Ultima 9: Ascension (Finale) – UNCUT

Spoony | Aug 11 2012 | more | 
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The Avatar returns from Pagan to Britannia, or maybe Texas to stop the Guardian with all of his titanic powers of Ether, or probably not. Will Spoony be able to ascend to a higher plane of existence, or descend into rage and madness?

Correction: Apologies to Timo Takalo, whose Youtube channel is incorrect in the credits. His real YouTube channel for Let’s Plays is http://www.youtube.com/user/Crowley9?ob=0 .

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Discordius-Erisianus/100000352364153 Discordius Erisianus

    Spoony, I thought you’d start uploading to You Tube again.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

    Uncut and uncensored! See Spoony in the girl wig like never before!

    Also, first.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-McClary/504395847 Josh McClary

    So.

    Hm.

    You know, I can relate to Spoony in this video, though not quite in his own manner. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was one of the first RPGs I ever seriously played. Like I mean, sat down and got invested in. I [i]lived[/i] in Vvardenfell for [b]years[/b], every waking moment not devoted to school or sustaining my existence was spent in that game. My social life suffered immensely for it. In college? The Fallout series. Again, got seriously invested in both the games and the story behind the games.

    Then came Elder Scrolls IV and Fallout 3. Now I bring these two games up because while they are amazing games for their own reasons, they really take a dump on the universe that was built up before hand. Fallout 3 just does not sync up, time wise, to the world seen in the first two games and Cyrodill is absolutely [b]nothing[/b] like it was described as being, from the scenery to the political dynamic.

    I enjoyed both games regardless.

    Why?

    Because at the end of the day, these are games. And just because there is one or more crappy entries into a series does not somehow invalidate what has come before. I still play Morrowind to this day and just two years ago I wrapped up a run through of all of the major Fallout titles save Tactics which I’ve yet to play (Mainly because the Combat aspect of the first two games was not why I enjoyed playing them).

    What I’m saying here is when Spoony remarks that he misses fighting the floor in Ultima III…that can be revisited. And while yes that can mean he just misses that time spent with his brother in a simpler time when things were black and white, he proceeds to trash the games of the series and call it a huge waste of time.

    No. It isn’t. Much in the same way I feel people overreacted with Mass Effect 3 – a misstep or bad ending does not somehow invalidate everything that came before. Mass Effect 3 had a non-ending initially, but I still adored every minute of the game leading up to said non-ending.

    Ultima IX had a lot of problems, both story and technical. I’m not denying that. But the biggest flaw in it that Spoony tears into is the fact it plays fast and loose with its own continuity…a continuity that spans eleven titles on a platform where it’s not easy to simply go back and refresh your memory with. Ultima IX was released in 1999 – the initial Ultima Games were literally unplayable at that time period due to changing technology. The bit with Blackthorn being a prime example – Ultima V came out in 1988. Unless you still had a functional computer from the late eighties or the NES port with functional NES to go with it, there’s no way you could go back and play that game.

    So Ultima didn’t keep its byzantine continuity straight and made the Avatar into a slack jawed dolt. Fallout 3 featured a 200 year old apocalypse that the characters in it speak of like it happened only a generation ago. Oblivion featured a plot and setting that completely invalidated material supplied in earlier games. Heck, even the [i]aesthetic[/i] of the Empire fundamentally changed from Roman to typical fantasy middle ages (Only to change [b]back[/b] in Skyrim…).

    I’m sorry but…no.

    I thought the retrospective was going somewhere beyond just general complaining about the story. It strikes me, that the Ultima Series collapsed under the weight of its own narrative in the final trilogy of the franchise as well as poor mismanagement by EA – which seems to be their operational mandate.

    So instead of placing rightful blame on poor development time and mismanagement from the parent company, Spoony holds aloft a sow’s ear and demands to know why it is not a silk purse and proceeds to turn the whole “failed” narrative of the game into a mirror of the shattered wreckage of his personal and professional life.

