It would also create a lot of press attention.

I liked this game back then, even finished it. It was much simpler game than e.g. U7 I guess, but I liked the weird setting and world, and the Sound Canvas music on this game was excellent, possibly the best General MIDI/Sound Canvas music I remember hearing in any game. (that bashing video review was apparently playing it with tinny Adlib sounds).

It is a good idea to play the game with General MIDI, using BASSMIDI with some good SCC-1 compliant soundfont, I guess. It adds to the atmosphere a lot.

I played it patched, so I wasn't affected by the moving platform jumping puzzles etc. Overall, an ok game. There may be many quirks to the gameplay, e.g. I remember that you could level up by just jumping in one place over and over again. I don't remember if that was possible with the patched version.

Ah Ultima 8. Had it been called anything else, it would probably (in its patched stated) have been considered a pretty decent game. But Ultima 7 it aint. Same with Ultima 9, had it (in its patched state) not been called Ultima, I'm sure it would have garnered a lot less hate.

I actually liked Ultima 8. Not nearly as much as Ultima 7, but still, it is a fun game.

Nice, wishlisted this one (must finish all the others first...)

Wishlist +1

I love all the hate it's already getting in the user reviews. Good thing I don't pay much attention to those things. I always try to judge a game on its own merits whether it is part of a greater series or not. Also, this way I often can appreciate and enjoy earlier titles that may not have been as refined as later ones, i.e. Populous, HoMM...

I only ever played through the demo of Ultima 8, but I distinctly remember liking it quite a bit. Now where did I leave my wallet? Seems like my backlog is progressing in reverse again. *le sigh*

Aaah yes... now THIS is the one I've been waiting for!

Awesome, just awesome.

Nice to hear that GOG is selling the most patched and complete version of the game (with voices and fixes) It was the least it could do in this case

I wish people's reviews of this game were based on the GOG version and not on what they experienced back in 1994.

I own this game on CD but have never been able to make it run on any of my computers. So I am very excited about this release, but all the criticism makes me wonder... Is it worth buying it? What about the GOG version, really?

Typo alert!

I have faith in GOG that they have it working for XP and Vista, and hopefully Windows 7 too. Also, I haven't played this game before but I'm interested in getting it, likely will next paycheck. From what I've gathered it seems like a game people enjoyed for what it is, while some people hated it because of what it wasn't (Ultima VII). Gripes about bugs are understandible, but at the present, what with the patch available, it doesn't sound like a valid complaint anymore and only the people from the latter category continue to use it as a reason to hate the game.

Also, it's only $5.99. ;)

Always good to have more Ultima on GOG, and this one's a favourite of mine, not because of it's gameplay, but because of the atmosphere.

Not gonna fault you for not liking Ultima VIII... but to see GOG sticking to their promise to keep bringing us fuddy-duddies older games is awesome, whether you're into each individual game or not. :)

It is an instabuy to me more because it's Ultima than because it's fun. That said, it is a lot a fun. Back in the days when it was released, I had all the problems everyone talks about. I hated not being in Britannia in an Ultima game. I hated the interface and bugs. I preferred the Ultima VII combat system, hated the new mouse-mashing combat. It still kept me hooked for months and I still went back to it every now and then.

People sometimes rate Fallout III 1/5 stars (not here on GOG of course). Why? Is it really 1/5? I mean, compared to, I don't know, ANY OTHER RPG, is it worse? No, of course not. They rate it 1/5 because Fallout II came before.

It's the same thing with Pagan.

This. No matter how bad it was back in the days, the patched version doesn't deserve a single "unplayable" or "horrible" review. Or 1/5 ratings for that matter. It is inferior compared to Ultima VII because Ultima VII was arguably the best CRPG released yet and in many aspects it still is. Rating it 1 star is like saying this is worse than any other game on the site. People are writing very unbalanced reviews for Pagan here, considering their passion for the series instead of the standalone game.