Video games - Ultima VIII

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	Video games - Ultima VIII

Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994) is the eighth part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. It was not as well received as Ultima VII
leading many, including Richard Garriott, to blame its faults on hasty development used to meet the release date and appease Origin Systems owner Electronic Arts.

Overview

Following the defeat of Batlin on Serpent Isle, the Guardian banishes the Avatar to a world that he has already conquered, Pagan.

The world of Pagan is in eternal twilight as the result of an ancient battle between the Elemental Titans and the evil "Destroyer", which resulted in the victory of the Titans. However the people of Pagan had to pay a high price: the Titans had to henceforth be worshipped as gods. The Titans bestow powers on their most ardent followers, but they are otherwise cruel and unloving rulers, and their followers terrorize the general population.

In this part of the series, Garriott delegated most of the work to others, and the result disappointed many fans. Garriott later explained, "... I sacrificed everything to appease stockholders, which was a mistake. We probably shipped it three months unfinished." ()

Common complaints were:

The world was much smaller than in the preceding parts
NPC portraits were no longer included
Day-and-night cycles were removed (Pagan's twilight was truly perpetual in-game)
The game went back from the "party" concept to the "lone hero" of the first two Ultimas
Battle against enemy characters was pure hack and slash clicking in the vein of Diablo
Platform game style jumping across moving platforms was introduced
No misdeed against the populace was possible - any attempt would cause a swift death by Deus ex machina
Major holes in the plot
Frequent bugs/glitches

A patch was released to correct the game's bugs as well as fix some plot holes, and eliminate most of the problems with jumping (the original release contained a lot of action game - styled nonsensical moving platforms to be jumped across; the patch stopped their motion), but by then the damage to the game's reputation had already been done. However, this fixed version was an immense improvement that made the game more bearable, even if not close to the immediate predecessors' standards.

Ultima VIII has a much darker tone and a very different premise, in comparison to most of the Ultima games. In this version, the Virtues system was completely abandoned, and it featured an entirely different system of magic and bestiary. These were certainly some of the reasons that made many fans, already used to the old style of the series, upset with Ultima VIII, despite its numerous interesting features.

The Ultima VIII engine was later reused in the Crusader game series.

Plot

Ultima VIII sets off where Ultima VII
ended: The Guardian has grasped the Avatar from the Void, and now drops him into the sea of the world Pagan through a pentagram-shaped portal. In the introduction, the Guardian reveals his plot:

The Avatar regains consciousness on the shore after being rescued from the sea by a fisherman (who turns out to be an important character later on in the plot). He soon witnesses the execution by beheading of a townsman, ordered by the tyrannic ruler of the region, Mordea.

Later, visiting the wizard Mythran, he learns that there are four titans on Pagan, each one having one of the Elements as his/her domain: Water (Hydros), Air (Stratos), Fire (Pyros) and Earth (Lithos). The more privileged followers of Lithos are identified as necromancers, the followers of Pyros as sorcerors, the followers of Stratos as theurgists and the (albeit highly selective) followers of Hydros as tempests. Apart from those, a fifth type of magic known as Thaumaturgy exists and is pioneered by Mythran. In order to escape Pagan, the Avatar has to overcome many obstacles and master the ways of all titans, finally becoming the Titan of Ether: the magical field and fifth element.

During his quests, the Avatar collects the four artifacts of the Titans, unleashing violent thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes and meteor showers by doing so. These artifacts allow him to enter the Ethereal Plane and defeat the Titans on their own turf. The Avatar then reconstructs the original blackrock gate that originally allowed the Guardian to enter Pagan. By entering the reconstructed gate, the Avatar is teleported back to Britannia, which is now ruled by the Guardian.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ultima VIII ]

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Video games - Ultima VIII

Overview

Plot

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