Information Ultima VIII Gold Now Available on GOG

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: GOG; Ultima VIII: Pagan

Some of you may be interested in the fact that Ultima 8: Gold Edition is now available on GOG.com.

The Guardian has tricked you, Avatar. After you defeated Batlin on Serpent's Isle, he banished you to Pagan, a world under his control. Once, it was a beautiful land, but ever since the ancient battle between the Elemental Titans and the evil "Destroyer", it is engulfed in eternal twilight. Titans - now worshiped as gods - are cruel and uncaring. They bestow power on their most dedicated followers who, in turn, terrorize Pagan's population. To find a way back home, you need to become a Titan yourself before the Guardian succeeds in his plot to conquer Britannia--and then Earth itself.

The eighth installment of the Ultima series takes a much darker tone. The story is much more mature (do the ends justify the means?) and the game focuses more on action, like climbing and jumping across platforms. Training your character has also changed: the more you use an ability, the better you are with it. Without a party to assist you, you must rely on your own strength, dexterity, intelligence, and magical abilities to save Britannia and Earth.​

I was about to make a joke on how this old game isn't particularly good, but the point is moot now that GOG.com officially isn't about "good old games" anymore. Oh well.

Still, you may be interested in this because hey, only $5.99! Besides, by buying it via the above link, you not only get to sigh at what happened to the Ultima series, but also support the RPG Codex. Supporting the Codex by buying a crappy old game. Ironic, isn't it?

 

[Jaesun]

Pagan is my 3rd favorite Ultima. FUCK THE HATERS! (The magic system is awesome).

 

[Bluebottle]

Aye, but the rest of the game is a big bag of old shite.

Honestly, though, the setting is pretty interesting and the general premise of the story (especially its climax) is damn awesome. Just a crying shame most everything else in between is so fucking awful.

 

[Infinitron]

"Gold Edition"? Why, because it has the speech pack and a patch?

They bestow power on their most dedicated followers who, in turn, terrorize Pagan's population.

Only Mordea really fits that description and she only has her powers because of heredity. Lore check fail

 

[St. Toxic]

If you like Ultima 8, then maybe you would enjoy Dark Souls. It has jumping and magic and is actually not that different. In fact, there's even a guy who kind of looks like the Avatar from U8.

http://armaitus.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ultima8.png
http://i.imgur.com/W6bBW.jpg

 

[made]

"Gold Edition"? Why, because it has the speech pack and a patch?

Perhaps the expansion is included as well.

 

[Infinitron]

"Gold Edition"? Why, because it has the speech pack and a patch?

Perhaps the expansion is included as well.

Haha, I wish

 

[Azalin]

"Gold Edition"? Why, because it has the speech pack and a patch?

Perhaps the expansion is included as well.

If they managed to do that they could ask for 59.9$ and I would buy it out of curiosity

 

[SCO]

http://armaitus.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ultima8.png

Cut content in mah game!?

 

[Nattvardsvin]

I believe the speech pack makes it the "Gold Edition".
Anyway, it says that the The Chronicle of Pagan and the manual is included. But as far as I know, The Chronicle of Pagan IS the manual.

 

[Metro]

Game is not fit to be called Ultima.

 

[villain of the story]

Back in the day when Crusader: No Remorse came out, the game showed you ads of other Origin games every time you quit the game, IIRC. Or maybe it was just the installation. I can't recall which. But there were screenshots of Pagan and being the little illiterate graphics whore I was in my young age, I was fascinated with it and always wanted to play it but could never find it then.

I was lucky.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The game has its redeeming qualities as well as plenty of decline, but I do wish that the description of 'a more mature approach' where you need to judge whether the ends justify the means was actually correct (as opposed to an apparent wilful stomping on the avatar concept, leaving it to desperate fans to try to reinterpret in a manner that fits the earlier games).

I can see that sort of approach genuinely fitting the long-term Ultima themes. A first act (U1-U3) that follows traditional crpg kill the foozle, 'might makes right' and defeat the bad guy by whatever barbaric means are necessary. A 2nd act where you turn the land into one of virtue and civilisation by becoming a paragon of virtue yourself. And then a 3rd act in U8/9 (let's assume a potential 9 that wasn't shit) where you're finally faced with the decay of all that is created, with an evil too powerful to be defeated without the avatar sinking at least partway into evil itself. A running theme of whether perfect virtue is capable of facing down evil, or whether it's ultimately a form of cowardice that either lets evil run amok or forces others to do the necessary dirty work while you keep your hands clean (so instead of 'good v evil' as you might have in the 2nd act, or 'anything goes' from the first act, you have 'clean hands but a hypocrite' vs 'make yourself into a monster so that others can keep their humanity' in the final 2 games.

I'm not thinking an emo ultima insomuch as a high tragedy - no avatar moaning about how dark he's become, or wanting to do the right thing, etc. Whichever way the player takes it, the avatar should remain a being of certainty in his conscience. If the player chooses something, the avatar shouldn't whine about how horrible it is: he should do it with full heroic certainty that he is doing the right thing, letting the player and the consequences determine whether he's right.

At least it would have been better than a semi-arcade rpg that simply stomped on the lore.