Ultima IX: Ascension - Review / Retrospective
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- Опубликовано: 15 дек 2023
- In the final chapter of the Ultima saga, we find out how the journey of The Avatar comes to a conclusion. Is it a satisfying conclusion, or as some would say a "betrayal"?
Perhaps a little bit of both.
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Игры
"BETRAYAL! BETRAYED ME!"
Like over 10 years later and Spoonys review is STILL the main Ultima IX review
What's a paladin ? 🤔
"Your knowledge of the land shall be great!"
@@dankazuga3630 I'm not entirely sure.
@@misterkefir The Codex of Infinite Wisdom?
The Ultima series is so interesting to study as a whole since it basically pioneered so much of the stuff we take for granted in CRPGs and the final installment embracing the 3D above everything fad is ironic when prior installments where the trend setters instead of trying to capitalize on the current trends.
But Ultima was never intended to be a specifically 2D series. Sure, the first game's overworld uses simplistic tile based graphics and a top down view, but it also had 3D wireframe dungeon crawling from a first person view. Later games removed the first person dungeon crawling, but they added a Z axis and a point of view which presented more depth. And of course there were the Underworld games.
Ultima IX being fully 3D seems like the logical conclusion of a journey started in the late 70s with Akalabeth, not a diversion from the series's roots.
@@SnakebitSTI Good point. It was due to other reasons that Ultima 9 failed to feel like a proper send off to the Ultima series... not the move to 3D of course.
ultima IX was meant to be a trendsetter in level of being an interactable 3d world. conceptually it was pretty cool when it released BUT you couldn't effin RUN it on effin ANYTHING and the plot was bad etc etc. but despite all of that the 3d world was ahead of it's time at the time - of course if you just look at it now that's not likely to impress much. but for example the house was cool as fu when it released, like if you compare to the house in tomb raider from previous gen.
the 3d in the game is more immersive than say in deus ex too. it's just how it ran and the gameplay and plot etc that were where it failed.
Some cool things in this game. I remember looking a skeleton but it kept reassembling. I picked up it's head and threw it off a bridge which prevented it from reassembling.
Every time you’ve uploaded an Ultima retrospective I’ve stopped whatever I’m doing to watch the whole thing through;thanks for making these - there aren’t enough retrospectives on Ultima out there for my liking, and I’ve loved every single one of yours. Kinda sad now it’s come to the end of the mainline videos, but I can’t wait for when you eventually do the spinoffs!
Thank you, that is a massive compliment.
It feels a bit weird being done with the main games. An end of an era.
I completely agree with you on how Ultima needs to be talked about more. It was one of the reasons why I began this project.
The intro is such a mess... AND... could have been avoided by making it a dream or a flashback. Easy solution, for one of the largest breaks of immersion in the game. Sadly fixing the REST of breaches from Lore would require an extensive re-write. The state of the game at launch was, indeed, a mess. Saving would take ages, loading would take ages, crashes would force you to save near constantly....
It's also quite evident, indeed, that the game was not finished, and was a frankenstein of a game, as you pointed out.
Ultima was NOT a random name. Not anymore at that point. A mayor game such as Ultima being in this state was unforgivable. Today, we're further from Ultima IX than Ultima IX was from Ultima I on release. That decontextualizes the game a GOOD deal. A big part of the controversy was due to this being Ultima, not about how bad the game itself was. But that was almost a quarter of a century ago. Things change, perspective changes, and the game didn't have lootboxes or pay to win, at least, which I say jokingly, but seem to be a great component of what people are angry about these days. Back in the 90s, we had other priorities for what a good game is. Nice graphics was always a plus, yes... But most gamers back then were used to a VERY recent past where Doom was "ultra realistic", so wouldn't have played Ultima with shittier graphics, for sure, SPECIALLY, if that meant more stability.
I mean, forget the breaches of Lore... forget, if you can, Sir Dupre.... the game was broken at a fundamental level. Internet DID exist in 1999, yes... But it was a very different internet back then, and patches weren't easy to acquire for every one. Nowadays, a game released this badly would have had a day 1 patch to fix it partially, and eventual patches to make the game better, but back then, once you bought the game from the physical shop, that was it. Ans so, Ultima IX felt like a scam: A game that you were waiting for a long time, INCREDIBLY hyped by the press..... Just to be almost unplayable, or straight up unplayable for some. Of course the game was going to be controversial.
Now, when we distance ourselves from that... when we distance ourselves from the fact that the game was EXPENSIVE as fuck back then, being on the higher end of prices for games, when we distance ourselves from the fact that Ultima was one of the cornerstones of gaming, and when we use a more stable version.. yes, the game is not that bad. BUT, remember: THIS is not what people played back then. It's not the same product. This one doesn't crash every 3 to 5 minutes. And this is NOT a game you were waiting for years, with the press telling you it was going to be the best thing ever. Back then, also, we were not used to hype culture. We never had a No Man's Sky incident. We were not prepared for such trash of a release state.
The experience, back then, would be: load the game for a while, since it didn't load instantly, either, taking about 30 to 40 seconds to load, load your game, progress for a minute or 2, crash, reload, crash, reload, crash, spend 20 seconds saving, a minute of progress, after half an hour of "gaming". That is what made everyone be MORE critical of other aspects of the game. If the game had run smoothly, we'd forgiven many other aspects, but we were already mad at the game, cause we were wasting our time, just loading, because of the near constant crashes.
It was nice having a... much less tainted perspective of this game, since, for people like me, that taint prevented from enjoying the actual good parts of the game. And don't get me wrong, the game has GOOD parts. It's just... we never were in the mood to appreciate them.