    We get it Spoony – life didn’t deal you a great hand. Welcome to reality – nobody’s dreams come true. The best part about gaming is [i]you *can* go home again[/i]. If a sequel or batch of them fail to live up to expectations, just disregard them and continue playing what you loved and adored. Nothing is stopping you and especially now-a-days, a dedicated mod community can keep a game alive well past the point the developer stopped caring about it.

    Indeed, [url="http://cfkasper.de/ultima/"]there’s a dedicated team rebuilding Ultima IX from the ground up[/url].

    I get that this is Spoony’s “thing” – to rip on bad video games and movies and make us feel emotional attachment, but after two years of this retrospective, the worst Spoony has to say about Ultima is that the final trilogy of games dropped the ball, the last two due to deliberate pressure and rushing from the publisher. No real jokes this time around either, just a lot of condescending the game’s plot for failing to keep it’s massive and not all that accessible late 90s continuity straight.

    And it ends with him ranting on about how much his life sucks. I almost turned off the review there, I seriously did. I feel bad for the guy, but this is just getting ridiculous. I have a friend who just lost his mother that doesn’t feel as sorry for himself as Spoony does.

    I guess I have to applaud Spoony on this front though – he definitely made the emotional connection between his sense of betrayal by the Ultima series and this retrospective. Because much like Ultima IX, this review is crap and seriously makes me wonder why I bothered investing [i]two years of my life[/i] into watching it.

    So on that front, Bravo.

    • goodguya

      Noah himself is not actually torn apart by the game. He’s sane enough to distinguish what’s truly important and what isn’t, but he’s used his recent fallings in order to emphasize the point of how this game truly bit him in a bad way. This is the Experiment, dedicated entirely to “getting back” at bad games and movies from Noah’s childhood. This is the EPITOME of that experiment. It’s understandable that he would film himself becoming so mad. Don’t misconstrue what angry reviewing is.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-McClary/504395847 Josh McClary

        I may not “get” angry reviewing – but I do know entertaining reviewing. He managed to make Ultima IV and V reviews – probably the pinnacle of the series – entertaining reviews. This review was not entertaining. It makes no difference to me either way – after Noah’s recent behavior I’m done following his works. I merely stuck around for the Ultima Retrospective because…well…I’d become invested. Again, on that front, Spoony nailed it with both barrels.

        • http://www.facebook.com/magnus.bergstrom.5 Magnus Bergström

          You know, take this for what it’s worth but I see this review, and most of the Ultima reviews as one prolonged story that ends in a climax where the hero finds his purpose anew, redeems himself and refuses to become the thing he reviles. A good story wastes no events or characters. The part about spoony’s memories of playing Ultima with his brother was both a great way to put the personal aspect of the whole thing into perspective and a way to set up for the finale. Spoony reminded himself of the happier times when the Ultima series was awesome and the developers had time to care about the story. By doing so he not only reminded himself of why he feels so upset with Ultima IX, but he also reminds his audience(ie. us) why the words “because bad movies and games deserve to be hurt back” is on this site. It is there because a bad, rushed and poorly made game or movie pisses on people who have fond memories of the game or movie.

          People ask me why I hate Jar Jar Binks and the Star Wars prequals so much, I hate them because they violate my fond memories of staying up late to watch a Tv showing of Star Wars: a new hope. I hate them because they show that while I as a fan treasure the memories of the original trilogy and the impact they had on me, to George Lucas they mean no more then the money they drew.

          The personal part aside, the entire Ultima IX finale to me is a reminder that we shouldn’t accept being shat at by cynical and greedy companies looking to trick you out of an ill deserved patcheck. We need to speak up and tell them to f**k off and stay away until you have learned to make something that does not suck.

          The story spoony told (in an awesome way, I’d say) is that based on your fond memories of days past, we need to refuse to become the lackey of the Guardian and fight back, refuse to buy into remakes ans piss poor sequels, we need to stop being nice and try to find a gem in a shitpile.

          In many ways this video feels like a rebirth for Spoony in a way, “This is who I am, this is what I do and this is why I do it.”. It’s a very good story and one seldom seen in a genre of entertainment that largely has been run by people being mad for the sake of being mad.

