Ultima™ 8 Gold Edition

To call this a RPG or an action game would be wrong; it is a puzzle game, and super Avatar Brothers is very apt.... the solution of the game exists by jumping, dodging and running away. Zombies will kill you at the beginning, and they will kill you at the end. Interrupting the Queen's lunch, repose, or just looking at her wrong will kill you. Falling in the water will kill you. Attacking the domestic animals of any form will kill you. Axe wielding skeletons will corner you and triple hit you to death like an old-school arcade game. You summon a demon, the enemy you were trying to kill wanders off screen, it wonders why the hell you summoned it, then it kills you. All ghosts will kill you and are essentially unkillable. The little green lizards are fair game, as are the tiny spiders, but you can't hit them with your weapon. Mimicks can be killed and efficiently, so kill them with absolute impunity. This game would have been more efficient as a fantasy novel and actually inspired MANY short stories of my own since my childhood. I loved it when it came out, I read and reread the clue book and swag that came with the box. I spent many frustrating hours casting various spells, and making your own True silver Stratos idol is a memorable moment. BUT.... on the coat-tails of the highly successful and one might say legendary Ultima 7 part 2, it just doesn't hit home. Dialogue issues, story issues, that as a kid I let pass but as an adult I'm like WTF. You literally saved Morgrim in Ultima 7 part 2, who had fled Pagan, and yet.... returns to Pagan, is elderly, and can't remember you. Arcadion, your pet demon from the black sword, has no idea who you are. The theme of the game is isolation, nobody knows or cares who the Avatar is....and yet they put story choices in there that make no sense and might have been hastily written to hit a deadline. It's great in its concept, yet is a gasping sucking wound of a failure compared to Ultima 7 part 2.

This was the first Ultima I ever played and the only one I've completed, as such I have a fondness for Ultima 8. It shoves the Avatar into a situation where he can't rely on anyone; he is stranded on an oppressive, alien world and must get to know the people and their customs in order to get home to Britannia. What I think that this game does really well is atmopshere: it's dark and gritty, with death and fear seemingly everywhere, it truely gives a sense of fighting against the odds. Hell, one of the first things you see is a man being decapitated for treason. You'd better believe that stayed with me as a kid. Unfortunately there are many areas where the game falls flat. Firstly, it is a massive departure from anything the Ultima series had done before, mostly due to the vastly changed setting. There is no character customisation, no party members, no familiar characters at all and the virtues are nowhere to be found. If you grew up playing every iteration of Ultima then I can see why you'd feel rather betrayed by Ultima 8. Then there's its flaws as a game in its own right: The biggest is that the majority of the game is spent in grey dungeon after grey dungeon fighting (or more accurately, running past) zombies and ghosts. This is alright at first but eventually becomes very tiresome. The combat is very weak; there is only one attack and it takes a dozen or so hits to kill anything. Usually you'll find yourself avoiding combat unless absolutely necessary. Character stats are very shallow with no noticable difference when improving strength or intelligence. There are other things that I could nitpick but these are the main problems. Ultimately, Ultima 8 succeeds in creating a rich world with interesting lore and people but fails to create a compelling gameplay experience. Deep within it lies a nugget of brilliance but it feels rushed and it was obviously kicked out the door before it was truely ready. Whether you should buy it or not really depends on whether you have the patience to run through hours of samey grey dungeons to get to the enjoyable bits.

I just loved this game atmosphere... The music, sound, everything when I first played it ages ago... Back then I did not have internet at home to assist solving the puzzles and it was hard to figure it out by myself but worth it! I used to love the magic system, the interaction with gods, the way you would be punished by them if you dont behave... Its definitively a golden classic!

Electronic Arts is quite talented at ruining good franchises and studios. This is the shining example. The game was created in under 8 months and it really fucking shows, quests, maps, conversations, romance subplot among many others are incomplete. Easily exploitable leveling system, retarded combat with less actual tactics and difficulty than Diablo 3. The technical issues were back in the day piling up on one another. Patching that made the instant-deathlakes platforming needless busywork( and they are a core focus of the game) Needlessly complicated and convoluted magic system with so much busy work it hurts. The promising setup is ruined by pilling up technical issues, bossfights reduced to clicking them ONCE with an item from the inventory, 90% of your enemies are zombies and ghost. Same percentage exemplifies the amount of dark gray monochrome caves you will be dealing with. Not to mention playing this game essentially pointless since it's ending is retconned right at the 90 seconds mark into Ultima IX, the most insultingly bad game I ever played in my fucking life. With this game the technical issues could be fixed, Ultima IX had a really big problem because it's case was the complete betrayal of a fucking storyline...But I think everyone if a sliver of taste knows that. Anyone who tells you this game is actually worth a wet fart (Especially given the masterpiece that was it's predecessor) is outright fucking lying to you or has the worst taste imaginable...Given the fact theese are probably the same people who call Modern Warfare revolutionary and tune in every year into the Madden franchise... Don't buy. Don't play. Don't buy it's follow-up, don't play it's follow-up. FUCK YOU EA YOU KILLED ULTIMA FUCK YOU

When I first got to play the game i had some fun with it. I won't lie, I actually liked that it played faster then previous games. But, soon after that holes and bugs and all other crap started creeping in the game. Jumping had me raging worse then Rick Dangerous and quest lines that i got invested in and then realized that they just cuted them off without even a stupid rushed end almost reduced me to tears. All in all, Ultima games always had their problems but this one killed the series for me. After this i barely touched Ultima XI before abandoning it. EA, why are you ruining everything that is good?