Sorry for the Ted Talk. xD
Also... Cheeseetrovert makes an appearance at 29:00 roughly. xD
My aunt followed this series from very early on, and this was the first one she introduced to me. I was about 5 or 6 and didn't know too much more than mario and zelda. She told me a lot about the lore and went into some of the deeper aspects of the games such as the patches needed and how she had to upgrade her computer and such. This game blew my mind at the time. I loved it so much even though I didn't understand truly what I was doing and this day have not beaten it.
I just discovered your channel and began bingeing these. I really appreciate this well-put-together retrospective as someone who's only played Ultima 4 and 7. End of an era!
(Also obligatory: "What's a Paladin?" "BETRAYAL!")
Thank you!
it’s here!!! i’ve recently stumbled upon your channel about a month ago, and I’ve gone through all of your ultimate videos only to find that this one was not yet published when I finally finally caught up. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to finally see this on my feed! Thank you!
Thank you!
It's still surreal to me that people have found these videos and actually watched them, and I appreciate it very very much.
I’m so excited for your next series! I’ve loved these ultima videos and I’ve learned so much about the games that fascinated me in my youth (3-6) as well as what came before and after. I played and finished the first Kain game recently, your new series has inspired me to finish I bought them all and just like always got distracted. Thanks so much for the excellent content.
Thank you!
It makes me happy that people have found these AND enjoyed them.
Hope you'll enjoy LoK, it's to me a very interesting series.
Thank you once again for a very entertaining review, Finn!
I'm very glad to have been there when you played the game on stream and thus witnessed the game for the first time. These review videos deepen this expierence even more. To me it's a privilege to be a core member of your audience. :-)
Thank you!
It has been a journey to get to this point, and I am glad you've been a part of it.
Thanks for the mainline Ultima reviews. I enjoy your commentary, balanced takes on the series highs and lows. I'd love to contribute financially, but it has been tight for funds lately. For what it's worth I share your videos with friends, and in chat circles to get more eyes on your content. Keep up the good work, I look forward to your next series.
Thank you!
I'm glad you've enjoyed the series, and very much appreciate you sharing the videos!
Ultima 9 - i would not mind any of the bugs and all, but the story.... why not start in hellscape britania and finding "zones that survived" and mobilize an army by proofing that you, the Avatar, are flawed, but have heart. Why all your friends followed you, why you won all the other folks over, making the people of britania realize, that this is a fight for the good things in life and that you can overcome darkness.
Great video, as always. You mentioned the spin-offs at the end. It'd be really great if you covered Martian Dreams & Savage Empire :)
Thank you!
I do intend to play those eventually as I am interested in the spinoff games, shockingly, I even want to try the GameBoy ones at some point. :P
@@finntrovert Those spin off games look pretty interesting.
@@Peremptor Yeah. So far I've only seen the beginnings of each, but I do want to dive deeper at some point.
It's nice to see a more neutral take on this game, though I don't think that its positive qualities outweigh the negatives (especially for someone approaching it from a modern perspective.)
It's a much more decisive endpoint to the series than I had imagined. I wonder if it was felt that Ultima would be continuing primarily through the mmo, or if any further games would have been from the perspective of someone else, allowing for some more character driven plots where the player character has a more personal motivation behind their quest.
Ultima definitely had some really interesting storytelling, but the player was always a visitor to the world who was very much a reactive character being sent off to do things by other people and they only had as much personal investment in their tasks as the player themselves.
If this game had been more successful I wonder if there would have been an opportunity to have the series transition to centre upon the perspective of the people of Britannia having to take on something more personal instead of being tasked with saving the world from an existential threat. In a sense it's more standard, but they spent 9 games playing out the life and sacrifice of the setting's equivalent of Christ*, so there's potentially something really interesting to explore in the idea that the world is expected to live on without any definitive answers about where he went or whether he'd be back again. The guy kept coming back before, so why wouldn't a significant amount of the people expect him to be back any moment?
*obviously, there's a big difference between the two but they are both prophets imbued with the virtues of the worlds' most powerful religion who sacrifice themselves for the good of the world. Jesus definitely never took orders from a king to go out into the world and murder anyone who threatened his plans to consolidate power into himself and take over the world, but that was prior to Ultima 4.
Those are interesting things to ponder, and one of the reasons why I do still enjoy the themes of the game.
Some of it was dealing with exactly that, how you were always the outsider, the savior, and people became complacent with your role neglecting their self improvement. There's even a character going "you are The Avatar, you're supposed to be fixing things. Why aren't you out there, fixing things?"
People became too reliant on a superhero, and Ultima X likely would have been about Britannians learning to handle things on their own, but we never got that game.
There was a lot of potential, and it's a shame the reputation of the game is so poor, even if some of it is completely warranted.
I think a very natural direction the series would be to have a reprisal of Ultima IV's reframing of how a hero should act. Ultima IV introduces orthopraxy, asking the player to not only save the world but to be virtuous in their actions while doing so. I think a hypothetical Ultima X should ask the player to consider what the outcomes of their actions might be, breaking down the simplicity of "do the right thing" presented by Ultima IV. Unintended consequences have certainly been explored in the series, but what about allowing the player to be responsible for them?
Perhaps a constantly advancing game state to mechanically reinforce the message? You can only accomplish so much, make it count? Like, teaching a virtue to an individual or community might allow them to avoid disaster while the avatar is away, but solving problems yourself might be faster and let you move on to the next crisis sooner. Maybe a time loop mechanic a la Majora's Mask, to encourage perfectionists to accept failure and do better next time rather than reloading constantly or playing with a guide?