          For the admittedly dark and gritty story and for the bad ass and hopeful ending, Spoony I bow my head and applaude you. Well done, sir! Very well done!
          Best regards
          Magnus Bergström

        • http://www.facebook.com/bigfaceless Josh Dillinski

          Ok, well that’s good. At least we won’t see you clogging up any future reviews with your butt hurt nonsense.

        • http://www.facebook.com/miles.vonderahe Miles Von Der Ahe

          In my personal opinion, Spoony does not do Angry reviews. I always watch his videos like I’m visiting another chapter on a story. And because of this, I am always excited to see another video show up on this site. Much the same feeling I get when a new book in a series is released, or another few pages of a webcomic show up. I get to see the progression of a character I love.

          There is a lot wrong with Ultima 9, but much of that stems from the fact that it’s a 13 year-old game. It’s very easy to rip into it about the graphics, or the sound, or the game controls, because since then we’ve had newer, better, sleeker looking games of the same style, and our expectations are higher. Spoony chose to focus instead on material that was much closer to his heart, the storyline and continuity.

          You can say what you want about that, and I would point out that we live in a world where people can actively name and identify 500+ pokemon from memory. Fans will absorb everything about a game, and feel betrayed when the developer doesn’t keep things the same. This goes especially for RPGs, where a strong story element is a necessity.

      • Jason Hambleton

        ^ This.

    • Malidictus

      The reason a shit ending can ruin a franchise irredeemably is because now that I’ve seen the ending and I know what all the ado was leading up to, it’s never the same. When I know that decisions I’m making are going mean exactly jack shit at the end because someone couldn’t be bothered to keep track of continuity or remember to make things matter. When I see that THAT is where it’s all going, I side with make-up Spoony – why bother? Why bother struggle with the moral dilemmas of Mass Effect when in the end, none of it matters and it’s always an A/B/C choice? Why bother care about Ultima games when you know it’s all going to wind up flushing down the toilet?

      A lot of the fun in a game comes from how it progresses and where it goes, and when you know it ends not just badly, but ends with a botch, then nothing is ever the same. Who cares about Sir Dupre’s sacrifice? He’ll just come back to life. Who cares about the fate of the Gargoyles? They’ll just drown and be forgotten. When you KNOW what the people you care about and the decisions you fight for are going to turn into – crap – why bother indeed?

      To me, this is Alien 3 all over again – the only way to enjoy Aliens is to pretend Alien 3 never happened and they all lived happily ever after, because otherwise, nothing in the prequel mattered. All that ado to save that little girl, and for what? She dies off-screen in the sequel. Shoulda’ just let her get facehugged and taken off. And Hicks? Why bother bandage his wound? He’ll be dead by the start of the sequel. Just let ‘im die in the lift. It doesn’t matter. Woulda’ saved us a few minutes of screen time and let Rippley get away with time to spare, that’s for sure.

      A crap ending ruins not just the ending. It ruins everything that led up to it, because in the end, none of it turns out to have mattered. And that’s just sad.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-James-VanCaster/1167456108 Anthony James VanCaster

      Wow….just wow. Now here is the thing, I am not a fan-boy Slobbering all over his knob but you sir just do not get it. First and foremost, you do realize that this is his job and major source of income right? He makes these reviews to entertain people, and throughout the years it has been shown that the watchers enjoy ranting angry Spoony as opposed to “well this sucks but i can still play the good ones right?” Second of all your examples are shit. While Oblivion and Fallout 3 may have made major continuity and setting errors, The gameplay was still fantastic. In Spoony’s case however the damned last few games are nearly unplayable, with multiple game ending glitches. Now same could be said of Oblivion and Fallout 3 but nowhere near to the same extent. Thirdly, and finally, The difference between his experience with the Ultima series and yours with those other games are leagues away from each other. When Spoony started Ultima, it was essentially his first game which shaped his very being so of course he is going to have a higher emotional connection to it than some teenager who loved these games from maybe preteen to teen years. Bitch he started (by his story telling mind you) when he was 3-4. This game helped FORM him, it was a building block for who he became……yo. As well as from what I could tell of your History with those games is that you mainly played alone. Now I could be wrong here but the feeling I got from Spoony’s story (and his use of past tense) that this brother he played with may be, well gone. This person was someone he looked up to and connected his feelings with him with this game. So unless you have ever lost someone close in your life like that then at least give a little leeway for emotion man. Truth be told I connected with this story in a way you wouldn’t believe due to the loss of someone close in my life that i used to play games with. While I find your opinion COMPLETELY wrong and biased, please know that i realize that my view of this series is pretty skewed and biased too. Oh and lets forget the obligatory “If you do not like the videos then don’t watch them anymore” and don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split yah

