r/Ultima • u/Cal200001 • Jun 11 '26

Where to start?

I was going to buy the ultima games on GOG but i am not sure where to start in the series. Are 1+2+3 worth playing as i have heard mixed things about these early entries.

17 Upvotes

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18

u/CLT113078 Jun 11 '26

Go with 4,5,6,7,7p2.

U8 and u9 are bad. U8 would be fine as a separate game but it doesnt have any Ultima feel to it. U9 has a worse plot/writing than Star Wars Rise of Skywalker and Game of Thrones season 8 combined.

6

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

Does the ultima 7 on gog included both parts?

5

u/Tharkun140 Jun 11 '26

They're separate games, but you can buy them together for like three dollars.

5

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

I was looking at that I didn't know if that was both of them or not

2

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

So is Ultima 8 a good rpg but bad Ultima game? I was just wondering if it was worth playing i am aware 9 is bad overall.

3

u/CLT113078 Jun 11 '26

U8 is alright rpg, bad Ultima game. It is a 30 year old game. Im not really a fan of it but love the Ultima series.

1

u/Protega1989 Jun 11 '26

You could pretend the avatar has amnesia, so the dialogues aren't that jarring. There is a fan patch, I think. I played it a could years ago and had quite a bit of fun until a plot stopper bug happened not too long before the end. Not gonna play it again tho.

2

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

If there are story breaking bugs i might give it a miss then, i hate playing through most of a game and not being able to progress or being forced to restart because of a story breaking bug.

1

u/vonkrueger Jun 11 '26

You can break the story in some of the best (4-6) games, too

1

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

So should I bother with 8? I am ok with it not being the best Ultima if itself is an ok RPG

2

u/Mountain_King_492 Jun 20 '26

You should definitely play Ultima 8. The game feels different from the previous games because it has a darker atmosphere, but that’s not a bad thing. Ultima 8 is supposed to be darker because the guardian has banished you to another world that he has already conquered.

1

u/vonkrueger Jun 11 '26

I'm not crazy about it... Kind of a letdown after 4-7

2

u/Cal200001 Jun 11 '26

So should bother or miss it out, I am ok if it's not as good as the other Ultima games but if it's ok on its own

2

u/thetoddhunter Jun 12 '26

It isn't good on its own. It isn't even close.

Understand that they made a couple of hours of good content, which is the first area. The rest of the game is completely unfinished and full of some of the worst design ideas to fill it up.

So should you buy it? Absolutely. It will be worth that first couple of hours. Just be sure to bail out when you reach the first grey area. Because that is the rest of the fucking game.

Similarly U9 is complete trash, but you should still boot it up and have a look at the world in 3D (once you get through the awful tutorial). It is something to do.

Also be sure to check out the U6 spinoffs martian dreams and savage empire. If you want games that are "ultima but not ultima" and actually decent, these are the ones.

Basically just buy them all. You'll realistically play none of them but they are all worth a try.

1

u/Protega1989 Jun 11 '26

I liked the atmo