Ultima™ 9: Ascension

Now as quite a young gamer (im only 21) everyone will probably moan that i dont know what im talking about ...but not to blow my own trumpet..i actually do.... ive played all the ultimas, all the forgotten realms games, all the old and new role playing games and actually found this one to be very enjoyable! when it first came out i loved playing it with my dad and am so glad that its on gog! yes ok, it had some draw-backs but if you forget that its an ultima game and just see it ass a stand alone game its really fun and very enjoyable....i think people were most annoyed back when it was 1st released due to the bugs that came with it...and thank god they have been fixed. i think that people should give this game a second chance because i am.

There are two ways to look at Ascension: as a game unto itself, and as part of the legendary Ultima RPG franchise. In terms of the former, the game is terrible. In terms of the latter, it's the worst game I've ever experienced. Just as a game, Ascension fails on so many levels. When it was first released, it was unplayable on most machines. The release was so bad that EA issued a repair CD with an apology to those who had purchased the game. Even with the patch, the game remained buggy and crash-prone. It was a resource hog that bogged down even the fastest systems of the day. It is entirely too easy to break the game in ways that shouldn't be possible. Every aspect of the technical design was incompetent. But you could live with technical difficulties if the game itself was worthwhile, right? Too bad, because that's not true, either. The plot is about as simplistic and linear as can be. The writing is bad, the voice acting even worse. Combat is positively putrid. There isn't a single thing about the game that is unique or innovative. Not a plot twist in sight. This isn't an RPG, it's an unimaginative adventure game. Where the game becomes an outrage is as an Ultima sequel. Ascension pretty much destroys all of the canon of the universe and makes a mockery of everything Ultima fans had come to love. Character customization that mattered? No. Open-world exploration? No. Ability to manipulate almost anything you can touch? No. Complex moral dilemmas? No. Significant choices that impact the outcome of the game? No. Interesting villains/NPCs with which to interact? No. What you will get is a game that seems to not actually know or understand anything about what happened in Ultimas IV-VIII. Any sort of continuity that was intended with the previous games is blown to smithereens by an amnesiac Avatar and the ridiculous retconning of major events. Never has such a lauded franchise so quickly been laid low by such a horrific sequel. I include MoO3 in that category.

One thing I noted was that without exception the one star raters have not played the GOG version of this game. I have played the 1999 release version an uncompletable mess not deserving of one star, the final patched version that was completable but required a walkthrough to prevent game stopping plot bugs and finally the GOG version which I just completed and can definitely opine that in almost all respects is a Good Old Game. If you like an action/rpg game with an open, seamless, relatively large, varied and pretty 3D world, fully voiced characters, a decent storyline, a goody two shoes avatar, with not one but two love interests, easy and moderate puzzles galore, large and diverse dungeons, fairly decent combat mechanics, and good loots, then this may be the game for you. If you are hung up on retcon and whats a paladin and bugs that no longer exist, then just like the avatar I can only feel sorry for you. Thank you GOG for making this game available.

First, let's get it out of the way ... the game is a real let-down in terms of the series continuity. It's an unpolished mess, the control scheme is merely okay, and there are many plot questions that will be left unanswered. Other than those points, however, it's not such a bad game after all. Right away, you are given a book with all of the keyboard and mouse help instructions, which you can slot anywhere on the tool belt for when you need to refer back (F1 is a good spot). The various special books (Journal and Spellbook) are also easy enough to navigate for whatever you may want to read about. There is a good sense of exploration in the game--the same expansive world from the old games is still here, although changed somewhat. The locations here are pretty sparse, but in hindsight are supposed to be that way. After all, you think cities and towns will still be occupied when everything's going to hell? This game at least does a good job of reflecting that sense of chaotic destruction with the Guardian's grip on the once peaceful Britannia. A final good note on this game is the artwork present all over. Since computers today can handle the highest graphics level, each of the paintings and murals in this game really pop out. Many of them are worth just staring at for a few minutes I do applaud GOG for using version 1.19f, which is a necessary after-market developer patch. My recommendation for players is to install the "Ultima 9 Dialogue/Monster/Economy Patches" found on the Ultima Reconstruction website, which not only increases monster levels and balances the economy, but also adds in many additional story elements to make the game fit much better into the Ultima universe. So, overall, this is certainly not the best Ultima by far, but through tweaks with the aforementioned upgrade patch, fans might want to give this one a second chance.

I grew up and have loved ultima my whole life.