🚀 go-pugleaf

Well. Oops I did it again :)

Hi Guys. Yep, this means that I was once again browsing GOG website, and 
lo and behold, found myself yet again staring at a purchase
confirmation receipt in my mailbox :)

This time they had all Ultima titles as a bundle for 7,95$. Myself,
I am, rather not surprisingly, an Ultima Buff and veteran. I owned, and
completed  Ultima 4 + 7(with both addons) years back, and owned but
never completed 5+6+8. I bought 9 at full price the time it got out,
and did finish it, but to very mixed feelings.

So why go back to a title that holds only sentimental, not any kind of
ambitious replay, nor just about any other value whatsoever ? Good
question :)

Ultima titles, at the time they were released, usually pushed the
technology envelopes quite far. Good example of this was their own
memory management system developed for U7 - we all were struggling with
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS tweaks at the time, trying very hard to
LOADHIGH everything we could, and in correct order to squeeze out that
ast 2-3kb of conventional memory :) But not U7 - their memory manager
easily used my whole whopping 4MB (yes ! :), however at a price - it
really required to have a dedicated disc to boot to :)

 From graphics standpoint, in U9 days, 3D graphics usually meant
isometric, blocky  Lego Duplo - type of worlds. Doom (1) had been
released, and while we all were gasping  for air playing it, it still
really didn't do justice or prepare us to what was to  emerge - the
whole wolrd of Ultima, land of Britannia, seen and experienced in
open-world 3D !

Well of course, it wasn't, in truest sense of the word, really an
*open* world,  sandbox nor free-roam (call it
what you like) but at the time any idea resembling such, say, Skyrim,
was just about as realistic as anything else on Star Trek... however it
was really first time, and that way, also technologically
groundbreaking, that a complete fantasy world would be presented in 3D,
with at least some freedom of movement and free choice of action.

So yes, perhaps this title can be justified to sit on my shelf on GOG :)

Well, nostalgia aside, thousand pound question then remaining, how does
it stand the challenge of time ?

To my modest surprise, well. Do NOT expect it to be a cutting edge RPG,
nor really even an adventure, but rather hack-and-slash-thru a Mario
Bros. platform game with a *quite* silly story interwoving some,
occasionally embarrassingly  awful and forced, separate episodes of a
fantasy novel. Don't frown though, *SOME* of the  chapters are
good/very good even by today's standards, both in quality of story and 
technical  quality of the game visuals, however this is really rebuked
at other places and times even more violently than those good parts
would allow.

Use, and learning to use, of magic, has always been essential part of 
Ultima games. However, just about in every new game, they tweaked the
magic system to this or that direction from the previous one. Not
always succeeding very well. U9 system makes use of a spellbook, which
is almost blank in the beginning (there are only a couple *very* basic
ones), and you are supposed to fill it up, little by little, by either
purchasing, finding or indeed even stealing, scrolls that lay somewhere
out there in the open world. You need some magical ingredients, and a
"binding circle", a magical pedestal of sort at which you then perform
a "binding ritual" to transfer the spell from the scroll into your
spellbook. After that, it will be at your disposal from that point on.
Sounds very promising and indeed, the system would have been quite
good, unless they hadn't misdone the game balance so bad.

Yes, the game balance. And let's expand that to include the Ultimaesque-
essential RPG elements as well. Well, there are none. Nothing worth
mentioning, anyway.
HUH ?!

In all Ultimas, since Ultima4:Quest of the Avatar (the one game in
series, which basically is considered "Point zero", because that
chapter really established all the characters, locations, magic system
and basically all the canon of the land, in the Ultima universe),
character class has been a very strong basic premise for skill
development. For example, a Mage would be able to use
magic from the beginning while not even being *able to lift* a sword -
whereas a Knight could skin a Goblin alive with a broadsword but not
use magic even to light a torch. Not in U9.