      • PeaTearGryfin

        I couldn’t have said it better. About Noah’s brother though, if it’s the same brother I think it is, he isn’t dead. He just moved away for work.

    • Johndar

      So… Spoony is wrong for saying that Ultima IX ruins the entire franchise, as the old games are still there and awesome. However, you end your essay by saying you have now wasted two years of your life invested in an other wise entertaining review series, by your own emission, because the ending of said review series was disappointing for you. Do you not see the irony in this?

    • http://twitter.com/WRONGonRED Andrew St. Andrew

      ultima v was on dos.. last time i checked, that was still around in 1999

    • Jacob Freedman

      You say that one bad game doesn’t ruin an entire series. I agree. However, you also say that Ultima IX doesn’t deserve backlash. I respectfully disagree.

      If a game/book/movie of a long running series makes continuity fuck-ups as drastic as “what’s a paladin,” there is a problem. That would be like Shepard asking “what’s a pilot.” Yes, the Blackthorn thing was subtle, but, as a writer, you are responsible for that kind of stuff. What gets me upset is the resurrection of Dupre. But Spoony covered why that is the biggest lore hole I have seen.

      You compared this to the Mass Effect ending. The Mass Effect ending wasn’t something I got angry about. New ideas were introduced, but the continuity and lore was still in check. Also, it only a small part of an outstanding game. Ultima IX lasts for hours upon hours of time with obvious plot holes and lore gaps. Ultima IX butchers not only the story of Ultima; the atmosphere, morals, protagonist, and logic suffered as well. Fallout and Elder Scrolls changed aestitic and lore/story, but at least they felt like they belonged withen their series.

      (Also, the life-falling-apart rant towards the end of his emotional attachment speech was nothing but a lead in to the talk with the Guardian.)

  • jack_telford

    thanks for a wonderful review and such an awesome retrospect on the Ultima series. I had never even seen nor heard anything of the games till you reviewed them all, you made them look interesting and good enough to possibly hunt down and play (the good ones I mean).

    Also about your eyes, I wasn’t sure if that was makeup to begin with, or if you were just really REALLY tired. Then I saw it kinda streaky afterwards, and I was like “ohhh…”

    I love your reviews, your V-logs with Miles, thanks for such awesome videos.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=661037953 James Enri

    Fantastic video.

    You inspire me to make videos myself Noah. Never stop making videos.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=579613610 Adam Hirst

    >Music from ME3 ending after the credits
    10/10 very subtle

    • Jason Hambleton

      I liked how the entire ending of this video is like the ME3 endings, another series that many feel is a huge betrayal.

  • http://www.facebook.com/raven.alexander.39 Raven Alexander

    whats up with your eyes man? have you not slept in weeks? or is that just makeup?

    • ORCACommander

      its make up. its get progressively messed further and further into the review.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Sarnecki/514088205 David Sarnecki

        I was going to say, fuuuuuuuuuuck are his eyes for real?!?! Haha get some sun Spooney one!

  • http://www.facebook.com/angel.llera Angel R. Llera Padro

    Anyone notice that the bar at the bottom, right when it buffering it actually says: “suffering” ?

