Ultima™ 9: Ascension

Terrible game, no regard for continuity, not much actual gameplay. Skip it during the sales.

Horribly broken game. Weak story, dull combat. Random crashes and sudden long falls through invisible cracks in the ground... they couldn't even stitch together a solid playing surface. I was incredibly bitter that I never received the replacement install disk (they'd call it a patch in this century) I was promised, despite following customer service's instructions to the letter. In retrospect, that was probably a blessing. I'd like to think a patch addressing technical issues would make this playable, but it was just a bad bad game on every level. RG deserves hugs, handshakes, and one hard kick between the legs for the series.

Remember the days when GOG meant "Good Old Games"? Yeah, me neither. Ultima IX is certainly old enough, but it is definitely NOT good. For those with a keen eye, you can find the start of the downfall of Origin with Ultima VII: The Black Gate, arguably Origin's shining moment, with the inclusion of the very subtle jabs at EA made by the developers. Those who are not as keen can see the problems of Ultima VIII: Pagan. Those who are blind can clearly see the problems with Ultima IX. There are many, many more reviews on GOG that tell the problems of Ultima IX better than I, so I'll just leave you with one of the biggest problems of the game: You resurrect Dupre. You know, the guy who sacrificed his life in Ultima VII: Serpent Isle to become the Serpent of Balance, whose place in the cosmos ensured that the universe would not destroy itself? Yeah, him.

EA killed Ultima! :D

Thanks to EA this put an end to the Ultima series. The game is far away from being finished since EA put an impossible deadline to release the game before it was really finished. To make it playable there had been some patches after release. You can see the unfinished parts in many areas of the game because they didn't had time to hide them properly. Every fan of Ultima got really upset and angry to see the impressive capitol of this world shrink to a hand full of NPCs and some houses. This did also happen to the rest of the original game content. All who said it couldn't get any worse after Ultima 8 had been disabused. I have bought the original game on CD which still works, so I don't need to buy it on gog but I would if it is on discount since $5,99 is too much for an unfinished game.