Let's Break: Ultima 9 - Ascension (Part 1)

[@tohopes]

i like how the avatar is able to breathe from bread through his feet. it must have something to do with the bubbles in sourdough but i didn't pay that much attention in chemistry class.

[@CertifiedNEETClassic]

"If you're not very healthy..." Crossing a death river on bargain goodies and bread loaves is the pinnacle of health though.

[@Soulless0320]

oh very cool. I always enjoyed this game. I will thoroughly enjoy watching/listening to this while I work

[@amyrlinn]

Want to thank you again for making these videos - because of these I recently picked up Ultima IX, and I'm having a blast. Just got through Despise, playing blind, it's so interesting to see the gameplay decisions made by games twenty plus years ago.

[@spoonshiro]

Oh man, I've been clamoring for a video version of this for years.

[@tapewolf]

It's a little streamlined by the use of bread instead of the rickety contraptions from the original, but I'm planning to revisit the original bridge designs as part of a bonus extras section once the anti-walkthrough is finished.

[@david55200]

"The first thing I used to do in Ultima 9 was jump across the mountains to reach the sea where the ice dragon is on an iceberg. And on that iceberg, there's an invisible ice sword that freezes enemies. A friend had told me about the two-handed lightning sword, but I never found it. I followed the storyline and got stuck in the dungeon at Trinsic. I never managed to solve it :("

[@kenmolinaro]

I bought this game when it first came out, along with all the other Ultima games. I accidently broke my first run. This game has some areas that are closed off and get opened up as you complete the main quest. Well there were some hills I really wanted to get over to see what was on the other side. I found that if you drop an apple when standing in front of a slope that is too steep to climb, the apple would stay at around waist height on the slope. Then you can jump and land on the apple, then drop another. With this, you could 'climb' up and into areas you are not supposed to get into. What I didn't realize at the time, is that the intended entrances to those areas have quest triggers built into them! Since I missed those triggers and hit some out of order of other quest objectives, I totally broke my game and eventually had to start over. So ya, I broke it in a bad way. 😒

[@hannibalsolo4409]

I seem to recall Ascension pretty much breaking itself. But I shall still enjoy this greatly.

[@tapewolf]

Yeah, originally there was an intro about it that ended with something like "The game has a justifiable reputation for being a bit buggy. So it won't take much breaking."

[@MrNoobed]

6:40 that rat death sfx... I didn't know it was so deeply engrained in me

[@ThePariahDark]

You forgot the most important part... to make some poison bread for Lord British. He deserves it.

[@bsybilly]

The fast forward version of the BGM "Rule! Britannia" is so damn funny!

[@T.K.Wellington1996]

16:15 You can also move the kamera in to the chest until you see the items and then just take them out from the inside.

[@tapewolf]

I thought I'd tried that... oh well, something to try again in future!

[@amyrlinn]

Got linked this from a friend's discord, and I can't wait to see more.

[@user-ge2hp3qw3j]

Honestly, I kind of love this game. it has a bad reputatation but it also has a strange, buggy charm. And I absolutely love the music. The game has many many flaws, but it also has strange redeeming qualities not found in other games. I love exploring the wilderness and ending up in strange places I might not be supposed to be. Many games are better than this, but none stratch that Ultime 9 itch. I feel like its one of these games where bug exploitation is a significant part of the fun.

[@tapewolf]

Yeah, I do think it would have been a lot less interesting if all the bugs were fixed. And to be sure, the game was released about a year too soon, and was one of the first ever fully 3D open-world games - pretty much everything prior to that used an indoor game engine, i.e. dungeon crawling. So they had to solve a lot of problems which the industry hadn't really tackled before. However, the comparatively poor writing and lack of choice of Avatar (can't even change his hair colour, let alone his gender) was rather of a letdown. For the most part it just didn't draw you into the plot the way Serpent Isle could.

[@jayjasespud]

@@tapewolf I definitely don't play this game for it's story. At this point a lot of it is probably nostalgia, but the game is just fun to mess around in, hence things like Doug's anti-walkthrough!

[@jayjasespud]

I appreciate the nod the the Barrel Head save file.

[@PunchyStream]

the bridge of bread absolutely destroyed me

[@simovihinen875]

This was one of the best f-around Ultimas surely?

[@tapewolf]

If they had fixed all the bugs, it would have been a lot less memorable IMHO

[@kushanblackrazor6614]

Ocean travel without instrumentality!

[@MrOpcode]

You cannot break what is already broken

[@MrDCZero]

I didn't know Sir David Attenborough voiced game walkthroughs.

[@T.K.Wellington1996]

It's much easier if you put a bag in the water, because they float. Pack 4-5 items in each bag otherwise sometimes they will shoot out of the water into the sky. If you put another bag next to the first one you can build a kind of pontoon bridge.

