It has taken a while, as we’ve both been busy, but Felipe Pepe and I have finalized my review of Ultima 9, which will appear in his forthcoming cRPG Player’s Handbook.

Actually, in a roundabout way, it was this article that led me to contribute to the Handbook. When I first became aware of the project and looked over Felipe’s list of games he wanted reviews for, all of the Ultima games — including the spin-offs — were listed…except for Ultima 9. The final single-player Ultima was slated to be relegated to a footnote of the Ultima 8 review.

After some discussion, Felipe agreed that Ultima 9 did merit its own article, which I agreed to write. Initially, it was supposed to be a one-page deal, but after further consideration, it was decided that some elaboration upon the game’s development history was in order, resulting in the two-page article visible above.

I do wish I had done more to elaborate on the complexities of the combat system, although these were rather poorly documented and not at all obvious…it’s certainly forgivable if most players think of combat in Ultima 9 as being more clicky than strategic. But overall, I think it’s a pretty even-handed discussion of the game’s flaws and merits.