  • http://www.facebook.com/milos.kocic.104 Milos Kocic

    Spoony, man, if I could I would like to be your brother. :D Things that you say and feel, its same s**t that I’m going through now, and your videos make that all much easier to live with. Thank you sincerely, all best in life for you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tom.johnston.315428 Tom Johnston

    Hi Spoony, I’m a relatively new fan, I only caught your retrospective as it neared the end, though I did watch the other videos, twice actually, so I was looking forward to it. And you did not disappoint. I’m more of a casual gamer, you know a console gamer, and most of the games that I play that are part of a series tend to have a loose-or-non-existant continuity in any case(namely thinking of Dragon Quest here), so the fact that you can make me feel the sheer betrayal that you felt from this game, that I have NEVER PLAYED, really says a lot about the emotion you put into making this. So, long story short(too late), good job. Never give up, as long as there is at least one good game or movie out there, the bad ones will be at least tolerable. And if there is at least one good thing about there being a physical copy of the game, it’ll give you a target! Hahaha… No, seriously take an axe or something to that fucker, it will not be missed. EVER.

    So sincerely, thank you, and good luck.

  • IHeart28

    Whether uncut or not…. This is still Spoony being awesome, kickass and heartfelt. Still freaking love it, still freaking love the ending and “That’s a paladin” line and still freaking love YOU spoony! I think this uncut version of your fantastic finale is just you spoiling me! <3333

  • Kaiz

    first off let me say Congrats on finishing this LONG Review of a game
    that started basic went to parts that confused Became Good and then
    slammed down to earth like a peice of Blue Ice hope you had fun with your
    review i enjoyed watching the Episodes and i wanna say about part 3 you
    said “i Read the books in games and the Text in World of warcraft” i
    can understand that due to I’m the same if i fall in love with a game
    like Fallout or Warcraft i will Research Read and learn Every bit of
    Lore in it i can find to me that’s the mark of a good Game is GOOD or
    Great Lore to bad ultima just said Fuck you Lore and made the mess that
    became Ultima 9 still it’s over now i hope your planing on doing more
    reviews If not well if your ever on Steamwheedle Cartel Server in WoW i
    wouldn’t mind sharing Lore with ya and Stories about Past games

  • http://twitter.com/TychoShiel Tycho Shiel

    Fantastic as always, man. I like the story arc you’re building. I loved the “FF XIII = Armageddon” bit. Also, whenever I hear that Mass Effect 3 track you used, I get real emotional for some reason…the makeup was a nice touch, by the way.

    I’m the same way, I really only play games for the story. And I get really pissed when a good story gets raped like this one did.

    Anyway, keep up the great work. I already can’t wait for the FF13 review.

  • http://www.facebook.com/marcus.w.fridley Marcus Wayne Fridley

    Damn, went and watched the review right away and wondered what uncut has in it. Best spoony review ever, capturing the feelings of a generation. (40-42 minutes in) hype for ff13 review even though I didn’t really think it was that bad considering how disconnected final fantasy is from it’s root today. (incomprehensible plot, silly characters, great music, starts with an ex-soldier and gun wielding black guy on a train- sound familiar?)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1409661489 Alex Dunn

    Spoony, I’ll be a fan ’til these videos stop being good. Your childhood love of games reminds me of my own, as I to grew up with them having an older brother help. Zelda: A Link to the Past was my childhood, as Ultima III was yours.
    I can appreciate all of this here. I look forward to Final Fantasy XIII, a game that disappointed me as much as it did you. A game who’s failings continue to bother me. In it ’til the end.

  • http://www.facebook.com/raven.alexander.39 Raven Alexander

    loved the review, and you gave me something fucking epic! an idea for a kick ass tee-shirt. “well my friend, that’s a paladin!”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Caio-Trubat/100002080389485 Caio Trubat

    Good…

    * Snacks in hand *
    Lets do this…

  • fatalrob0t

    I loved that “That’s a Paladin” line! XD You had me echoing it with my hand held up like a gun. Ahahaha! Brilliant! Great job, Spoony!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Calvin-Jarchow/1131125364 Calvin Jarchow

      It’s that kind of comedic setup -> punchline and/or dramatic build up -> payoff that you just can’t get anywhere. Spoony has a excellent style of monologue that can deliver some amazing lines.

