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General discussion (archive)Ultima 9 is actually an interesting game(40 posts)(40 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 22, 2013
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bfandreas: An open world with stuff to do around every corner(including baking your own bread). NPCs with an actual schedule. Modern games are lauded when they have that. Ultima fans cried foul when we didn't get it with Ultima 8.
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amccour: Therein kind of lives the problem with comparing games to Ultima 7 -- not just Ultima 8, I mean. I don't think any have really hit that level of detail in terms of the game world, with the exception of maybe Gothic 2 -- and if anyone can come up with some other examples, I'm all ears.

It's why the TES approach to game worlds is so... maddening to me. I don't care how many people call Daggerfall an absolute classic. It's huge, yeah, but you couldn't really DO anything in it, and every town was the same. Ultima 7 has, all things considered, a relatively small gameworld in terms of real-estate, but everything DOES something. Everything was put where it was for a purpose.

It's funny -- you could argue that Ultima 7's 'core' gameplay suffered for the focus on being a... well, reality simulator, if you take the core gameplay of an RPG as being the combat and character building -- two things Ultima 6 and ESPECIALLY 7 were both pretty light on. On the other hand, Ultima 7 was more about exploration and puzzle solving and navigating NPCs than combat -- same for Ultima 4 onward, really.

Seriously though, worst Ultima game? 2. Easily. It combines Ultima 9's penchant for not making any sense with Daggerfall's penchant for having huge empty world's with Akalabeth's penchant for being deeply old and grindy.
To be fair, Ultima 6 was the same in detail. Baking bread, NPCs with a schedule. The lot.

And now speaking as somebody who played the TES games ever since Arena(which was neat): Daggerfall is a complete and utter turd. The dungeons were computer generated and it tells. I don't know how often I had to get some McGuffin for one of the guilds and how often I had to give up. Ten years ago I forced myself to finish it at least once and resorted to massive, massive cheating. Itemization, magic and mechanics are without parallel and the reason why I hugely dislike Skyrim to a point that I gave up on it after 500 hours play time :P

Ultima 7 remains one of a kind. It's Ultima 6 perfected. Although as with any open world games you could be easily lost for lack of knowing where to go next. A lot of time was spent wandering around. But wandering around in Ultima 7 was great.

You'll have to understand that in those days most games released would be considered mini-games today. Games like Lemmings, Pushover and a lot more. Ultima 7 was by no means in that league. It was MASSIVE. As were all Ultima games starting UIV. The first triology was neat if you had nothing else but I too didn't like them.
Posted January 22, 2013
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bfandreas: Although as with any open world games you could be easily lost for lack of knowing where to go next.
That is the most frustrating thing for me.
Posted January 26, 2013
I never really got too lost in Ultima 7, with the exception of finding the wisps. As I said above, the world isn't TOO huge, but more importantly -- and this is what makes the gameworld so big, in terms of /content/ -- is that the amount of stuff per square foot is very high.

So on the one hand, you have a more or less linear central storyline, BUT if you want to just go off and explore, you WILL find stuff. This is the biggest improvement over Ultima 6, I think -- U6 did have a lot of dead wilderness if you drifted too far.
Posted January 31, 2013
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Rixasha: If you want to start from the oldest Ultimas, you should also be aware that there are third-party patches for the PC versions that make them a bit prettier to look at than they originally were.
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gameon: I actually grew up with an Atari 2600, so it's not so bad to be honest.
Just thought you should know. Play them like you like em, of course!

I grew up with the C64, and I think its version of Ultima 5 is better than the PC version that I played much later. There was no music though (unless on a C128 - I have one now but didn't then) and lots and lots of disk swapping and slow loading as its disk turbo only worked on NTSC.
Posted January 31, 2013
I played it back at release, I thought it was OK, but I had never played the others, so I had no point of reference for the story, I still have it, some sort of collector ed. with a scarf or map or something.
Posted January 31, 2013
I saw the review of the game and wow and people said Mass Effect 3 was bad in terms of Continuity, this game just.....T_T

However I would say this game a Nostalgia trip down memory lane because they show a lot of references to the past game.
Post edited January 31, 2013 by Elmofongo
Posted January 31, 2013
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gameon: I actually grew up with an Atari 2600, so it's not so bad to be honest.
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Rixasha: Just thought you should know. Play them like you like em, of course!

I grew up with the C64, and I think its version of Ultima 5 is better than the PC version that I played much later. There was no music though (unless on a C128 - I have one now but didn't then) and lots and lots of disk swapping and slow loading as its disk turbo only worked on NTSC.
I tried Ultima 4, but had a hard time getting into it. The combat is awkward, and there is no clear direction of where to go, or what i'm supposed to do. But it was interesting checking it out.
Posted January 31, 2013
I bought all the Ultima games back when 9 came out, and I still have a life goal of finishing. Finished 1-5 so far, but like others I really disliked the engine in 6 and gave up for now. Once nuvie is a little more finished I'll probably pick it up again there.

As such I can't really comment on 9, but
1 - decent game, short, and remade with ega graphics so it doesn't make your eyes bleed.
2 - rather awful. Sosaria is Earth?
3 - ok game, lack of ships is frustrating
4 - excellent game. This is the one that got me into Ultima in the first place so I had played it before the others, which might bias my judgement - there is a lot of repeating filler (do everything 8 times)
5 - a lot like 4, but bigger. I found the ranged combat more tedious, especially when a character had multiple weapons, but by the end of the game I was use to it.
6 - ugly primitive mouse driven interface and very small view area is annoying. Some of the story is engrossing but I think the overall story relies on a twist which has been spoiled for me.

Haven't really played 7, 8, or 9 (or worlds or underworlds) except to start them up and see that they run. As everyone else has said, the biggest complaints about 9 are the story, the bugs, how much it shrinks the world, and repetitive not so random combat.
Posted February 01, 2013
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TheCycoONE: 2 - rather awful. Sosaria is Earth?
No, but Ultima 2 takes place on Earth. Or so it used to be; Ultima 9 might conveniently forget this, as well as that Ultima 8 was on the land of Pagan instead of Britannia.

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TheCycoONE: 3 - ok game, lack of ships is frustrating
Sure there are ships, you can't finish it without one. Or two I think, hmm.
Post edited February 01, 2013 by Rixasha
Posted February 01, 2013
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TheCycoONE: 2 - rather awful. Sosaria is Earth?
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Rixasha: No, but Ultima 2 takes place on Earth. Or so it used to be; Ultima 9 might conveniently forget this, as well as that Ultima 8 was on the land of Pagan instead of Britannia.
I'm pretty sure it's ret-conned as having taken place in Sosaria as early as Ultima 3 or 4, definitely well before 9. Also Gwenn, Iolo, and other characters from Sosaria/Britania are there.

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TheCycoONE: 3 - ok game, lack of ships is frustrating
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Rixasha: Sure there are ships, you can't finish it without one. Or two I think, hmm.
There are ships yes, but very few, and when you finally get one the damn whirlpool swallows them up.
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General discussion (archive)Ultima 9 is actually an interesting game(40 posts)(40 posts)
(40 posts)