Dino's Guide to Ultima VIII - Pagan

Contents

Plot

The plot in Ultima VIII - Pagan is probably one of the best. It features a desperate attempt of trying to escape the Guardian's world, after having been banished there by the Guardian. With few allies, the Avatar must make his way through numerous trials in order to learn the magic of the four elemental titans and finally overthrow them to use their power to form a Black Gate that can take him away from the world of Pagan.

Read more plots and reviews here:

The above listed links are external, and thus I hold no power over their content. Be warned that there may be mistakes in the plots at the above links.

Features

Gone is the inability to enter water, as well as the necessity to eat. The Avatar now is totally alone, but is capable of jumping and climbing. This game features numerous trials over water, in which a fall would be fatal. Many people complained that this game required too much saving and reloading because of various attempts required to overcome each obstacle, so a patch was issued to allow the player to enjoy the plot more.

Running U8 on modern machines

Ultima 8 is one of the hardest games to get to run on modern computers. You can try Ultima 8 in Windows to make it run, but it is not guaranteed to run. If it does, it may crash often, so be warned. I also recommend keeping a backup copy of the "Ultima8" folder, as sometimes, in my case at least, it crashes and does something that does not allow me to run the game any more from the particular executable. So what I do is copy the savegames to my backup folder and run it from there, throwing away the old folder and making a new copy.

Places where to download Ultima 8 in Windows:

Alternatively, you can try the Pentagram Ultima 8 Engine. While this is a work in progress and not everything in the original game has been implemented, it still allows you to experience much of the world of Pagan.

Remakes

There have been two projects aiming to remake Ultima VIII - Pagan. Unfortunately, both have been cancelled.

Ultima VIII - Exile, which began in mid-2002, was one of the most ambitious remakes. Corvwyn, the leader, aimed to remake Ultima 8 using the Neverwinter Nights engine, recreating the original Ultima 8 atmosphere with enhanced graphics, much better dialogue, an enhanced plot with corrected inconsistencies, and even additional side quests. The team was even considering creating The Lost Vale in the remake, once finished. I was the lead dialogue writer for the Exile team, and I also had given a hand with quests, and I was the one who came up with the name. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled in 2006.

Another Ultima VIII remake for Neverwinter Nights was being developed by The Red Mage. The Red Mage had even released a demo if his module, however he cancelled the project when he discovered that there was already an Ultima 8 remake for Neverwinter Nights (Exile) in existence. The demo does not seem to be hosted at NWVault any more, but the files have been salvaged and are available at Aiera's Ultima 8 page.

This Guide

This Guide consists of:

Other Guides

Other sites, or sections of sites, dedicated to Ultima VIII - Pagan can be found at:

Music

You may download the music of Ultima 8 from one of the following locations:

On the subject of music, the answers to Evil_Freak Dragon's quiz (number 5 to be specific) mention that the music of the Shrine of the Ancient Ones seems to be a modified version of the Kotl theme of The Savage Empire.

Pictures

If you want to see pictures of the game in action, consider the following links:

I found a little trick how to take your own screenshots of the game. First, run Ultima 8. Press the start button on your keyboard to go back to your desktop, and Ultima 8 should be frozen. Now click on Ultima 8 on your taskbar to go back to the frozen game, and press Print Screen on your keyboard. The screenshot is taken, now to paste it somewhere. Open your favourite graphics program and press Ctrl + V to paste the picture.

I know this works for me, but I don't know if it will work for anyone else because I don't know of anybody who tested it. Alternatively, to take screenshots, you can grab a screenshot program from the World of Ultima's Files. I haven't tried it myself.

If you would like to see scans of the box cover, visit the following places:

There are a couple of Ultima 8 screenshots on Gamespot: The Ultima Legacy which don't seem to feature anywhere in the game:

Credits

I must thank the following people:

Disclaimer

All contents, including graphics and text information, are copyright by me unless otherwise stated. The only graphic that comes from another source is the world map which was given to me by Xe Dragon who runs the HRUMP, and is therefore used with permission. All content in this site may not be reproduced in any way without my permission.

© by Daniel D'Agostino 2002-2007
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