Ultima™ 9: Ascension

To understand why Ultima 9 is so bad you need to understand the drama behind it. First off... the economic climate in the 90's and 00's was very different. Richard Garriott has said himself that he rushed the Ultima 8 project to appease investors. He fell on his own sword concerning this project. I don't think it was entirely EAgames fault. and yet..... and yet it was. When a creative project of this magnitude is on the work-bench getting ironed out, its important to get all the details right. The plot was garbage. The plot of this game was cobbled together not by the team of creative individuals Garriott had at his back, but by the remnants of the writer's room trying their best to put together an IP with an impatient giant of a game company who would rather pump money into the next Madden game then give lip service to a work of art. "is it done yet? is it done yet? I want it on the shelves on Monday... blah blah blah" so corners got cut, plotlines got dropped, things don't make sense, an entire species got betrayed ( gargoyles are 100% wrong and are the Jar Jar Binks of the Ultima series ), and details got overlooked ( like Dupre's soul being fused with the Earth Serpent for eternity and thus incapable of ever coming back in the form of resurrection )…. the creative team that finished the game were not the same people that started it. https://ultima.fandom.com/wiki/Bob_White_Plot for more details on what the plot should have looked like. With that being said, the scene where the Avatar confronts the Guardian is powerful, and the end-game is actually one of the best. Bob White had Brittania being blown up, which is abit like cutting your nose off despite your face, or drinking cyanide to attempt to cure cancer. The whole point is to save Brittania not destroy it utterly. So I think the practical release ending is far superior than the intended ending. But beyond that.... many details were lost in translation when Garriott was fired.

I played for a week,but i was stopped from many bugs. I installed also unofficial patch,but nothing has changed. Purchase this game if you want waste your money.

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.