I definitely like the idea of an Ultima game putting more focus on teaching. Not encouraging passivity or criticizing helping others, but rather focusing on how to do more good on a larger scale.
@@SnakebitSTI That would have been an interesting direction, and I definitely would have enjoyed it.
I agree that 'top of the line' in the late 90's made things hard on both sides of the coin. The tech-creep made things very very hard to stay on top of things as a customer but also could make or break a title for publishers. Its hard to convey how even now, the cycle of 'latest and greatest' is a bit slower than that, even with the rate of change in culture appearing to accelerate elsewhere. Mechwarrior 2 was impressive in 1995, but you can see how the notional market perception seemed to feel it was showing it's age by the time it got re-re-rereleased with new graphics multiple times up to 1998.
I think the engines of 7, 8 and 9 are fantastic in concept and technical features. It's interesting how they change and mutate and yet build off of each other. Yet, they seem kind of squandered in a way that SSI's Gold Box games feel too carbon copied, if I'm permitted to speak less than charitably. I often feel sad that we only seemed to get Crusader of all things on the enhanced Ultima 8 engine. Ultima 9's engine seems like it could've hosted a very interesting potential for other games but... oh well.
Ooo, Legacy of Kain! Can't wait!
Excellent review! Your knowledge of the land is truly great.
Thanks!
I can't help but think maybe they should have done the tried and true new player onboarding method of allowing the player character to be new to the world, not the avatar. And perhaps give experienced players the escape hatch of playing as someone who knows the avatar on Earth, and thus is not entirely unfamiliar with the world and lore. Maybe as part of character creation, to unlock dialogue options like "you must be Lord British, I've heard so much about you!" and other means of skipping exposition new players would need.
That would have been one way to get around the issue.
Even just a small rewrite of "refresh my memory about X" would have made it less jarring to returning players.
Tumultuous indeed! I remember the debate, discussion and complaints on the official forums and later on a fan forum. We were dazzled by the graphics and the gameplay was mostly serviceable (though the lack of an adventuring party was a major complaint), but the writing was quite disappointing. It was really too bad to see the final entry in the venerable series to have ended up this way.
EDIT: The nature of the Guardian was something that I posted as an idea in the "Guardian theories" thread on the official forums. This was long before the game was released and, at the time, most people dismissed the idea as terrible. 😆
I missed all of that, since I wasn't really an Ultima fan back then which I think was a good thing, since now as I understand English better I can appreciate the series more than I would have then. So all I remember are the relatively positive reviews I saw in the magazines, and my failed attempt at running the game on my PC.
@@finntrovert I'd only started playing the series with Ultima 8. It was during the intervening period between that game and U9 that I got to experience the rest and really became a fan. The Ultima fan community was the first that I'd become involved in. U9 didn't run terribly well on my PC, back then, but I also had a much greater tolerance for poor performance.
@@Ostsol Yeah, tolerance for bad performance was almost necessary back then.
I remember tweaking many games to look like hot garbage just so they would run somewhat on my PC.
Those were the days. XD
@@finntrovert LOL! Same! I've got some fun memories of shrinking the viewport size in Doom so I could play it on a 386. Of course, that was also on a 14" CRT monitor. 😂
"and you need to be careful to avoid collateral damage"
poor doggie didn't know collateral damage was The Avatar's specialty 😢
All those poor children, and monsters masquerading as them...
Great job, with the series. I feel like it completed the circle that was open for years.
Definitely, one of the most fascinating RPG series ever created. I'm happy it came to a conclusion.
Too many stories, especially these days, are rebooted/rehash until they are a mess.
While I partially played several games in the series it was only U8 that I completed.
Thanks! For me it definitely did close a circle left open for years.
I wanted to do this since 2020, but only in 2022 did I finally get to start, and the whole process was that of learning, since this was my first video essay type project.
To me the whole thing is a testament of growth. Not only of me, but also if the series and its influence.
It's just meaningful to me in so many ways.
Great review. Certainly a flawed game and I understand the issues people have with the continuity of Ultima IX and the rest of the series, but these issues often get blown out of proportion and cause people to overlook the great things the game brought to the table - really glad to see a review that actually acknowledges the positives amongst the negatives instead of exclusively looking for things to criticize. +1 subscriber.
Ultima IX came out when I was 4 and I have such fond memories sitting at the computer with my dad and my 6 year old brother playing through it. Every 5 or so years I go back and play through the entire game again, and I always find myself having a great time all the way through even beyond just the nostalgia aspect of it. Except in Hythloth, of course.
Thank you!
I do try my best to find both good and the bad, while attempting to be somewhat objective about both.
Many games are flawed, but that doesn't mean that is all they are.
I bought and played this game when it came out and was annoyed by many aspects of it. But what jumps out at me now is the love that went into making it. All the thought that went into details like the look of the interface. We were spoiled back then and didn't know how bland much of this would become.
All of us at EA Canada, massive Ultima Online players, were beyond bummed when UO2 was cancelled. So we turned our anger to EverQuest's PVP servers and griefed the hell out of everyone instead. 😂
I played on the European shards, so thankfully it's unlikely you were one of the people who shanked me in the back while I was mining. :P
I played in beta but never did get really into UO beyond that. They did make a novelization of UO2 called Ultima: The Technocrat War. I guess the industrial revolution hits Sosaria in an alt timeline but the novels weren't too bad. McFarlane Toys also did a figure of the mechanized Lord Blackthorn... UO 2 was definitely going to be different.
"What's a Paladin"
"Your knowledge of the land shall be great"
"I'm not entirely sure"
"Betrayl"
I know I am not the first, but I do hope I am the one with the most quotes.
