Pagan: Ultima VIII

aka: Super Avatar Bros., Ultima 8
Moby ID: 723
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Ultima VIII: Pagan begins where Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle ended. The Guardian banishes the Avatar to the land of Pagan, a world under his control. Stranded in this unknown land, without his companions to help him, the Avatar's goal is to find a way back to Britannia. He has to confront four Titans in this world who are embodiments of the four elements, as well as master different styles of magic and fight many opponents on his way.

The gameplay is significantly more action-oriented in this installment than in the previous Ultima games. The Avatar is able to jump and climb, and some puzzles are based on these abilities, adding platform-style elements to the game. There are no companions to help him in battles; combat is action-based and relies on the player's dexterity. The game also abandons the leveling system of the previous entries, utilizing instead a training-based approach, similar to the one implemented in Quest for Glory games: the character's parameters are increased by continuously using correspondent actions (e.g. the Avatar's strength gradually increases as he swings his weapon).

Magic occupies an important place in the game, also departing from the style of the preceding games. The player still needs to gather reagents for spells; however, the exact preparation and casting of the spell differs depending on the elemental school it belongs to. There are four different magic schools in the game, and mastering their spells bears plot-related importance as well.

Like in the two previous Ultima installments, the game features physical interactivity with the environment: the player is able to take, drop, and move most objects from place to place. As opposed to the topic-based dialogue style of the earlier games in the series, Pagan uses conversations with selectable responses. It also reduces NPC interaction, focusing more on exploration of a hostile world and combat.

A speech pack was released separately, which added voices to some of the major game characters. It was included in the CD-ROM edition of the game.

Spellings

  • Ultima VIII: פגאן - Hebrew spelling

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 19 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 79 ratings with 9 reviews)

A big stretch, and a big departure from the previous Ultimas.

The Good
The graphics and sound are very good, and the mouse interface is fairly easy to learn and use for character control.

The Bad
It's almost nothing like all the other Ultimas. In fact, if you call it something else ("Land of Pagan", for example) and name the hero something else ("Gunther" instead of "Avatar"), you'd never know it was made to be an Ultima.

Also, combat is kind of tricky since it's real-time and mouse controlled. You can swing your weapon (normally used), or kick your opponent. Kicking is rather silly, I think, and contributes to the "Super Mario Brothers" feel of the game.

The Bottom Line
All the jumping and kicking aside, this is still an okay game to play. However, I think you'll like the other Ultimas better.

DOS · by Mirrorshades2k (274) · 2000

Welcome to the dark and dangerous world of Pagan

The Good
Ultima VIII: Pagan followed on the footsteps of one of the finest single-player RPGs ever created, Ultima VII: The Black Gate. That game was bright, cheerful, and your character could travel with as many as seven companions. Ultima VIII, in contrast, is a comparatively miserable affair where the only friend you can trust is whatever weapon you happen to be wielding.

Ultima VIII improved moderately upon the graphics of Ultima VII, but the color palette looks drab under the perpetual cloud of Pagan. Character animation is greatly enhanced, but this demands serious CPU cycles, no doubt requiring that you traverse the world of Pagan without the usual stalwarts of Iolo, Dupre, and Shamino to lower your already tenuous framerate.

The overall feel of the gameworld is rather grim. The citizens of Pagan are living under the yoke of four elemental Gods and their human representatives. Monsters range from gargantuan ogres to ponderous zombies to demonic imps. The spell system has been complicated from previous Ultimas, and while the alterations are not really improvements per se, they are nonetheless interesting enough for one installment of Ultima.

The Bad
Although everything about the world of Pagan reflects the grim sensibilities of its conqueror, The Guardian, the pervading sense of hopelessness actually makes it quite a memorable game. Being the lone wolf merely to escape this dark world, instead of being the usual paragon of virtue is a refreshing development for the series. The experience of butchering hordes of zombies with a great axe is a visceral affair, with more weight and gravitas to your swings and strikes than in Diablo and its sequel. Production values are uniformly high, the plot is largely forgettable, but the overall experience of playing through the game was well worth the money back in 1994.

The Bottom Line
While Pagan may have been somewhat of a let-down from the near-perfection of The Black Gate and Serpent Isle, it does stand in its own right as a very satisfying three-week gaming experience.

DOS · by Chris Wright (85) · 2009

Meet the action RPG colossus of its era

The Good
Pagan is the most controversial Ultima game, and is regarded by many fans as the lowest point of the series. The nickname "Super Mario Avatar" says it all. As soon as the game was released, accusations began to gush from sides: the jumping is ridiculous; my Avatar doesn't behave like an Avatar any more; this isn't real role-playing; Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre aren't there; Lord British, what hast thou done, etc.

Now, I can't deny that the change in gameplay compared to the previous entry in the series was perhaps too drastic to even justify the game's inclusion in it. That by itself, however, means only that Pagan has a strong chance of being considered a weak sequel. It doesn't speak for or against the actual game - it all depends on whether its new gameplay system is good or not. And it's very good, indeed.

