Ultima™ 9: Ascension

Yes, U9 is flawed and I can see why fans of the series weren't particularly happy with it when it came out. I came to U9 having only played U8 and the Underworld games before and I just love the game. I may be nostalgically biased, but the game even today gives me a feeling of wonder and adventure when exploring the fairytale-like environements like no other game and it's sillyness is really charming to me. There are fan patches and mods to solve many of the issues the game has in it's official release and you absolutely need the Beautiful Britannia mod. With all that installed you'll get a laid back adventure game that focusses on exploration and discovery in a bright and colorful, open fantasy world. I'd give it five Stars, as it's a game I keep coming back to again and again ever since I played the demo version, but I had to remove one because you need third party patches to experience the game in it's best version.

I played most but not all of the Ultima games. I liked them all for the most part but they were not beloved by me. As much as I liked Ultima 4, there was no way I was interested in a replay. Ultima 9 was a let down. For one, it did not run on my machine at the time and I didn't play the game for maybe 3 or 4 years later. 2. In spite of the name, I never at once felt like I was playing an Ultima game. However, the game I did play I enjoyed more than any other Ultima. It was just a funner play experience for me. Maybe at heart I like simply mechanics and simple story and simple combat. Maybe I do like vanilla more that rooty tooty. No matter, what ever. I think you'll find, that if you can ignore the games heritage and just play the game you got, you might like the game. It sure worked for me.

I bought this game way back when it first came out. Before all the patches. I absolutely loved this game. The colors, the story, the action, the music. This game felt magical. The game looked fantastic especially for its time. The colors and graphics just really popped. The level of interactivity was something we wouldn't see again until the Oblivion. I think a lot of people judge this as part of a series rather than as a stand alone game. Maybe in comparison to 7 or 8 it isn't the best it could have been. But in my teen years, it the did the job perfectly of transporting me to a different world. I can still remember all the musical cues as monsters crept closer or I neared the castle. To this day, I can't understand what the haters see. I remember that every town had a distinct feel and I loved exploring new places. I wish so much that this game would be remade to fix some of the parts such as draw distance and controller support. I would definitely pay $30 for a HD version.

This game doesn't get much love, and I was probably one of the few who loved it from the beginning. UltimaIX was famous for its many bugs, but probably I was lucky, as it seemed I had the perfect configuration for this game at the time (one of the last 3dfx voodoo cards and a shiny new soundblaster with ambient effects). Game wise It is not comparable in terms of size to the previous Ultima VII or VI, the map it's smaller, and the cities are just a bunch of buildings. It's not so very realistic in this aspect, nevertheless, for its time, I guess it was already a great accomplishment to have such a world at your hands. That said, the game still begs for some exploration fun. I felt the plot was fitting to the ending of this series, it had a sense of decadence, and I still remember enjoying the graphics and one of the first 3d open worlds, you were basically free to roam wherever you wanted, and without charging screens! When I played Skyrim I definitely had back some of the vibes I got while playing Ultima IX, so that tells you a lot of what kind of game this was.

Ultima 9 has many problems, but I think the biggest one is that is was far too ahead for it's time. If you can appreciate other titles like Elderscrolls Redguard or other 3rd person adventure / rpg titles, I find Ultima 9 to be a perfectly fine but cheesy game