I do think you have that honor, yes!
Really enjoyed your series! Listened to all of them
Thanks!
What's a p- /slapself
As always, love your retrospectives. It's always unfortunate when you *know* a game has the building blocks for something great, but was marred by development issues. Doubly so when it's supposed to be a series last hurrah.
Thank you!
And that really is the biggest shame of Ultima IX.
You can see the beginnings of a classic, but it's undercooked and easily shrouded by so many little flaws that can stack to hide all the positive aspects.
A thought; you and Voidbrand recently both seem to have finished this saga forward to Ultima 9. I think you two and some others would be interesting for you guys have a chat together and see what conversations you could all tease out about Ultima :)
I'll check them out. Always love finding new people to follow here!
Just finished this series and I'm loving it! I was born in 90s so I had practically no knowledge about it besides Ultima Online. I think the oldest RPGs I've played were first two fallouts and Dink Smallwood. I'm interested in the time between text-only rpgs and what we got in early 2000s and futher. So if anyone knows any titles I could research, feel free to drop them here!
People have been mentioning Wizardry and Might & Magic quite often. Those may be worth a look.
disregarding ultima series(including underworld) and jrpgs.. goldbox games(pool of radiance etc, throw in same lot buck rogers, which is just goldbox games but in space with guns and going to venus etc) -> eye of beholder/dungeon master -> system shock -> baldurs gate. there's many games in late 80's to 90s that are kind of hard to define genres for like elvira mistress of the dark, space rogue, bloodnet(this one is like an adventure-rpg hybrid in a cyberpunk new york city with added twist of vampires) etc.
I was expecting the comment sections fill with "Whats a Paladin?" comments....but I guess fewer and fewer people remember Spoony and it has lost its relevancie on the overall internet culture. Kind of sad, but also kind of hopefull. Now Finntrovert retrospective of Ultima would be te go to ultima guide.
Not going to lie, that would be surreal and cool if it happened. XD
I do have to thank Spoony. He is the reason why I eventually decided to play the series from start to finish, which then sparked the desire to make these videos, even if it took years to get to doing them.
It's a shame things went the way they did with him, but the last I saw he seems to be in a healthier place mentally than at that one point in time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this game. IMHO, you went waaaaay too easy on Ultima IX. My first Ultima was U4, which I first played on an Apple II back in the 80's. Origin always strove to not only set a new bar of excellence with each new Ultima, but I remember Richard Garriott saying he also wanted to push the limits of what computers at the time could do. You could see very easily with each new Ultima game, as more memory and CPU allowed for Origin to add ever increasing detail and interaction to the game world. I feel like this peaked around U6/U7.
Then Ultima 8 came out. I remember vividly my roommate and I playing U8 in college when it came out. It was just an enormous step backwards. The lack of a party felt bad. The detail of the world took a back seat. The story was sub-par, especially after having played U7. I feel like Ultima 8 really should have been some other spinoff game similar to Underworld.
Getting to Ultima IX, the intro alone and lack of payoff from U8 were just massively jarring. There was no explanation as to what happened to the powers you supposedly received at the end of Ultima 8. Ultima IX managed to be even more regressive than U8 as far as making the world feel less detailed, smaller and with less NPCs to interact with. From my perspective, I think what was left of Origin just wanted to get this game out the door as quickly as possible and just move on with their lives. I will certainly always remember the entire Ultima series fondly. I still have the larger collector's edition Ultima IX box sitting on my shelf. It is, however, just so unfortunate that the series ended on such a down note.
I can understand that, and I admit that comparatively I am rather lenient, but I also wasn't a fan back when the issues with the game were also strengthened by the myriad of technical issues, extreme system requirements, and years of expectations.
That's one reason why I wanted to talk about these, since when I streamed these I noticed this difference in viewpoints during the discussions we had back then.
This is great, subbed!
Thank you!
I've long wondered if Garriott looked at the Elder Scrolls and felt that they achieved what Ultima IX could not.
I know he'd disagree with the waypoints and hand holding, but in terms of execution and polish they're leagues beyond Ultima, or anything Garriott has published subsequently.
That would be an interesting thing to ask him. Perhaps he even has been. Haven't watched that many of his interviews.
Not gonna lie you fooled me with that Zelda thing at the end. Like wow this is a tonal shift xD
Glad to hear it works as intended. XD
I wasn't sure how to do the outro, but I knew I wanted some kind of a switcharoo. When recording Ocarina, and seeing that zoom in the intro? It all clicked into place.
This is the best review I have ever seen about UIX.
Finally one that also enumerates enough positive elements and gives an explanation for many seemingly broken plot points. Even though if you seem to get a bit too far and justificate too many wrongs.
Like, Blackthorn being here, especially in this form and with this motivation still seems just plain wrong. Why would he be doing this for the rulership over Britannia, if the goal of the Guardian is to actually destroy it? Which he actually could do without Blackthorn, since as we see, he can kill from afar and manipulate objects. His eventual origin is also cheesy, the original plans (like, the gem of immortality origin story) were better. The final isn't that good, but one of the previous plans that involved the willing destruction of Britannia by Lord British was even worse.
One can see more elements that never got into the game by exploring the unused maps. Just goodle "hacki dragon unused maps". Just the Cove area would have been bigger than the entire current mainland! Potion recipes would have been more complex, with gems involved. Also, there would have been more enemy types, traps, mechanics, weapons...
First off, thank you!
Second, yeah, I may be a bit lenient to some aspects, but it's also my interpretation of things.
Let's take the Blackthorn example. The Guardian is extremely powerful, but not omnipotent, and has always not only needed minions, but wanted minions, since it's not just the destruction he is after, but the joy he gets from manipulating people.