[@PraecorLoth970]

I was waiting for this one. The U8 ones were very entertaining. So, you know of the glitch where if your inventory is open, most enemies ignore you, like the Gazers near Dupre? I wonder if you could have done that instead of drinking a black potion near those archers in trinsic. Also, I think you can interact with the teleporter beneath that statue in the dungeon without doing the color puzzle.

[@tapewolf]

Interesting, I did not actually know about those!

[@tapewolf]

Hmm, that may have been fixed in one of the updates. I'm running the unofficial 1.19 and he can't move with any of the inventory widgets open, unfortunate as it would be invaluable for ignoring the firewolves.

[@CastChaos]

@@tapewolf I was like that, too. Then I was told that the inventory must be opened way before entering the given enemy NPCs area. I haven't tried it, myself, but according to speedrunners, it works in patched versions, too.

[@mercster]

You beat the game fair and square.

[@mercster]

Haha, thank you for the epilepsy protection. So many ppl are careless about this.

[@CastChaos]

This is the best type of LP I have ever seen of this game! UIX was my first Ultima game, receiving it for Christmas in 2000. When I learned half a decade later how it contradicts the other episodes and destroys the series, I hated it for a while, but before and after that, it's one of my favourite games and I'm really proud that I have it in my possession. If you are in the mood, can I interest you in my collection of glitches and mechanics finds? kzbin.info/aero/PLH2-x-Uy6w1KOTHAovD1AiS6OCYKzex4V Besides the unused maps at the end and the smaller tidbits in the beginning, there are some more interesting finds, but mostly just for fun, not to gain more advantages ingame. However, one is sure great for a speedrun and the current best run also uses it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIC7qolraa2jhs0 And maybe what is worth noting that playing around glitch wielding can make you have more than one magical effect (freezing + staff of death, for example), increase your attack or defense immensely (but rather just in late game, so it doesn't help much here in the beginning), as well as you can shoot any of your objects instead of an arrow. I'm just a casual though, real pro gamers pin down hidden mechanics more accurately. It was common that after I uploaded something, Cid worked out how it really worked.

[@GabiAPF]

That bridge of bread was awesome. I was hoping for something like that after the bread stairs from a previous video. And I see that the underwear trend continues. I had heard about that Welshman law. Is it still in place? I liked the roof sequence too, but I'd much rather make tea than coffee.

[@tapewolf]

I hope it's not still in place, I haven't checked.

[@bsybilly]

As i see Dupre in U9, i can understand why Spoony Experiment is so pissed off at these LOL

[@borg-borg-2015]

this game is cursed, but I loved playing it, I gues in a masochistical way

[@deavonw]

Origin and everyone who made this game should be ashamed. I've been the Renaissance fairs that were larger and more magical than all of Britannia

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

I think that EA has to shoulder more responsibility for how they managed the project. They diverted people away from this game to work on Ultima Online, causing this game to be understaffed, and then refused to invest the money necessary to finish it properly as the lack of resources meant that the new engine they'd developed for the game wasn't cutting edge any more and in order to get it to market in an acceptable state they would have needed additional development time to either make up for the time lost due to the lack of available developers or completely rebuild the game from scratch in order to meet people's expectations. It's classic EA avarice that destroyed the ambitions of the people making the game IMO

[@caesaria]

where's part 2

[@tapewolf]

In the editor.

[@tapewolf]

Part 2 is now up: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZ-5hWyFeLBlpJo

[@frequenco5545]

Please consider Ultima 6 my good sir!

[@tapewolf]

I am seriously considering it, but I'd have to start from scratch with that one. While there are many notes about the game on the site, I never wrote a proper anti-walkthrough as such, so I'd either have to do that first, or wing it (which will significantly increase the production time). Currently my plan is to do a new series under another title since most of the material for newer games (Deus Ex, Oblivion etc) is simply taunting the game more than breaking it completely.

[@frequenco5545]

@@tapewolf Thanks for the reply! I would be glad to see your work on those newer games as well. But wait, are you DOUG the EAGLE himself?

[@tapewolf]

@@frequenco5545 Indeed. Making these videos hasn't helped me update the site with new material at all, but it has been a fun project nonetheless.

[@frequenco5545]

@@tapewolf You sir, are supremely legendary. It is an honour.

[@DrJ3RK8]

I HATE the broom lady! I generally play the game with all the community patches, and all written dialog with the voice acting off. ;) Stealing bread is not virtuous! I have to go now. :P

[@chrisschumacher8553]

They literally stole the eye statues from Ocarina of Time? How shameless is that?

[@caesaria]

OoT fixed a few of the same things Ascension did wrong, like when you trigger a switch in OoT, the camera will pan in a particular direction so that when it gets back to you, you know which direction it came from. Ascension does not, leaving you guessing.