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RPGDot Game Rating Machine |
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Nibble
has rated the following games:
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Ultima 8 - Pagan: 10/10 points |
Perhaps I am slightly biased because this is the first RPG I ever played, but surely no more so than those who choose to insult the game based on features that were patched out or the fact that it was not exactly like the other Ultimas.
This game drew me in like few games ever have, and probably ever will. It had an intriguing story (even if much that had been intended never made it in) and an excellent atmosphere. While the world was much smaller than that of Ultima 7, it had more detail.
The jumping added a new dimension to the game, and just jumping onto roofs and exploring "the thieves' highway" was an adventure in itself. Issues with "jumping puzzles" (among other things) were patched out not that long after the initial release, and patched versions were released for sale. Combat was also fun for me. Perhaps some are content to simply click on the thing they want to die and wait for the battle to play out, but I thoroughly enjoyed being an active participant, dodging, blocking, kicking, and hacking away. Believe it or not, but a fair bit of strategy could be employed using that system.
The magic system was simply amazing. Never have I felt like such a part of any world as when I was spending dark nights studying sorcery in ancient tomes, summoning demons from my pentagram and attempting to discover new spells. Each different school of magic had its own special methods, providing fun and variety. The avatar's various spell-casting animations were much better than simply seeing a fireball shoot out of his chest all of a sudden (as with previous Ultimas).
While NPCs did not walk from home to work and back again in front of you, they did have schedules and they did appear in different places at the appropriate times. Dialogue was much improved: selecting entire sentences, often with options for witty remarks, is VASTLY preferable to selecting from options such as "job" and "horse."
Interaction with objects was slightly reduced; by that, I mean that the player could not roll dough or bake bread, which is apparently extremely important to some people (I will admit that I enjoyed doing such things in U7 and SI, but COME ON). It did, however, have a nice little physics system. You could light a flask of oil on fire, throw it at a barrel, causing the flask to explode, sending the barrel fying off into a nearby guard. This was both fun and (at times) useful.
Some say that the avatar did things in the game that were inconsistent with his character: well, guess what? You tell the avatar what to do! Much of the game did involve trying to force the player to do things that may not fit with the eight virtues, but this is more of the classic morality play at work here: just what kind of ends will justify what kind of means? You also get much insight into life in a place ruled by the Guardian. In U9, the avatar was supposed to be haunted with visions of some of the things he did while trying to get off of Pagan, but I hear it was cut out when someone decided to change everything (I wouldn't know first hand, as I have never played U9).
In the end, Ultima 8 remains, for many reasons, one of my favourite RPGs of all time, right up there with Fallout and Underworld 1 and 2. |
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