Ultima™ 8 Gold Edition

U8 was pretty crap as the mechanics revolved around platform jumping MUCH more than anything else. Sure the gfx were a BIT better, but not that much, the storyline was ultra crap, and it ended up being the indication that Origins was being sucked down into the EBIL maw of teh modern Electronic "Arts" who used to be a decent publisher way back in the day but obviously no longer since their current pre-occupation is to buy successful studios then run them right into the ground while, apparently, expecting people to buy their trite and repetitive "sports" franchise titles forevar!

I would suggest to anyone to cut off the core Ultima series after the brilliant "Serpent Isle", because "Ultima 8" is the perfect example of a big-name corporation coming in a destroying something it had no hand in creating. This game is some sort of horrendous blend of Ultima 7, point and click adventures, and a platformer. The controls are atrocious, the gameplay tedious and pointless. It's only redeeming grace is that it isn't "Ultima 9", but that's just saying it isn't one of the worst games ever made. I have no problem respecting and enjoying flawed games (as most are) but this is not one of those games. Avoid.

This game could of been great but it got rushed out several months early with lots of plot and mechanic slashed and taken out. The controls are bad, subplots and important conversations are incomplete avoid this game.

This is a huge step away from the traditional Ultima series of games, which made no sense anyways. The only merit you can give this game is that it was ahead of its time in trying a top down 3/4 perspective for an adventure/rpg game. Horrible controls and if anyone remembers trying to actually get this game to run at the time, that was a feat in itself. Hell that may even warrant an achievement nowadays. Maybe for whatever the price is it may be worth a try, but the Ultima series has never made much sense. This game is like the Final Fantasy series.....it just shares the name.

I often heard a lot of hate for this game growing up and didn't quite understand it. Sure it wasn't as good as its predecessor, but I thought it was still a pretty good game for the time. Turns out I'd only ever played the Gold Edition here. The original (not available as far as I can tell) had a whole bunch of content cut in order to get pushed out for deadlines. Ulitma 8 Gold had basically all that content restored, although the expansions that were planned never got made due to the critical failure of the original release. You can basically blame EA for that. That said, the game is still ok, kind of fun to play, and has some pretty memorable music. The worst part about it is the combat system which seemingly requires an invincibility potion or rockskin spell for you to kill anything stronger than a changeling--which is the second weakest enemy in the game.