Ultima™ 9: Ascension

Ultima IX is the end of an amazing saga where the player portraits the Avatar, the champion of Virtues. I've loved the plot and the idea of playing Ultima in a 3D world, which still looks beautiful by today's standards, but the execution was poorly managed and they ended up releasing a product full of bugs and shallow quests. I'd say that Ultima IX is more of an Action/Adventure game than a CRPG one. Character progression is almost 100% linear, tightly tied to the progress of the main plot. Most advancements in combat are useless, and you will only need 3 or 4 spells throughout the entire game. This isn't to say to Ultima IX is a bad game. It's just that, for every great idea, there's a usually horrible mechanic implementation to spoil the fun. Do you like exploring dungeons? Great, there're plenty of them in this game; but be prepared to go through some pretty annoying ones (Hythloth is the worst, in my opinion). The soundtrack is usually great, especially after cleansing a shrine (which is what you'll be doing most of the time, btw). The city feels peaceful and people change their behaviour towards your hero, although most monsters will keep respawning, so "peace" isn't exactly the word here. Some quests are almost useless, so any side quest is only worth doing for the sake of completeness. One particular lengthy quest that involves finding rough gems scattered all over Britannia only rewards the player with 100 gold pieces, which can be the price of a potion in a merchant! That's the level of laziness that one can find playing Ultima IX. But, even with all the issues, I still had a great time exploring the game's world, especially due to some cool places such as icy mountains, forests, caves etc. Several places seemed carefully designed. I remember the path from Yew to Wrong: it felt like a proper adventure all the way through. Added with the nice weather effects and day/night cycle, it can really become an immersive experience. Fare-thee-well, Avatar!

First of all, this Game has some major flaws (for people who loved the entire Ultima Series). So, why do I give 4 stars? Easy: The mechanics of the game are done really nice and for a game at this age, you are quite free to explore the world and leave the path hints guide you. If you look at the game as a completely independent game, you will have a lot of fun with it and the story. At this price, everyone should have a try on his own on this game if he likes it or not. It you are into Roleplaying Games with a lot of freedom in character development, this is absolutely the game for you.

I’ve a different opinion than those die hard fans of this game, from the time it was produced, this game is a breakthru seriously. Look at Diablo III now, I think Ultima 9 is better. If we’re asked is there any comment, I’d like to see wood chopping, house decoration, fishing etc working in it, I would like to live in that world, it’s small but compact, and content enough to avoid you getting bored. Now Skyrim and other 3D rpg games now are bored and dried to dead if you asked me. I’m actually a fans of Ultima too, I bought the Ultima collection and I played all of the sequel! From a game developer POV I’ll say the hardest point to make a game interesting is to make it live, Lord British and his team did that, and I can felt it, just he’s too ambitious. I played UO and SotA later, I can hardly find the same feeling again from Ultima 9. It’s 2019 and I still pick up and play the game again, regardless the bugs, it’s fun and I loved most of it, it’s an artwork!

As someone just posted on this forum : Ultima IX is very much the exemple of a game judged by what it isn't instead of what it is. I am a veteran player from the early Ultima games (started with 3rd one in early 80s). At the time of this game release I did not have the PC to make it run it was also plagued by bugs. But I could play it later when all was fixed like this release and god, what an adventure : yes this IS a great RPG game, with nice lore, great graphics (for the time) and still decent. I had memorable moments in this games (some for being used to the Avatar lore, most due the the game itself). So do NOT listen to the haters and get the chance to play one of the greatest rpg of all time and also under rated one.

The game was released during a period when video game transitioning from 2.5D sprites to fully functional 3D graphics. From technical standpoint, you got all the classics clunky and tank control. Beside it's easy to miss important stuff and objects in-game. Personally i never comfortable with KB+M, so the mouse only movement works in my favour (hold the right mouse button and slide your mouse to move your avatar). Though you can still use arrows to move your avatar. The GOG version also comes with nGlide pre-installed. You can choose your desirable resolution from nGlide launcher. Although the game does have low polygon count, the higher resolution ensures compatibility with modern desktop monitor. If you able to look past that the game is actually pretty charming and enjoyable. It have pretty decent writings and most of the dialogues are fully voiced. Get it during sales and try it with an open mind.