Ultima IX: Ascension



Ultima IX: Ascension is the tenth (and most likely final) installment of the main series and the fourteenth in the entire series (counting the Worlds of Ultima and Ultima Underworld I and II). It was released and published by Electronic Arts for the IBM-PC in 1999. It is the final part of the "Age of Armageddon" saga.

In many ways, Ultima IX is the most controversial of all the Ultimas released. It was released incomplete and buggy, requiring patches to function correctly. Also, while the game's graphics and music were praised, many other aspects were harshly criticized by fans of the series, such as the lack of a party and the inclusion of action or platform gameplay elements. The game also faced criticism for its simple story and allegedly poor voice acting. The team that worked on it also seemed to have had little experience with previous Ultima games, meaning that innumerable details of Ultima continuity were either ignored or wrongly interpreted. It was, in short, an extreme disappointment for some fans.

While Ultima IX is the official conclusion of the Ultima series, many fans tend to consider this game non-canon and disregard its story.

Included with the game
The release of Ultima IX included these things with the game:
 * The book Journal.
 * The book Spellbook.
 * A cloth map of Britannia
 * The eight Cards of Virtue (same as in the game)

Differences between the ports
Ultima IX was exclusively produced for the PC, therefore other official ports of the game do not exist.

The Story
The Guardian creates eight huge columns, which start to rip Britannia apart and corrupt the virtues of the people. At the same time, he plans to let the Moons crash on Britannia, thus killing all life on it. The Avatar returns for the last time, to prevent this disaster and destroy the Guardian once and for all. In the end, the Avatar casts Armageddon on himself and the Guardian, forcing their energies together and creating a new life form of energy, saving Britannia for a final time.

Music
The music of Ultima IX was composed by George Oldziey, who was probably best known at the time for his work on the live-action Wing Commander games. It represented a drastic evolution in terms of Ultima soundtracks, no longer being synthesized but rather recorded by a live forty-piece orchestra.

While the game offered renditions of the two emblematic Ultima pieces, "Stones" and "Rule Britannia," it otherwise featured completely original music. Since the Britannian Virtues were the main focus of the plot, Oldziey chose to use a thematic approach based around them, composing a leitmotif for each of the three Principles: Truth, Love and Courage; and their opposites: Falsehood, Hatred and Cowardice. As such, each town was given two themes: one based on the Principles of its respective Virtue, and another conceived from its "anti-Principles" while it was under the influence of the Columns. For instance, the negative music of Trinsic wove the Falsehood and Cowardice themes together, while its positive counterpart used Truth and Courage. To make each city feel more unique, each of them also used a specific set of instruments and orchestration, thus making it recognizable in both its positive and negative forms.

In addition, specific themes were written for other cities not related to any of the Virtues. Multiple combat themes (with a fast and slow-paced version of each) also featured, with the score varying depending on the kind of enemy faced in battle.

The music remained mostly constant throughout the game, looping whenever in a town or during combat. The wilderness, however, offered some quieter moments.

Unfortunately, some bugs still remaining in Ultima IX make it impossible to listen to some of these pieces without first extracting them from the game files, as they are unable to trigger properly within the game.

Trivia

 * The story was radically altered many times. Remnants of the old stories can be found in the game, and it is typically referred to as the Bob White Plot. See Ultima IX Plot Remnants.
 * Electronic Arts dissolved the development team of Ultima IX and pushed them all to Ultima Online, effectively killing the development of Ultima IX to that point. More about the rather long development of Ultima IX here: Development History of Ultima IX.
 * Originally, Ultima IX would have used a perspective similar to Ultima VIII, with the ability to zoom in and out and also rotate the view a full 360 degrees.
 * Ultima IX was also released in a so-called "Dragon Edition" (to honor the UDIC). This edition had numerous extras to boast with.

Upgrades
Due to a rushed release, Ultima IX received a more or less official patch to version 1.18f for improved Direct3D performance. An "unofficial" patch to 1.19f exists (rumored to have been written by one of the original developers in an act of frustration) that provides increased performance, bug fixes, and removes the SafeDisc copy protection from the game.

Fan-made economy, dialogue, and monster patches are also available as a combined patch. These address economy issues, and re-work dialogue and plot elements to make Ultima IX more cognizant of previous Ultimas, as well as tweak monster settings. See the external links for downloads.