Summary
A beautiful, immersive game, and a worthy conclusion to the great series
The Good
I feel this is the right time for me to write a review of "Ultima IX". I have completed
Ultima IV and
Ultima VII: Black Gate, and am currently playing
Ultima V. I plan to play and to complete all other Ultimas in the nearest time (except perhaps the first three). I love those games and I consider myself an ardent fan of the series. But the first Ultima I completed was this one, "Ultima IX: Ascension". I loved it when I first played it, but it was hard for me to understand precisely the things that were common to the entire series: the concept of the Eight Virtues and of the Avatar, the large game world with full interactivity and tons of items to find, the long and detailed quests, etc. Now, in the midst of playing "UItima V", I installed "Ultima IX" and played it again for a while. The result was as I expected: I love it even more now.
I thought a lot about this game's bad luck. At first, it was abandoned during the development, and had to be hastily re-made to fit modern standards (see the trivia section for the game). Upon its release, "Ultima IX" was mercilessly bashed by hardcore fans. Their complaints were of two kinds: 1) the game was extremely buggy and had too high system requirements, and 2) its story and gameplay were not of usual Ultima quality. I would like to refer to those complaints now.
I heard so much about the atrocious bugs of "Ultima IX", that even don't let the player finish it, but except for some usual graphical glitches and a few crashes, my copy of the game wasn't buggier than any other 3D game known to me. I didn't install any patch, and I played the original release of the game, and not the "Ultima Collection" edition. I played it on a Pentium III machine with 600 MhZ, 192 MB RAM, and a 32 MB ATI Rage graphic card, that was hardly a blockbuster system even four years ago. Today the high system requirements of "Ultima IX" are not an issue any more. More important is the fact that for the price of those system requirements you got one of the most beautiful games released in recent times.
Now to the more problematic issues: story and gameplay. Let's talk about gameplay first. As far as I could understood, the most popular criticism directed against this game was its weakness as an RPG. The reason for this "weakness" is simple: this game is not an RPG. It is simply not. There is very little role-playing in this game, except some minor elements (such as the ability to increase either strength or wisdom each time you level up, which occurs automatically after completing a quest). "Duh", - say the critics, - "that's exactly the problem!" No, it is not. You can't say the game is bad only because it doesn't belong to your favorite genre. "Ultima IX" is an action adventure, and it should be judged as such. If you reproach this game for not having enough role-playing, you reproach it for something it wasn't supposed to have at the first place. "Yes, but what about the great legacy of Ultima RPGs?!".. What about it? Is it written somewhere that every single Ultima game should be an RPG? Why is it wrong to make a series evolve into a different genre? Isn't a good game in a different style a much better result than a remake of the open-ended stat-based "Ultima V"?
As the other reviewer said: this is a trade. We trade open-ended, flexible gameplay and party-based, strategic combat for more focus on the story,more immersion in the game world through advanced graphics and music quality, and more physical contact with the environments thanks to the jumping, climbing, and swimming abilities. The linear gameplay also reduces the insanely high difficulty level and lack of user-friendliness of earlier Ultimas.
Is the trade worth it? I think it is. The story of "Ultima IX" has, thanks to its linearity, more characters involved in it, some of which play an important role in the game - there is even a love story in the game that would have been impossible if it had maintained the open-endness of earlier Ultimas. Many fans complained about the fact that this love story was forced down the throat, that you couldn't choose whether to have it or not. Once again: if you don't like things being "forced down your throat", play an RPG like "Ultima V". A "forced" plot is one of the attributes of adventure games, and you can't blame "Ultima IX" for having it. You have a full right to detest adventures in general and "Ultima IX" in particular, but this fact still doesn't make it a bad game.
"Maybe", - say other Ultima fans, - "but the problem is that even this forced story is not good!" Allow me to disagree. The story of "Ultima IX" follows directly the events that took place in the three last Ultima games, starting with Black Gate. While those three other Ultimas only introduces the Guardian without explaining anything about him, "Ultima IX" reveals the secret behind his origin. And trust me, the final plot twist of "Ultima IX" that makes you finally realize the meaning of the Guardian's presence, is the absolute crown of the series! It goes back as far as to "Ultima IV", and once again focuses on the ethical problems that have always been the core of the series. "Ultima IV" introduced for the first time the concept of an Avatar and of the Eight Virtues. "Ultima V" showed what happens when those virtues become law. "Ultima VI" dealt with tolerance and understanding to those who have a different set of virtues. The final Ultima trilogy is dedicated to the true nature of the Avatar and his archrival the Guardian, and without "Ultima IX" this storyline would have been left hanging in the air. "Ultima IX" delivers a brilliant and profound explanation to everything that was left unexplained. It also contains plenty of nostalgic elements, reminiscent of earlier Ultimas: you have to complete shrine quests, and the Eight Virtues, that were somewhat neglected in the last three games, once again play an important role in this game's story. Now you see how fragile is virtue, and how easy it is to forget about it. Shrines corrupted by the Guardian mean neglected virtues; the return to the virtuous path doesn't follow because the shrines have been cleansed, but because of the presence of the Avatar, the incarnation of the Eight Virtues. Both are symbols of good and evil that reside in people's hearts. In addition to that, there is the aforementioned love story, that certainly gives the game some "pepper" and that also tells us something about the pirates, who have been present throughout the whole series and who were always considered the "lower" citizens of Britannia. "Ultima IX" gives us yet another insight into the problem of ethics, and another lesson in tolerance.
