And that is another thing, I have no control of it.

How do I use magic spells like how do I get the healer to heal?

How do I get the Warrior to attack that one monster?

What the fuck where the guys at Origin games thinking?

Hi guys, up votes for all the replies in this thread, thank you all.

I'm still unsure, it seems like a massive undertaking that could be frustracting by the sounds of it.

How do you all rate Ultima 8 and 9 for the record. Hardcore Ultima players seem to hate them, but some players who haven't played the other games seem to like the games. Could a less..devourt gamer, prefer those games? Ultima 9 looks pretty.

Essentially I fancied the prices on a bundle with the Kyrandia games, and it had the Ultima games and Jade Empite that I'd need to buy to get the discount.

So also any thoughts on Jade Empire?

Haven't played either, but my impression of them is... less than stellar.

Jade Empire...

It uses the same engine and even looks like Kotor, using a D20 system.

Actually the encounters are probably too balanced (Meaning you never feel like you are getting ahead)

The morale/karma system is the same as Kotor (good/bad points assigned by responses and how you finish missions)

The Dialog is pathetically weak (Good, Neutral and bad responses)

Story is linear.

Portions of the game are forgettable.



On the other hand it isn't a bad game. Good voice acting, the 'play' was my favorite part of the game.

It assembles all the Bioware RPG clichés, but I enjoyed it a lot, due to the setting, atmosphere and (mostly easy) martial arts action combat. You can check out this old review of mine for more info (as well as the other posts in that thread).

I personally like Ultima 9, but I'm apparently in the minority. A lot of people's issues with it is 1. breaking cannon 2. Since the development was so chaotic, with entire teams being shuffled off to other projects (UO), it came out rather, well, unfinished. There's some continuity issues with cutscenes showing things that aren't relevant anymore, etc. However, the gameplay is quite fun. The less you know about Ultima cannon, the less egregious it will be to you.

Ultima 8 is the one I'd defend the least. They tried to make it an action-heavy game and the game's interface and demographic just doesn't fit that. The results were, well, crap. As much as I can forgive a lot in a game, that one just seems very vexing to try to play through for not very much in the way of gamer reward. It wouldn't get my recommendation. I bet some people like it though.

Out of curiosity, which Ultima would you say is worse: Ultima 2 (which seems to be considered the worst of the early Ultimas) or Ultima 8?

Totally OT...

Personally, and with absolutely no facts, or even rumors, to back it up... I always had a hunch that Ultima 8 was possibly originally developed as a console game, e.g. for the NES or whatever was popular at the time. I mean, it seriously just seems like a new perspective on a console jumping game. There wasn't much of an Ultima-feel to it when I played it. In fact, I gave up on it somewhere in the middle, just tired of running around, getting lost, and jumping around with my single Super Ultima Brother character.

I haven't thought about that in years, but several mentioned U8 and U9 and I just re-thought that old thought. So, thanks for that. :)

Also, I only seriously played U6 (and none of the previous Ultima 1-5), bought but didn't play U7, tried to play U8 a little, but totally played AND FINISHED all of Ultima 9, and at the time (2000) I thought it was the most amazing game I'd ever played. I didn't have years of Ultimaxpectations, so I just played what the game was, and not what I'd wanted it to be. Yeah, there were annoyances... like fighting the same giant rat in the forest that re-spawned everytime you ran past the same tree, but on the bright side... he was always full of gold coins! Also, laying out those (regents?) on the pentagram just-so was a PITA. But looking at the big picture, U9 just blew me away... just being able to walk in "real-time" from one side of Britannia to the other? For whatever reason, I didn't have any Voodoo (memory manager) or graphics problems with the game. There was only one major bug I ever hit... when going underwater to that one Island, I think you were supposed to go back and talk to some guy but he wouldn't talk to me (or wasn't there), so I couldn't continue without restoring to an earlier save and replaying that little bit.

Also, for what it's worth, I thought U9 had the best "jumping mechanism" of any game I've possibly every played. I don't think you had to do much jumping in U9, but as I recall, if you could highlight the pixel you wanted to jump-to with that cursor (red dot?) in the middle of the screen, when you hit the jump key... you jumped RIGHT THERE EVERY TIME. I wish all games were this precise.

I don't know why I'm telling you this. I don't know why you're reading it. Go play something!

I saw this after my purchase, I ended up going for 7 and 8. I liked the look of 9 but the reviews were terrible, it sounds like maybe I would have enjoyed it after all. 8 seems to divide opinion the most though so maybe I'll get something out of it.

With the aid of a cane, probably. =P

Nice, useful links. Thanks.