In IX, that's manipulating everyone, including Blackthorn and the Avatar. In the intro, it's made clear Blackthorn is unaware of Guardian's plans to destroy the world, so at least to a point he believes he will get the world after the Guardian has destroyed his enemies. There's more than likely bits of story missing when Blackthorn realizes this is not the case, and it has something to do with the Codex.
Why did the Guardian need Blackthorn? First to act as his minion to create an army and a black gate to get him to Britannia, since he seems to need one. Now he needs Blackthorn because while powerful, most of his focus seems to go to manipulating the moons, which is why the villains are those led by Blackthorn instead of magical monsters or the Guardian's direct influence.
That's basically how I see the situation.
@@finntrovert This is conscise and better than leaving it as a pure plot hole. At least one of the earlier versions also included Blackthorn. Out of universe, I still think it was just the developers saw the name "Blackthorn" in the list of evils of the previous titles and simply recycled him without thinking much of his already established plot...
But now I remember what disturbed me the most about this:
According to Ultima V, Blackthorn was good (that's why left LB the kingdom to him while he went on an expedition to the Abyss) and only the Shadowlord influence made him a villain. I always understood this as an actual active magical influence that passed with the elimination of the Shadowlords. So he was good by the very last scene of Ultima V, no? LB suggested him to flee only because the council wouldn't have cared about this influence thing and would have sentenced him to death anyway. Then to make up for this, he becomes an even better person on Serpent Isle.
And boom, he is back at UIX's time (I never supposed he was among the long-lived persons, like the Avatar and many companions, or I overlooked something?) and whoosh, evil.
As I said, UIX was my first Ultima, yet even there, without extended knowledge, I didn't like him. The "evil second in command who is being fooled by the main evil" trope always was so basic.
But again, you at least give an OK explanation that really could have been expanded upon in the game, even if it wouldn't have been my favourite element ingame.
Also, I thought I had here another comment about my personal experiences with UIX (being the first Ultima I played, etc.) also mentioning the love for glitch hunting. I wonder if I just forgot to click submit or what, since it's also not in my comment history...
@@CastChaos I can't find it in the YT Studio either, so it's possible it just didn't send for some reason.
As for your other comment, yeah, IRL it's most likely they just took a familiar villain from an older game without that much thought into it at that moment, but I also think it's not as big of a plothole some reviewers have made it out to be.
Yes, Blackthorn was good, but he also had the desire for power within him that the Shadowlords were able to bring into the surface. It's not implausible that the Guardian could do something similar, manipulating Blackthorn to be bitter about his exile and reignite the desire to be a ruler once more.
Also, I like that I can finally talk about this with other people. I wanted to avoid all contact with other people's Ultima content and ideas until I was done with UIX so I could be sure I am writing down my thoughts.
@@finntrovert That "writing own thoughts" thing is really nice. Mine was formed also by all the bazillions of reviews I have read. There was a short time when I even started to hate UIX for a while (when rereading Hacki Dragon's nitpicks), then later one where I gave it even more credit than it deserves (as a reverse psychology for Spoony's UIX retrospective).
In my other lost comment, I mentioned that UIX was my first Ultima and I later got to know the other titles. (I was, like, 14 years old and the family computer couldn't run it till a serious and expensive upgrade a year later.)
However, even as a newcomer, I realized that Avatar questions like "what are the gargoyles?" would get on the nerves of long time fans, I just didn't how how very much!
In fact, even after the upgrade, the game ran real slow, sometimes one frame per 2-3 seconds, but I kept playing, I simply got used to it. Actually, its rushed programming and malleability was one of the first things that made me be interested in how programs were made and built up. (Now I am programmer.)
It's fantastic that new glitches were found even in the latest years, some are really useful and also used in speedruns. Experimenting with them and trying to find new ones are always fun.
Ultima IX, as you said is perceived as worse than it actually is.
Similar to Ultima VIII, the engine was incredible back then. It certainly took a few patches along the road to get to what it is, but once at least you got patch 1.18, the game was for the most part stable.
The issue with the game is that it takes into account your CPU speed, which means, sadly, that gravity is broken even after applying the fanpatches. Gravity works way better the less CPU you have. Over 2GHz it becomes completely broken, and probably it's better under 1GHz.
Most of the plotholes are not that big. There are a few, however, that are difficult to explain, like Malchir's not aknowledging that you were the one who killed him.
As I understand then, you are going to review the Legacy of Kain series? I really look forward to those, Legacy of Kain is among my favourite series, specially at how the plot unfolds and the incredible voice cast it has. That's a series that deserves a return, to at least finish the plot...
I did not know about the gravity thing, but now I want to look up more about it.
For the rest, very much agreed.
And yes, I am planning to start 2024 with Legacy of Kain. It's in my opinion another fantastic series not enough people talk about these days, and it gives me the perfect excuse to play them extensively again. XD
It just occurred to me that I dont actually know what a paladin is, I always played Cleric’s in my RPGS
I remember the flame wars on the OWO boards when this came out. It was a 50/50 split between haters and enjoyers. My P2-450 with a Riva TNT could barely run it, but buying my first gigahertz PC a year later solved that. Problem was, Ultima 9 was too lofty of a game and tried what it did too early, plus EA cutting funding and treating it like a "red headed stepchild" doomed its development. Gothic and Morrowind would come out 2 years later and do what U9 did, but without its problems. (though they had problems of their own). Still, U9 wasn't a very good game. The combat was horrible, the story basically retconned the previous game, and the stability was such that most people couldn't even play it through to the end due to crashes.