All Ultima games begin with a Gypsy Queen interview, in which you the
player, answer questions to judge between various virtues. Questions
never have right or wrong answers, only personal preference over other.
Then after series of questions, you will be assigned one of
the eight classes available, each with pros and cons in attributes,
such as strenght, dexterity, charm, intelligence, etc.etc., and as I
said, in previous Ultima games, class was really a defining
matter how the game will unfold, and needs to be played, to that
particular class of character.

Not in U9. All classes climb the same, jump the same, fight the same
and cast spells with the same (poor) skills. "Incredible strength" of a
Knight means squat, when you have only a dull dagger to
hack at a giant rat with, or "Brilliant Intelligence" of a Mage means
squat when only spell you have available would be that to start a fire.
Regardless of class, every single character must go through
the nauseatingly long period of building up of basic, *even somewhat*
decent equipment - and of a  sudden, once you find more powerful
weapons and armour, all combat suddenly becomes a piece of cake
and goblins and pirates start falling like fleas all around you ! Very
very poor buildup balance,  from any point of view. And adding to this
is the fact that you find superior physical weapons much
earlier in the game, than relatively more powerful spells, this quite
simply means that you will  in fact have only one possible way to play
the game - the way of the sword.

So, how does then the biggest asset - and question mark - of the game,
the 3D world answer to expectations ?

At that time it was wonderful, imaginative, working, breathtaking, and 
(add your own master word) all at the same time. Some hickups were part
of the day back then, such as clipping problems, transparency problems,
outright bugs/glitches in textures etc but you wouldn't ever notice
those as there was so much more to marvel. And *to a surprisingly high
degree, it still works*. There are few such beautiful vistas that, I
still remember, I used to boot up the game just to take a walk out
there to marvel.

Most of the time it still is quite practical, and does the job it is 
supposed to do.


However. Its age becomes very apparent in the need to cramp the whole
scenery so tightly together.  Obviously, memory and disc space
were crucial factors at the time they developed this game, and
therefore, everything is squeezed in  together so tightly it borders
claustrophobic. And not only claustrophobic, sometimes even quite
ridiculous and disporpotional effects happen: You fall down from a
cliff into ocean, with vertical walls all around you. No Problem, just
swim around the northern cape of the continent, and resume your
trail :) Or, hike around the countryside for about a simulated week's
journey to reach a far away dungeon,
but after exiting the dungeon, just slide down the mountainside right
onto town of Britain western gate :)

In a bit more serious tone, this also affects perspective of the
scenery - things are designed to look far away, but if you choose to
count your steps, that far away mountain will actually be physically
closer than say, Lord British castle is from the center square of the
town of Britain. Or that the whole town of Moonglow is in fact smaller
than the throne hall of the castle. OH well, what not to believe in a
fantasyland :):)

In connection with the scenery being a bit hard to read, it is also good 
to note that scenery design does serve also another purpose - the
story is *very* linear, and lots of scenery design decisions are there
to keep the storyline intact. The world is *not* open nor sandbox - you
are in fact allowed access only to small part of it at any time, and
you must complete different quests/areas (=towns) in  specific order.
Basically this would not be such an issue, but there are obvious
logistical questions and backtrack difficulties, that can be solved
later in the game, but in fact it is very tedious chore to figure out
what and how to carry supplies at any given subquest, where to hide
stashes and how much to allocate time and energy to sidequesting
(Remember from my previous posts, I am *not*
the kind of gamer who snoops at every nook and cranny and finds delight
at every new hidden piece of stuff- but rather objective-oriendted
problem solver with a mindset of a armoured personnel carrier :)

Regardless of the random amusing tidbits in the overall scenery, I will
give it a general thumbs-down. PErhaps Oblivion/Skyrim type of vast but
empty worlds are still a bit hard to swallow at the other end of the
scale, but in this aspect, game is really a child of its era and the
limitations of that era are evident.

Final verdict: At the end of the day, still an entertaining and at some
places, quite good piece of vintage gaming, with some serious
shortcomings however. NOT an RPG, nor really even an adventure.

Rather a 3D hack-and-slash with stuff-gathering element thrown in to
make up a storyline.

With all silliness, will still be in my books 3½ stars out of 5.

Cheers!
R.