Ultima™ 8 Gold Edition

So we finally have Ultima 8 released so that means Ultima 9 is not far behind, and yet the two Ultimas that most self respecting fans want to see are still not out(Worlds of Ultima Savage Frontier and Martian Dreams) but this is not the place for that. No this is the place to talk about Ultima 8: Pagan. Personally for me out of the two conterversial and final Ultima's 8 and 9. 8 wasn't as bad, now don't get me wrong here the game is it self is pretty bad but I'm a little more forgiving of Pagan then I am of Ascension is because while Ascension was just bad because by that point it was being handled by people who had no clue what made Ultima well Ultima. Ultima 8 on the other hand was just a victim of being released way to early by EA(yes it was EA fault for that) so like Might and magic 9 alot of the more interesting stuff never got done, like a romantic quest line and a lot more that I can't recall off the top of my head but you can probably find it on various Ultima fansites, and alot of the stuff that is in the game is not very well fleshed out and just really buggy so we have a sloppy combat mechanic, every chest being rigged with c4, unfinished platforming mechanics, broken and generic level design, some massive bugs even after being patched(expect to get stuck, fall through floors and so much more) and so-so story. Oh and since this version is the speech pack enabled version expect to hear the gaurdian tell you ad nausem telling you "Britannia is burning Avatar!" Which is a shame because Ultima 8 again always struck me as a game that really could of been good if it was given time to be properly finished, you could, or at least I could anyway, see that this was going to be so much more but it didn't and what we got was just goes from so-so to bad to frustrating over the course of the adventure. So all in all do I recommend getting this game, it depends if your looking for a solid Ultima to actually play and enjoy give this one a pass and instead get the 4-6 bundle, Ultima 7 complete edition, or Ultima Underworld 1 and 2. If your just looking to get the complete set or just curious then yes by all means get it.

All right, Ultima VIII was more of a bad platformer the day it was launched. After being patched, it became an excellent adventure game. The city of Tenebrae is incredibly vivid, the game feature an excellent exploration component (you can really spend several hours in Tenebrae and haven't seen it all), the graphics are state-of-the-art VGA and the music is simply the best MIDI has to offer. So yeah, it certainly is a bad Ultima, and a mediocre RPG, but a great game nonetheless.

not as bad as everyone says. best in the series? no. A fun enjoyable and dark action rpg. very yes, give it a shot with an open mind an i promise you, you will have a good time.

Included Cluebook is a horrible amateurish scan of a used copy that even includes someone's notes!!! Chronicle is scanned a bit better, but still pretty bad. Manual and ref card are very ugly pdfs. The map is a photo of the cloth map which is held in place with pins - really, with PINS!!! The game is terrific of course, but the goodies are baddies at best.

Since I happened to play this game before playing Ultima VII and VI, I think that most of the hate it attracted was due to how it compares with the other two (well, actually three, since VII is split into two games) masterpieces: first of all, it is a different kind of game, and even when factoring that into the equation, it lacks a lot of depth and polish compared to the other two titles. According to the information leaked afterwards, the blame for its lack of success as launch rests squarely on the shoulders on the developer, as I believe it could have been a smash hit if the devs had more time to refine the content and adjust the difficulty of the game better. Still, I found the game as it was engaging enough to play through it when it was released (and in the spirit of full disclosure, I played it before patches, so the couple of sections of the game which require a lot of platforming were as fun as eating nails). Considering that the patches take care of the most glaring problems in the gameplay, I can recommend it to those who are able to play it without expecting it to be the same kind of game as Ultima VII