What to me is the worst part about the combat is not technically the combat itself. The main parts of it are there, that remained in many future games.
You hit things, and you can easily cast spells when you need them thanks to the hotbar.
But what makes it worse than combat in games like Morrowind is the lack of movement, which in retrospect I should have mentioned more in the video, since the controls to move The Avatar are rather clunky, being designed for the mouse, and there's always a slight delay between action and reaction. Thus making fighting just button mashing.
Again, something that COULD have been fixed, but wasn't.
Omg “EA SPORTS… it’s only a game, why do you have to be mad?” 😂😂😂😂 laughed so loud at this
I thought U9 was amazing. I didn't have the technical problems that you described and since I didn't play U8, I had no idea there was any story slip. I played about 30 minutes of U2, All of U3, and about 90% of U4. All of my older discs were for a PC I no longer had access to, so it wasn't intentional. When I got U9 I played it all the way through and then again a while later. The second time was with a newer PC and it ran a lot better. Some of the details were a bit slow in the first play-through. There were some great moments in teh game that sick with me to this day. Like the crazy mage with the golden tower out in the middle of nowhere. he invented teh levitation spell but now his brain is broken because he got magically crossed with a chicken. he keeps saying these crazy things and flying around the top level of his tower. it's just so ridiculous that it's ingrained in my mind. All of the companions turned enemies have names that are anagrams of their original names. The first one you meet is "OOKI" who is "Iolo"...
At least U9 got to go to market. The next great adventure of the Ultima series, UOX or UO 2 depending on which name you prefer was going to be amazing. I still have the original teaser video for it. In a time where most of the MMO's had fairly static avatars and very simple animations, they had fully Mo-Capped animations doing real world martial arts with all of the mobility of a human actor. They had a unique story and tons of work done... Then the idiots at EA decided that they didn't want to put out a product that would compete with their current UO property (that was already old, dated, and a shadow of what it had been) so they turned the gold mine of UOX into a cheap expansion zone for UO that no one cared about.
I honestly love reading these. Seeing all the different ways Ultima touched people's lives.
You are right, there are many little details about the world in Ultima 9 that are easy to miss, but which add so much to the depth of it.
The existence of in-game-paladins implies the existence of an in-world Roman Empire!
Romani ite domum.
I know I know, just having a bit of fun :D@@alexwalters35
Its notable that not only could you not rebind keys but unlike every game ever made, you could not flip the mouse Y axis. As an old-timer "inverted" to me is normal and the game just was unplayable having to play with my Y axis inverted the entire time.
A fellow user invert user!
U9 was one where I had less trouble adjusting, since my brain went to moving a cursor mode instead of turning camera mode.
But that is a good point. More of us exist, so perhaps it's something to keep in mind for the future videos as a thing worthy of mentioning.
I got locked Jhelom practically in the end game. A ghost wouldnt talk to his brother thus lol game over. The patches werent working as is meaning i had to use a cheat menu for half of the shrine cleaning. Fun.
Yeah, I've encountered that bug too. One of the reasons I keep shit tons of separate saves.
I assume Gwenno dying in Serpent Isle was just overlooked? Or is the Gwenno here a trick of some sort? I could never get U9 to run at more than 1 frame every 2 seconds on my PC at the time so I never played past the arrival at LB's castle. It would loop endlessly "So you have arrived at last!...So you have arrived at last!...So you have arrived at last!" as my PC crawled to a halt as it tried to load the world.
Gwenno was resurrected during Serpent Isle, and her memories and personality restored using the blessed waters of the Ophidians.
When it was released it was fucking broken as I remember. When it was fixed, I still thought it sucked. UO was what I bought next and it was the best video game ever.. to this day
19:41
Do you think the columns might be EVIL in some way?
Giant evil columns? Huh, that might be possible!
I'm not entirely sure.
*Your knowledge of the land shall be great!*
I think they were a little too ambitious with the 3D engine, which would be forgivable if the writing was more nuanced and respected the expectations of existing players or, well, if the story was generally implemented better, but it wasn't. I can see some potential in the themes as you mentioned, yet mostly in isolation from the final, rushed product. Personally, I wish they had simply used the Ultima Online engine and spent more time on development.
Yeah, there's no getting around that it does feel like more effort went into being at the top of the technological ladder than should have, which harmed the rest of the project.
Great video!
Thank you!
Hell yeah brother legacy of Kain let's gooooooo
Skipped this as a kid my pc could barely run ultima online, I was more hyped for ultima11,something about the dead avatar being in the guardians mind or something i forget but the monster designs they showed where awsome
Except the Avatar was never 'perfect good' the ending of Ultima IV pretty much shouts that the Avatar is still a flesh and blood human being, not some untouchable phantom of perfection.
And that's one reason why things ended up as they did. The Avatar was never meant to be what they was later pushed to be.
In IV, they were meant to be an idol, someone to show everyone that self improvement is not only desirable, but achievable.
In V, Blackthorn was trying to do exactly this, but his reasons and methods were wrong, partially due to the corruption of the Shadowlords.
After that, The Avatar was pushed more and more as a divine figure who comes to solve people's problems, making the populace complacent while the Virtues began to revolve almost exclusively around The Avatar's destiny instead. This was not a role they were ever meant to have, as per IV.
Shame this is how the series went out. Pretty much gone were any of the OG team which could very well explain the continuity errors and contradictions of past events. You'd think this series being Garriott's baby, he'd have an Ultima bible outlining everything to give to the new team and tell them, "transcribe this to memory!". Kinda wonder how much hands on he did have with the game despite being the Lead Designer. Though interestingly enough is the explanation for the Guardian, which i never did like. It basically renders everything you did in Ultima 4, a game all about self enlightenment... completely moot and a very bad thing. In the end, just seems like lazy writing.