The dissimilarity to earlier Ultimas and the ensuing rage of the fans prevented us from recognizing the game's undeniable significance. In retrospect, it becomes clear that Pagan was one of the founding fathers of modern action role-playing. Action RPGs had existed before - Falcom developed a whole sub-kind in Japan, and there were several examples in the West as well. But none of them came close to the rough, almost visceral treatment of Pagan. Action became an inseparable part of navigation and challenge, a key modifier that made the connection between the player and the protagonist closer than ever before - except, naturally, in the revolutionary Ultima Underworld games. In the realm of 2D games, however, that was an unsurpassed achievement: before Diablo conquered the world with its mad hack-and-slash, Pagan already delivered a serious action RPG formula that was in many ways deeper and more versatile.

I consider the addition of jumping and climbing a noteworthy enhancement of game mechanics. Most people ridiculed those new features. Maybe they could have been better executed (the Avatar is very clumsy, perhaps deliberately so), but the addition of physical interaction with the environment is a very important element. It creates a whole new dimension next to the already amazing interaction possibilities Ultima series has been offering in their later installments.

In Pagan, you can do even more things than before! It doesn't look this way because there aren't as many items and people in this game as there were in previous Ultimas, but the fact is that all the great interaction we were used to is still there - it wasn't "replaced" by jumping and climbing. You can still pick up any item you want and place it wherever you want. There are still a lot of things which are "just there", which you can examine and manipulate the way you like. And now fancy being able to climb on top of any building, or imagine how much more realistically treacherous dungeon navigation becomes when you are bound by physical laws.

The game's world is indeed smaller than in any previous Ultima and may seem monotonous, but it's still rich and detailed. There is a quite a bit of exploration to do in the game - Pagan is full of mysterious, dark locations, some of which are not necessary to visit in order to complete the game, like Pit of Death or the huge Slayer Dungeon. The flora of the game is unique (unlike the somewhat ordinary fauna - we've seen enough skeletons and trolls before), and the overall appearance is very original and stylish. This leads to another significant contribution of Pagan to the series - atmospheric immersion.

Pure, sensual atmosphere was not really important in Ultima games. Crafting detailed environments and abundance of items and creatures was more important than trying to actually express the serene beauty of hills, mountains, and rivers, or reflect the horrors of a dungeon. Not so in Pagan. The moment you start the game you realize you are in a bizarre, hostile world. The game is romantically dark and threatening, its stylish design including such strange and expressive things as deep, unnaturally dark blue water, or huge mushrooms growing everywhere. The technical quality of the graphics (which is clearly superior to than of the two previous Ultimas), is not the only reason for that. The designers tried to show maximum contrast between Britannia and Pagan, and they succeeded by creating a new original world.

The storyline of Pagan also appears to be simple and straightforward at first, but think of all the extensive background information we get in the game! In order to fully understand and enjoy this story it is necessary to listen carefully to what the characters tell you, and read books that are scattered all over the game. Thankfully, there are plenty of books in Pagan, ranging from simple magical instructions to detailed history of the world's culture.

Spellcasting in Pagan is deeper than entire gameplay systems of some other games. In order to flee from the unfriendly world you must become proficient in three kinds of magic - Necromancy, Theurgy, and Sorcery. Each one of the three types is unique, having its own spells and casting technique. Earth magic is the closest to the standard Ultima system: you mix reagents and prepare expendable spells. In order to be able to cast air spells, you must make foci out of silver ore, which then become extremely powerful magical spell-containing items of infinite charge. Fire magic system (Sorcery) is the most complex one. You put red and black candles at the corners of a pentagram, place required reagents near the candles, and then focus the spell on objects such as wand, rod, etc. Upon successful preparation of the spell, those objects become magically enchanted, allowing you to cast a limited amount of the spells they hold. Mastering fire magic is very difficult, but quite rewarding.

The Bad
So what is really wrong with Pagan? Not much if we see it as a standalone game; a lot if we recognize the legacy it claims to belong to. Almost every fan of the series will tell you the same thing: Pagan may be great in what it's trying to do, but it's not a true Ultima game.

Most of the game's flaws, therefore, become glaring only in the light of comparison. For example, an atmospheric dungeon crawler would probably work regardless of how many friendly NPCs it has and what they tell you. But when we compare Pagan to the magnificent worlds of earlier Ultimas, we begin to see the difference. The interaction with its citizens is noticeably more scarce; most people won't talk to you at all or say a few rude words. You will rarely see people on the streets, except professionals like guards and beggars in Tenebrae or various kinds of magicians in other places. There is no day and night cycle. Even a minor detail such as the absence of character portraits contributes to unpleasant coldness.

Pagan is also too small for an Ultima world. There is only one real city in the whole game, the rest of the settlements being tiny enclaves of necromancers and sorcerers. A very large portion of the game is occupied by a gigantic dungeon, the Catacombs, which is the only way to reach the key locations you'll have to access. The constant crawling through grim caves can get tiresome after a while.