Let's talk about something even most zealous critics don't criticize in this game, for a change: the graphics. Yes, they are gorgeous, with plenty of outdoor areas, and backgrounds that really come to life. This is probably how Britannia looked in the imagination of Ultima players, when they were playing the first Ultimas with CGA graphics back in the early eighties. Wooden houses, forests, caves, mountains, rivers, seas - everything is beautifully made. There is also an internal clock in the game, so you will see how the sun rises in the morning, or how the first starts appear on the sky, and so on. It is wonderful to see everything moves and breaths in this world, butterflies fly around, skeletons wander near a dungeon entrance, awaiting for their victims, people walk in towns, the night comes upon Britannia, it rains, and the Avatar, equipped with his swords, is resting on the bed in Lord British' castle, gathering the force for his new quest. I really didn't want to leave this world. It was a pleasure just running around, listening to the wonderful music, and looking at everything around you.
Speaking of music: it belongs to the most majestic, beautiful scores ever written for any game. The fans of Ultima will recognize the good old melodies, that are now superbly orchestrated and accompany you during your entire journey. Together with the music come impressive sound effects, to create one of the best soundtracks ever.
Back to the gameplay. It is not as non-linear and as open-ended as in earlier Ultimas, but it is still extremely flexible for an action adventure. The gameplay in "Ultima IX" follows the golden rule: let the player explore the world, and don't bother him too much with other things. The fights in "Ultima IX" are not difficult, maybe in the beginning they might seem a bit uncomfortable, but once you get a good weapon, you won't encounter too many troubles. The game also doesn't throw in an insane amount of super-hard bosses. The simply real time combat has many nice details and features. Each enemy type is more or less sensible to a particular kind of weapon. It's not to hard to figure out which weapon to equip against which enemy. There are plenty of weapons in the game, also some secret ones, and most of them look cool and are worth looking for. In addition, you can cast spells, but I was able to finish the game almost without casting them at all. You can, however, memorize spells you find using the classic Ultima system of combining various ingredients scattered throughout the game. This is all not necessary to do, but it is nice to know there were many things you still didn't try out after you have finished the game for the first time. The enemies themselves are fairly standard, from goblins and spiders to dragons and lyches, but there are some cool ones, such as hellhounds and skeletons that fall apart and combine their bones again if you don't take some into your inventory.
Following the great Ultima tradition, "Ultima IX" is wonderfully interactive. Everything that is not nailed down can be examined, pushed, removed, and taken. You can interact with pretty much everything you see, just like in "Ultima VII", but in addition to that, you also have physical abilities: jumping, climbing, and swimming. Every part of the game's world is opened, and you can explore it physically. In every corner there is something to find and to try, and at any point during your quest, no matter how liner its design is, you can just wander around and explore, admiring the marvelous graphics and enjoying the high interaction level.
You can jump whenever and wherever you want to. You can swim and dive everywhere there is water. You can climb on anything which can be climbed on. Most of the game is entirely physical, especially the dungeons are full of jumping or diving puzzles, but they are not nearly as frustrating as in other games of this genre. Each time you are facing a puzzle you have to solve, like "how do I enter this dungeon if the entrance is sealed?", you can try many things, look for secret passages, underwater areas, try to cast spells, or anything else that comes into your mind.
It is indeed true that the story development of "Ultima IX" is linear, there are no decisions you can make to influence it, and there are also no choices whether to kill or not to kill enemies or other characters. The game is divided into large sections, each one of which is a quest concerning a part of Britannia, and in each one of them there are dungeons you must complete before moving to the next section. However, together with this linear progressing, there are many things you can do in this game beside just following the main story. First, in each town there are some sub-quests to perform. Second, each location is full of unexplored areas, that you can search for some items, spells, or other things. Since the game offers you a full contact with its world, there are lots of things to try. And the world of "Ultima IX" is really huge - it is smaller than in earlier Ultima games, but I have never seen a larger world in a 3D game of that time.
The Bad
"Ultima IX" does have some flaws. The voice acting is poor, and the dialogues are not as lively and as natural as in "Utima VII". It is a pity, because due to the lack of party members one would at least expect more interesting conversations with Britannia's inhabitants. The realistic character behavior of "Ultima VII" is also gone - characters often don't move at all and don't seem to depend on the game's internal clock. Combat tends to be too easy - even with a druid character I had very few problems with hand-to-hand fights. I would also enjoy having Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre around again, if only for a while. Enemies (even such as wolves or rats) give you gold when dying, like in early Ultimas, which is pretty unrealistic and unnecessary.
The Bottom Line
"Ultima IX" is a great conclusion to a great series. Ultima fans say: stay away from this game. I am an Ultima fan, and I say:
play this game. I loved it when it was the only Ultima I played, and I love it now even more, after I have played other Ultimas. If this Ultima game were my last one, I would shed tears just at the sight of the beauty Britannia has become. Have patience with the game's story, be sure to play it until the end, and you will be fully rewarded.
To newcomers to Ultima series: maybe "Ultima IX" is not the best game to start with, since a lot of its ideas and concepts can be fully understood only after playing earlier Ultimas (especially "Ultima IV", which is anyway a must for any gamer). But if you don't mind the game's unique ideas, its long quests, and the unusual structure of its world, you are welcome to the best fantasy adventure game to appear in years.
To angry Ultima fans: you are in the world of "Ultima IX". Breath the fresh air. Raise your head. Look at the clouds. Look down, below the mountain side. Run around, jump around. Enjoy yourself. Don't grumble. Have fun. There are other good things in life beside non-linear open-ended RPGs. Don't worry. Be happy.
