Posted November 29, 2020
I have decided to revisit Ultima 8 after 10+ years; it was quite a fun experience, end-to-end. The final version I got my hands on feels different from the one I have played years back, even maybe for the "jumping fun" being more or less simplified. Unfortunately the patch did not glue story points together, so the game still feels at times like you're going aimlessly to places to try things. The feeling is that the game was only worked to detail until about the point you're done with the ancient necromancers and have to start the pilgrimage; from that point on there are different story portions stuck together without proper glue.
To go into more detail on story gaps:
* From a story perspective it feels like you should eventually go into the Zealan Shrine and talk to the ancient gods and learn of your destiny, but it's like a book with a few chapters missing. Birthplace of Moriens should have been in some ruined village or a temple somewhere, not in the middle of catacombs, like minutes away from the cemetery. Not having any more discussion points with Vividos afterwards also indicates that content was cut.
* The general advice the old gods provide to you is to go up in ranks with titan followers and subvert their respective organisations: this is pretty clear with Stratos: you get the respective blackrock fragment and they lose their healing powers. Or do they? The pre-patch version deactivates your foci once you get Breath of Wind (more in line with what should happen), the patched one does not. But when it comes to Hydros, it's not clear that you should free it in order to leave Tempests without power. Why would you do that, anyway, once Devon is in charge? Well, you need to, in order to get to Sorcerer's Enclave, but that's not clear beforehand.
* The sorcerer part is pretty well tied together, but from an endpoint perspective the intermediate decisions do not matter at all. E.g. Vardion or Bane? Sabotage the ritual of Pyros or just go along? Going with the blackrock fragment to the big pentagram to release Pyros or not? From a game perspective you should just get Tongue of Flames to Mythran for him to sell you the Ethereal Travel spell. Triggering fire storms is actually optional.
* When getting the remaining blackrock fragments, Avatar "knows" that Devon has one of them, without any previous indication. Conveniently, the particular chest also contains enough money for the final spell purchase, one more indication that corners were cut when designing the story. Getting the earth fragment is also pretty inconsequential - Vividos has nothing to say about that and Lithos doesn't care; it does not feel like that should be the case.
As for the gameplay itself, the game is pretty well tied together when it comes to fighting, jumping and character movements. There is only one spot in the Plane of Earth where it's hard to get the right position jump up, to the point of being a game stopper, but other than that it's just about saving often and experimenting with yet again another strategy.
My conclusion? The game had the potential to be much, much better than it ended up being, but something happened down the line.
To go into more detail on story gaps:
* From a story perspective it feels like you should eventually go into the Zealan Shrine and talk to the ancient gods and learn of your destiny, but it's like a book with a few chapters missing. Birthplace of Moriens should have been in some ruined village or a temple somewhere, not in the middle of catacombs, like minutes away from the cemetery. Not having any more discussion points with Vividos afterwards also indicates that content was cut.
* The general advice the old gods provide to you is to go up in ranks with titan followers and subvert their respective organisations: this is pretty clear with Stratos: you get the respective blackrock fragment and they lose their healing powers. Or do they? The pre-patch version deactivates your foci once you get Breath of Wind (more in line with what should happen), the patched one does not. But when it comes to Hydros, it's not clear that you should free it in order to leave Tempests without power. Why would you do that, anyway, once Devon is in charge? Well, you need to, in order to get to Sorcerer's Enclave, but that's not clear beforehand.
* The sorcerer part is pretty well tied together, but from an endpoint perspective the intermediate decisions do not matter at all. E.g. Vardion or Bane? Sabotage the ritual of Pyros or just go along? Going with the blackrock fragment to the big pentagram to release Pyros or not? From a game perspective you should just get Tongue of Flames to Mythran for him to sell you the Ethereal Travel spell. Triggering fire storms is actually optional.
* When getting the remaining blackrock fragments, Avatar "knows" that Devon has one of them, without any previous indication. Conveniently, the particular chest also contains enough money for the final spell purchase, one more indication that corners were cut when designing the story. Getting the earth fragment is also pretty inconsequential - Vividos has nothing to say about that and Lithos doesn't care; it does not feel like that should be the case.
As for the gameplay itself, the game is pretty well tied together when it comes to fighting, jumping and character movements. There is only one spot in the Plane of Earth where it's hard to get the right position jump up, to the point of being a game stopper, but other than that it's just about saving often and experimenting with yet again another strategy.
My conclusion? The game had the potential to be much, much better than it ended up being, but something happened down the line.