  • https://twitter.com/AubreyHallman Hippiethecat124

    Ultima 9 Finale is finally up?
    *orchestra music plays as I slowly stand*
    I…. Am fucking complete.

  • Gilmour

    Hey Spoony,

    What a magnificent sendoff to a brilliant series of reviews. Probably your best work since Phantasmagoria II. I just wanted to say that when you looked back at the times with your brother playing the games, it was a real touching moment. Your ME3 reference was also equally brilliant.

    On another more depressing note. I was watching the whole TGWTG’s thing unfold and I swear it was like the goddamn JFK shooting. I’ve never liked the people over at TGWTG’s personally with the exception of Angry Joe and it disgusted me seeing the way they treated you towards the end there. I’ve dealt with clinical depression too and I’ve been hospitalized twice for it.

    I just wanted to say, I’ve been with you ever since 2008 and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

    Sincerely, Gilmour

    • Crunch Bogus

      TGWTG’s behavior disgusted you? Really? You mean, when they were all coming to Spoony’s Twitter to try and calm him down during his ordeal, and he just slung it back in their faces to the tune of “who needs ya?” JonTron (from Normal Boots), poor fucking JonTron, said that Spoony was one of his biggest inspirations to get into video making; Spoony just shrugged him off with a sneer and an insult, like all the rest.

      I’m not trying to sell Spoony short. Despite his ugly behavior during that time, I still have faith in him as a producer and as a person. This conclusion struck me right to the soul, and his story reminded me of my own upbringing with my big brother teaching me the ins and outs of video games. Despite his flaws and mistakes, I know Noah is merely as human as you or I, and I can move past that and see the greater good. I just don’t want you, or anyone else, to let your devotion to one man sour your view of so many others, especially in such an oddly inaccurate way.

      • http://www.facebook.com/stauken.hausen Stauken Hausen

        Did you miss LordKat or Lupa’s behavior and what happened on their live broadcast during this? Yeah. That disgusted me. Thoroughly.

      • Gilmour

        Hey Crunch Bogus,

        Thanks for the civilized reply. I know Spoony over-reacted and I’m sorry to hear that he spat in JonTrons face (I know him from Game Grumps with Egoraptor). However, as Stauken Hausen pointed out, LordKat and Lupa said and did terrible things. I mean, the whole incident started because Lupa couldn’t take a joke, a joke that really wasn’t as bad as everyones made it out to be. A joke that wasn’t even about her. She basically used her friendship with the PR person at TGWTG’s to suspend him, or at least that’s how it seemed. To be far, I should have singled out Lupa and LordKat, not TGWTG’s as a whole.

        As I said earlier, I never cared much for TGWTG’s, so my disliking of them came prior to them kicking him out. If you enjoy them, great! I just never liked their producers.

        Gilmour

        • spoonybardol

          “the whole incident started because Lupa couldn’t take a joke”?

          No it didn’t!

          No. It. Didn’t.

          Holy crap, how long is this nonsense going to keep repeating? Noah said himself it had nothing to do with it, it was just a really really bad coincidence that Lupa spoke up on twitter when she did.

          Yes, she handled the situation badly after it blew up. Fine. But he was not suspended from TGWTG because she complained. She did not conspire with Holly to get him kicked off. This is all a fantasy dreamed up by Noah’s most insane fans that keeps trying to come up as fact. There is absolutely zero evidence to back it up and the words from every single person actually involved to refute it.

          Noah got himself kicked out. He’s come to terms with it, from everything he’s told us. Just because you really really want the conspiracy to be real doesn’t mean it is. If you dislike TGWTG that’s fine, you don’t need to justify it with what amounts to fanfiction.

          • Gilmour

            Hey Spoonybardol,

            Sorry that I caused you such offense. I was under the impression that’s what happened. If I am as wrong as you say, I’m sorry to spread the fiction. I wasn’t trying to cause a conspiracy.

            Whatever is the truth, my original message is still what I wanted to say. I don’t want Spoony to implode and I appreciate his effort.

