Ultima™ 9: Ascension

The night was thick. I don't remember if it was raining or not, but at some point it got pretty misty; I was in a new foreboding area, for which my character was obviously ill-prepared. I battled hell-hound after hell-hound for a while, barely escaping alive. As I returned with good loot, I felt awesome. And the colors, oh my, those colors were great! - - - A game with many flaws, a victim of EA's greed, it retains a lot of charm along its clumsiness.

It seems everyone hated it, I struggled with an old PC and the drawdistance but on a modern PC (I have it installed now) it is a wonderful experience. A well thought out, mature story (not tits and sex but adult issues of an emotional sort) made it a surprise that I keep going back to on completed. The world is vast, the score a treat (I ponied up a fortune to get the collectors edition with soundtrack years back) and even the combat is good fun. Buy it!

No story = no roleplay.

This was the first Ultima game I had fully played. Let's make that clear. I hated Ultima 8 after the beginning, but I couldn't go to the graphics of the previous Ultima games - so Ultima 9 it was. I had a blast, i loved the world, the fiction, the music, the combat, the adventuring - it was great. If it wasn't for the performance running like doo-doo at the time, I'm sure it would've done better. A lot of the reviews here give the game a bad view because they are biased from the previous Ultima's - which is understandable, but unfair for you (if you are new to the Ultima series). I highly recommend it! The graphics on this, compared to today, are horrendous - but still way better than any of the Ultimas before it.

Might be okay, if it wasn't Ultima. As an Ultima sequel? UGH.