Ultima VIII - Pagan

The Avatar's body sits in a cage awaiting execution. That's how Ultima VIII begins, and it's immediately clear — this world plays by different rules than the previous installments. You're not here as a savior; by falling into a foreign world, you've ended up as a prisoner. That's not the only dirt under the fingernails: Origin Systems was trying to change everything here, and with that change they actually divided the fanbase into two camps that persist to this day.

In 1994, Origin releases an action-RPG set in the world of Pagan — a setting where magic isn't about justice, but about primary forces. Your goal isn't as clear and pure as in previous Ultimas. You have to discern who are the real heroes and who are just more lords with their own interests. The game takes you from a lower city through mage-guilds to a midnight world where space isn't confined to a single level, but to interconnected dungeons and rooms in 3D isometric projection. That was something in the nineties; other RPGs were still playing camps and dialogue. Here you're walking through architecture.

Playing it, though, is... numbing. The hero's initial weakness isn't a dramatic challenge, but suffering. You spend a while crafting spells, gathering materials, and waiting for your character to gain strength — and that's not much different from waiting for an image to load on a very slow connection. Combat happens in real-time, which was novel, but also a ban on deciding without stress. When you finally hurl a spell, it takes ages to reach you. The controls aren't like classic Ultima, where you were more about navigating than fighting. Here it's a middle ground between action-adventure and RPG, and unfortunately it stumbles in both.

The original Ultimas had a character you remember as atmosphere. Pagan digs that atmosphere in darkness — in strange gods worshipped as primary forces, in a story that seems simple but isn't. The game isn't bad, just different; Origin wanted to create it as a standalone world, not the seventh chapter of a legend. Except it's the eighth, not the seventh, and that difference was a problem for the community. The isometric engine's graphics are elegant; the sound and music by Michael and Andy Flanagan aren't as sharp as the eighth's Teran Paul and Dennis. It's a magical and at the same time alienating experience.

Today looking at it through rose-tinted glasses isn't a betrayal, but an admission of what it did to you — it either fascinated you as an attempt or frustrated you with its decisions. Playing it in DOSBox or an emulator makes sense precisely because Pagan is still itself; it didn't pretend and didn't try to please everyone. It's a game that won't budge, and that's the point.