            Gilmour.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Lisa-Fisk/1066089255 Lisa Fisk

            I have no idea what anyone is talking about. All I know is Spoony is great and I have a girl crush. I think that’s all I need to know. Can we get back to the LULz please? I like happy Spoony.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jamie-Sheil/594748387 Jamie Sheil

            Lupa did spark it up. Ultimately her actions weren’t a direct consequence, but it’s how spoony reacted and the shit he was saying on twitter that caused TGWTG to fire him. I’m not saying Lupa complained and got him kicked off. She’s still a nasty person, who went on a tirade against Noah for such BS reasons. Same with LordKat. Spoonys twitter tirade was absurd and over the top though, he just had a meltdown.

            But the joke she complained about? I’m not even sure if I would classify it as a rape joke for one, and for the other I didn’t find anything offensive about it. It was just some over the top statement to instigate a cheap laugh. I actually found it hilarious (probably because It took me forever to find out that’s what started it all, and I found it hilarious that that was what started the shitstorm).

          • http://www.facebook.com/mark.koum Mark Koum

            Alright, so I’m a big time of Spoony, and TGWTG’s for the most part. I’ve been watching the videos for years, but I never really followed them outside of what I saw in the videos. So when Noah got fired, I never really understood what had actually happened. I know it’s none of my business, but can someone tell me exactly what happened? Getting tired of only knowing a small part of the story.

            By the way, the video ruled, the part where Noah talks about his brother really hit home, because all of the days I spent with my older brother playing Donkey Kong Country 2.

          • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

            Lupa…is a bitch. I dunno anything about LordKat but Lupa just is not a very pleasant individual of any kind. I…am giving Spoony the benefit of the doubt involving that whole tirade he went on on Twitter, given his mental health right now, but…I dunno. A bully has few friends when he needs them most, is all I’m saying, and his comments were definitely not appropriate towards his fanbase during the incident, especially when he was openly mocking and insulting people who were supporting him. Up in the air about that. Still. Spoony’s content hasn’t suffered. My PERSONAL opinion of him…not as high as it was before, but I’m willing to forgive him. But that’s just me.

          • History Geek

            I’m sorry. But BS reasons? He ‘joke’ was inappropriate and he needed to be called out. Did you not LOOK at his tweeter has in insulted and cused out women in general? Do you have any idea how hurtful it is as a rape victim to see someone I respected, someone I thought knew better, act like joking about chaining someone to a pipe in their basement is at all funny? Do you know how much it hurts to see people blindly defend spoony. Spoony fucked up. LordKat was out of line, but it doesn’t mean a woman daring to say “that wasn’t funny’ was nasty. And no, mental illness does not give anyone the right to act like a tool and I say that as someone whose Bipolar.

    • http://www.facebook.com/aron.marczylo Aron Marczylo

      Rarther sad what has happened, hence why I never watch a Lupa vid and only restrict to Linkara and NC. I have no interest in the others and I thought LordKat would be a friend to him, since their cross-over with pumpkin head.

      I too have been a fan for a long time and I’m vertainly never leaving.

  • Radosław Hołdys

    For a moment during the end I thought you were going to have Miles burst in and re-create Devil May Cry 3′s Arkham’s death.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ryan-Campbell/1305842331 Ryan Campbell

    im sorry but i can’t stand when he acts in his reviews its bad and annoying, im watching a review not a shitty acting attempt..

    • PeaTearGryfin

      Dude, you call THAT a shitty acting attempt. That was Spoony breaking character and pouring his heart and soul out to his fanbase over a game that literally ruined his childhood. That story was not something he just scripted for the sake of the review. You don’t get anymore raw than watching Noah basically spill out for his fanbase.

    • http://twitter.com/WRONGonRED Andrew St. Andrew

      i can’t stand bad and annoying comments, but here you are posting yours

    • IHeart28

      Really? Noah’s acting is one of the best I’ve seen! This wasn’t just him pretending, this was him confessing his heart and soul. Ultima nine wasn’t just some crappy game, it was one of his most precious childhood memories and part of his childhood all the same being destroyed! How would YOU feel if someone took something extremely dear to you and raped it, beat it to shit, and spat in your face? You’d probably feel the same way as noah did in this finale. Spoony was dark, dramatic, heartfelt/heartbreaking and even badass.

