Ultima™ 9: Ascension

There's no denying this is a bad game. It's so bad its good. Ultima 9 was an extraordinarily ambitious attempt at a true open world experience in full 3d years before Morrowind came along and showed the world how to do it right. Yes its the death of Ultima and the original crashed so much the risk of not saving every ten seconds began to add a new terror to gameplay. It is, however a rewarding game to play through, it has its quirks and twists and can at times be quite beautiful.

Those of you who have never played an Ultima, and the earlier games are a little too dated for you to play, have a go at this one. Despite what everyone says, it contained a lot that made Ultima games Ultima games. It has a good story and characters (compared to other RPGs, if not other Ultimas), great music, and the gameplay is also fairly good (especially if you prefer your games to be story oriented rather than action oriented). If you enjoy the game, you might then find yourself more able to play the earlier games as well (I'd start on 7 after this one), having some background knowledge of the world, story and characters. Not that the older games don't hold up well, but some gamers aren't used to games being about the story, not the graphics.

"What's a Paladin?"

do not believe some haters here, Ultrima 9 is an excellent game. Awesome graphics for that time and a really lovely and well designed world, full of secrets and wonderful spots. The story is quite good actually, and I like that its always clear, what to do next. Yes it had some Bugs at release, but they had all been fixed with the latest updates. The machines of that time were nearly not able to display the grafics with a smooth framefrate, but nowadays you can enjoy the full detail level and play U9 how it should have been in that time.

I agree with what some other people are saying on here. If you ignore the fact that this is supposed to be an ultima game, it's actually pretty good. i can see why fans would be so disappointed because it is such a departure for the series. I personally like the game though. If you can forget that it is an Ultima game and your a fan of games such as Gothic, I think you will like it. I love GOG for bringing me games like this. Keep up the great work!!!