I agree with the Guardian revelation. It's just extremely comic-book story telling and doesn't even really make much sense. If the Guardian is just the evil-version of the avatar, why did he conquer several other worlds before focussing on Brittania? What was even the point of taunting the Avatar since U7? It also comes across to me like they just wanted to do the Shadowlords again.
The sad thing is that the plot would still work if they removed this revelation. The Guardian is an evil void-god and as such the only way to destroy him is through the armageddon spell, which requires sacrificing yourself. Cool, that works without any of the mess. Even if it is basically a kill-the-foozle plot which Ultima purposely shifted away from since U4.
from 1:00 to 1:29 what was that top down isometric game? it looked like fallout with slightly worse graphics.
Crusader: No Remorse, which uses the enhanced Ultima 8 engine.
I'm so sorry that you have good things to say about U8 and U9.
Oh well, it happens.
pretty solid
Game looks next level honestly
It does. Even back then I remember being in awe of how it looked.
Never played it, and I don't think I would like to,not unless there's a fan-made rehaul mod or something.
I know there are several mods that purportedly overhaul aspects of the game, and rewrite portions of the script to make the game fit the overall canon better, but I've tried none of them so unfortunately I can't recommend any specifically.
Where can I find these mods? I played through Ultima IV thru VI and I was iffy to get into the latter games
@@Andres0082 The Ultima Codex wiki tends to have fan project pages for the games where they list mods and such, that might be a good place to start.
great game, i wish they did a good ultima X
That would have been nice. It is a shame things didn't quite pan out well for the franchise, and unfortunately so many no longer even know of the importance of Ultima when it comes to gaming in general.
Any chance of the ultima worlds?
Loved the series so far....
Yes, they are on my list. I just need a bit of a break from Ultima after over a year of focusing solely on that.
So many games, so little time!
@@finntrovert looking forward to it... zelda will also be fun.
you are right, soooo many games, so little time.
great video :)
Thank you!
This game looks good, tho. Idk seems badass. I've been looking these games up a lot latlynafter finding out about them about a month ago, and I know this one got a lot of shit. But still, the ultima series interests me. What's th best one. 5 or 6?? I might try to see if I can download one maybe.
Very much depends on your preferences.
I can't really put them in order of preference, since I like most of them for different reasons, but 6 is a pretty decent entry point.
It's not necessarily "too old", and has a lot of things to familiarize the player with the world.
What’s a paladin?
A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk. Have at you!
please God let me go back to a time of CRPGs without the current version of the internet.
Not going to lie, kind of really like the art style of this game!
So do I.
It strikes a good balance and manages to have a style that aged pretty well, for the most part at least.
@@finntrovert And I think Avatar and the Guardian dichotomy, and the ending where they fight like that and Avatar sacrificing himself was probably more or less how RG wanted to finish the series which I kind of like also, tbh. This game maybe needs a remake ahah
@@zenithquasar9623 Yeah, that seems to have been the case. At least for the story of The Avatar.
From what I recall, hearing about previous versions of the game's script, The Guardian was intended to be the combination of the Shadowlords, meaning they were never truly defeated.
That would have meant that the ending sacrifice is kind of more meaningful in the in-universe lore, as The Avatar is the embodiment of the Virtues, and the Shadowlords, and thus The Guardian, are the embodiment of the Anti-Virtues.
To gain balance, you must rid the world of both.
That would have also made the entire Ultima saga be a kind of loop. The ending began in the very first game, and to save the world you need to undo the first mistake you made in your journey as a hero.
Before I watch this video, I ask: “What’s a paladin?” 😂
Thanks for doing these retrospective, they have been enjoyable.
Thank you! I really appreciate it.
BETRAYAL!
Saved Britannia one last time…from problems that you apparently were the root cause of all along…,kinda ruins all the previous games. The story and the ignoring of the previous continuity were the game’s biggest crimes.
That's understandable. To me I always felt like each game was about you fixing damage you caused though.
In II and III the villains are basically on a revenge mission against you specifically.
In V, you were medieval Jesus whom Blackthorn looked up to, and was corrupted because of a gem you shattered and left the pieces around.
In VI, the conflict was caused because you stole a holy book from another culture.
And so on. In that sense that part doesn't really bother me that much.
What's a paladin?
A miserable little pile of secrets?
But enough talk.
Have at you!
Wait... wrong franchise.
Our knowledge of the land shall be GREAT!
The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
Imho U9 was lazy, unfinished and disrespectful. The avatar was stupid and pathetic. It’s not a bad game at the time but it’s the worst Ultima. It’s not even an Ultima to me.
The soundtrack was excellent though.
Nice review btw!
Thank you!
I can understand that point of view. U9 is definitely a mess in many ways, which is a shame, as I do think the most egregious missteps could have been relatively easily fixed.
The story teased in the interviews looked more interesting. And it was a 3D isometric game. It's just the last nail in the coffin from EA. I started ultima with VII part 2 (and played the first one next lol) and IX story doesn't make sense, like it was written/made by people who never played the games. And it's a shame because the last trilogy was so immersive with the next game following the story, even underworld II was a nice fit (with some problems like Finn mentioned). Too bad Lord British never delivered a good spiritual sequel. RIP ultima. I still find Ultima 7 games some of the most immersive RPGs.
@@takkik282 agreed about u7. I still play the games today with Exult.
UW2 was a bit disappointing compared to the first one, I found it a bit weird and unbalanced.
