door incomplete in typical EA style. The plot itself is a railroad, leaving the player with little to do other than follow the bland story with almost no incentive to actually explore the world at all. There were bugs up the wazoo when I first played this game, and while GOG does provide the latest patches that somewhat fix the most glaring issues, many issues still remain. And of course there was the horrible platforming which was just a terrible idea and still bewilders me to this day as to why the designers ever thought it would be a good idea to add to an RPG. The Good: There are some good things about the game which prevents it from being a 1-star for me. While many complain about the magic system, and I can admit that it was convoluted, I still enjoyed the concept immensely even if it was executed poorly. Each magic system actually felt distinct, each having different systems for casting which really felt magical rather than simply clicking a spell out of a list. Granted this made the magic much more difficult to use than previous games, but I can at least applaud the innovation and creativity behind it, and its pretty much the only thing I still can remember fondly about this game. This alone does not salvage the game however. Overall, Ultima VIII is just not worth the money, not even the pittance being offered by GOG. This is by no means GOG's fault, and I understand them adding this game to their list for the sake of completion, but I would still recommend against buying it. It just isn't worth it.