The new "Super Mario Avatar" gameplay is not flawlessly executed, either. Before you bash it for being difficult and lacking grace, remember that - despite the derogatory nickname - it was never intended to mimic fast-paced platform games. That said, be sure to play the patched version of the game, because the Avatar is clumsy and hard to manipulate beyond any justification in the original release. Even in their post-patch state, controls can feel awkward and counter-intuitive. Sometimes you press down both mouse buttons four-five times in a row until our hero finally decides whether he wants to jump, climb, or just stand there, shaking his horned-helmeted head. Many times I was attacked by ghouls or skeletons from behind, but it took me several attempts to position myself properly and start teaching them lessons. If you miss the proper angle by an inch, the Avatar will begin to hit the air repeatedly, stupidly turning his back to the foe and moaning loudly whenever he gets hit.

Finally, Pagan lacks connection to the series' lore and abandons many concepts we loved and cherished in the previous installments. The word "Avatar", in particular, became nothing more but an empty formula, a kind of an abstraction that can be filled with any possible meaning. If a newcomer to the series were exposed to this iteration only, he would invariably conclude that an Avatar is a fairly brutal, rugged warrior whose main joy consists of angering powerful supernatural creatures and wreaking havoc in foreign lands.

The Bottom Line
As an Ultima game, Pagan is too atypical, delivering a "cultural shock" to the series' passionate fans. But taken separately, it is a rich and important game that did a lot of things we either take for granted now or don't even dare to demand any more. You can whine all you want about the Avatar losing his humility, but that does not change the fact that Pagan is a great action RPG ahead of its time.

DOS · by Unicorn Lynx (181788) · 2014

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Any Western action RPGs before this one? Unicorn Lynx (181780) Sep 9, 2014

Trivia

Cancelled add-on

The planned add-on The Lost Vale was all but finished and ready for duplication before it was cancelled in September 1994 due to poor sales of the main game. In September 2005, a prototype of the game box appeared on eBay and was sold for almost 2000 dollars. Its authenticity was confirmed by Origin artist Denis Loubet. More information on The Lost Vale, including a scan of the box, is available at PC Games That Weren't.

Engine

The Pagan game engine was recycled in Origin's Crusader series.

Pentagram

Richard Garriot used pentagrams as gameplay element because he thought the superstitions - many people believe pentagrams summon the devil - are ridiculous. During development, a few people actually left Origin because of this. After that, Garriot used the pentagram on the cover which caused some US retailers like Walmart to refuse carrying the game.

Plot

In the previous games, Avatar is rated mainly on compassion and doing good deeds. In Ultima VIII, the Avatar must turn all four planes of existence upside down by destroying the Titans of each plane, in order to escape. Many fans believed that this storyline ran counter to the spirit of the Avatar and the entire Ultima series.

Reception

Pagan was not well-received by long-time Ultima fans. A large number of them ridiculed the action and platform elements of the game, dubbing it "Super Avatar Brothers". The alternate nickname this game was known by is "Super Mario Avatar". Only a different wording, but still making a point about the gameplay and jumping puzzles.

Richard Garriott, the producer of this game, admitted himself that it was released too early, incomplete and with too many bugs. The patch Origin released soon afterwards corrected most of the issues and made jumping easier. The CD ROM release is already patched.

References

  • Like Ultima VII, the game contains a reference hinting at the mighty corporate power of Electronic Arts. In Mythran's abode, a magical, morphing object appears, which continuously changes shape between cube, sphere and tetrahedron, and labeled differently during each change. These are the items the former EA logo was made out of.

When double-clicking the item, the avatar kneel and says: "I have not the strength, nor the wisdom to master such power... but one day I shall!". Obviously, Richard Garriott was behind this. * Check out the graves on the graveyard - on one of them there is the following epitaph: "Here lies Arnold. Hasta la vista baby!" An obvious reference to the movie Terminator 2.

Release history

At least in Europe, there were two different releases of the CD-ROM edition (not counting the budget releases). The first one came in the same box as the floppy disk release, with a "CD-ROM" sticker added to distinguish it from the floppy-based version. It included the speech pack, but was the same otherwise.

The second version had a redesigned box and was released in 1995. Unlike the first CD-ROM edition, this one was fully patched to fix all the bugs and plot holes that the game originally had.

Titans

The names of the four Titans are Greek words, that correspond to the elements the Titans represent: * Pyros (fire) * Lithos (earth) * Stratos (air) * Hydros (water)

Tumbling Avatar

In the original release of Ultima VIII there was the feature, that the Avatar, when hit hard in combat, fell on his back and had to get to his feet again before he could continue fighting. They later removed this in the patched version because players considered this very annoying. But you can still watch this feature when fighting a creature named Changeling. If the Changeling has taken the shape of the player and so you are fighting "yourself", the false Avatar will still fall on his back when he gets hit.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #20 Worst Game of All Time

Information also contributed by Kasey Chang, Sciere, Terok Nor, Unicorn Lynx, WildKard, WindowsKIller and xcom1602

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe, G. Ganesh, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Pseudo_Intellectual, Crawly, phorque, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 11, 2000. Last modified February 11, 2024.