Ultima 9 was a huge dissappointment to me. I actually purchased a new PC that exceeded the game specs to play it, yet the game wouldnt run. Origin screwed over the customer on this one...
I played this game a lot back in the day, never finished it, had a ton of fun as far as I remember, but it was so janky.
Yeah, plenty of the game still feels janky. The movement specifically. It's almost modern, but not quite, and especially now you can really feel it.
It's not bad, just not as good as you could expect.
But still! There is much fun to be found in the game, despite its flaws.
Also, still need to play Gabriel Knight one day. ;)
@@finntrovert
Played all 3 GK games back in the day as they came out, the 3rd one had that 3D jank but honestly I loved the story of all of them.
The 2nd one had 6 CDs, SIX! Borrowed it from a friend in high school and devoured it.
I would love a 4th one so much.
@@finntrovertI remember playing it recently again (GOG) and it felt better than I remembered, sure it is a bizarre control scheme... but it works as intended.
@@GKSchattenjaeger They're on my constantly growing list of "want to play".
I've heard a bunch of good about them, so they deserve that place.
Aw yeah Legacy of Kain
I watched the entire video, and still have no idea if the game is good or not. This is not a review, its a overview.
Thank for your feedback!
Im not a big fan of the Ultima Series, just someone who played 9 as a kid, but every time i see a video like this, the museum is always mentioned and items being there that shouldnt etc, but im always like what makes you think its not just a replica or a artist interpretation? like i get people who played Ultima 1-8 dont like 9, but it just seems nit picky after hearing it so many times.
And if I didn't mention it even in passing, someone would be saying the exact opposite.
There's really only one item that shouldn't be there at all, replica or not. Korghin's Fang, as there's really no reason people in Britannia would know such minute details of Avatar's exploits in Pagan, from where they just returned from.
Other than that, I don't really care that much, it's just one building.
@@finntrovert Thats fair enough, wasnt having a go at your or anything, just a thought that crossed my mind after hearing it again, so i commented it, your video is actually one of the more enjoyable ones to watch for U9.
@@ZodaSoda Thank you!
And yeah, I wasn't trying to be combative either, just trying to explain my reasoning for including the bit, even though it doesn't really bother me that much.
I do understand why it would get a bit annoying after a while, hearing the same point mentioned over and over again with little nuance.
Not going to lie, as much as I do appreciate Spoony's content even to this day for what it is, I do think he went a bit too hard on some things to the extent that after playing the games I disagree with many points immensely.
@@finntrovert Yeah, Its a common thing not just for U9 but any game with a negative reputation, warranted or not, RUclips videos tend to go a little too hard on them, so if you watch a lot of those videos and you dont feel that way to begin with, you feel certain things are just nit picking if you hear them pointed out too much.
I dont think you were all that hard or harsh, compared to others, yours just happens to be the video i decided to comment on when i heard it mentioned this time.
I actually have the same issues with Omikron the nomad soul, I've seen quite a few videos crap all over parts of the game when its really not that bad. Same goes for FF8's magic system, personally enjoy it more than some other FF's systems.
I always wondered how UO could be so good but the rest of the Ultima games seem designed by a middle school student.. Richard Garriots involvement in UO was much less than the number games. makes sense
I think that's a bit harsh, but I guess I can kind of see where you're coming from.
Especially now, some of the themes can seem simplistic and formulaic, but the series also in a way created those tropes for video games.
24:38 - based
nice
True story. I had to buy a new PC to run U9. It had an AMD card. The game at launch would not run on AMD. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find information about this stuff in 1999? Anyway, I had to buy an NVidia card and install it to get the game to run. I remain an Nvidia customer ever since. Sorry AMD! Cutting edge graphics was one of the things Ultima was known for. I almost always had to upgrade to play a new game. They made a mistake going for 3D before it had really been perfected for RPGs.
I hated this game so much. U8 was a huge betrayal of everything the Avatar stood for, but at least we were--we thought--back in Britannia and ready to set the world to rights. Nope. Back on Earth and lore mixed around and just ... ugh. Looking back, it probably wasn't as bad if you weren't an Ultima fan. Maybe.
Yeah, before the Internet became as common as it is now, finding information on those things was not particularly easy.
I still remember being fortunate enough to have access so I could download a patch for Fallout 2 from an ftp server because the launch version was so bugged they even withdrew it from the shelves here.
This discussion has been had here before, in the comments and on stream, but the short version: I understand why long term fans would have been disappointed with U9 at launch. It was bugged, has questionable writing, was very demanding on hardware, and had decades of expectations to live up to. In that sense I feel fortunate having missed the series for the most part when it was still new, as now the game works better, and I also didn't have to wait years for the next installment only to have my expectations not be met.
It's definitely flawed, but I feel there's a base for a good game there, even if they didn't manage to succeed in realizing that as much as would have been expected from the final part of the story of The Avatar.
more dialogue than Owlcat games
EA destroyed everything it touch 😢
I think this is a very solid game in its own right. Haters be damned.
Agreed. It's better than many make it out to be.
Så är spelet inte alls kiva!
Did you train AI with your voice? The commentary is super uneven and stilted.
No, I'm just a robot myself.
Yeah it almost sounds like somebody speaking in their non-native language, like maybe a Finnish dude speaking English? Weird
@@TheMonolith I watched his earlier videos from years back, and his delivery seemed natural and fine to me 🤷🏼♂️
@@tranilator Videos from years back? You mean livestreams, since I've only made video essay type content for barely a year.
If so, yes, the delivery is different because one is live and improvised and the other is recording a specific script.
@@finntrovert That makes sense. Anyway, I know I came across as a big jerk but I do appreciate all the Ultima content, so good on you mate.