      There’s a difference between constructive criticism and just being rude and trollish, you’re being the second thing I’ve mentioned

    • http://twitter.com/WoodenActing Aaron B.

      The train tracks called, Ryan. They’re missing a speed bump.

  • kevinsorbo73

    Good review Spoony. Shame EA are trying to resurrect Ultima IV and make more money out of it since their stock market share is plummeting faster than their reputation. You nailed this Ultima Retrospective and you did very well.

    PS: Get some sleep.

  • http://twitter.com/Fnar2501 Jared Coulston

    I have no words to describe how jaw-droppingly amazing this video is, how moved I am at Noah’s recollections, and how, if I hadn’t known better, I would have believed that I was actually watching a real mental and physical breakdown. This event has raised the bar far beyond any level I would have thought possible.

    Here’s to you Spoony, may you always continue to blow my fucking mind.

  • http://twitter.com/yamina_chan yamina-chan

    Oh my god, that was the clip from the convention! It finally got it’s place! THAT was what it was for!
    Spoony, planing this far ahead…that was amazing. I tip my hat to you, sir.

    Also, the ending…wow, just aboslutely wow.
    You managed the unthinkable, you turned this betrayal that is this game, not only to the Ultima Series and the fans but to everyone who cacres about characters, story, imagination…anything -and turned into a fantastic review. You leaft us all with something to go on with.
    Thank you, thank you for all your hard work.
    While I would not say that this is the best video you’ve ever made, it is certainly one of the most memorable ones because…there are so many reasons why it is.
    I would like to comment on everything that makes this video great, and about many of the things that were extremely well thought of but I fear I’m actually to awed at the moment.
    Also, I apologize. I did not want this to turn into an “allround flattering beyond the sky” kinda comment. But that’s more or less what I’m left with right now.
    I do not know if you are aware just how inspiering your work can be, and how much it helps some people (me included) to pull trough some really awefull times in their lifes.
    Thank you.
    Thank you for caring.
    And thank you for not giving up.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Novak83 Ed Novak

    Hannah Montana’s yeast-crusted underoos, Spoony. THAT is how you drop a fucking one-liner.

  • Kendotuxedo

    Hey wait a sec, was there a point to the Gayvatar? I was starting to think he was the Guardian in disguise to give the Avatar a bad reputation or something.

  • capthavic

    Mass Effect 3 ending reference at the finale? Actually I recently played through all three games, and while the ending(s) did feel kinda disappointing it wasn’t THAT bad. Certainly no where near as bad or as big as a betrayal as Ultima 9. The extended cut helped a little but overall it was just meh after setting such a high bar.

    Anyway great to finally put this unholy beast of a game to rest. Great job and looking forward to many more videos to come :)

  • Aiddon

    Whoa, Spoony, your eyes look like you haven’t slept in years. I think you’ve earned yourself a hard-earned vacation after this. Go play Persona 4: Arena for awhile.

  • http://www.facebook.com/lucas.allen.96 Lucas Allen

    Not much to say except keep up the great work! Long live the Spoony One!

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.ashworth.560 David Ashworth

    i normally never comment but with this video i’ve pretty much got no choice. Credit where Credit is due man, the way it was written and compiled together
    to culminate in those last 10 minutes was inspiring. Just based on the
    strength of the inflection used and how it was delivered made this so
    memorable

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sheila-Jenkins/100000412359301 Sheila Jenkins

    No you aren’t sick, Spoony! I read all that stuff, too.

  • http://twitter.com/KyleHuckins213 Kyle Huckins

    Goddamn man. I really got sucked into that last part where it was all you. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t even scripted because it didn’t have to be, it was just you. Somehow you managed to suck me into a universe of games of which I have never played even a solitary second. That was a seriously FUCK YEAH ending there. That said I can’t wait to see you in the Snob movie where you’re a bit less intense. You kinda scare me at times man.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brooks-Kimble/100000594360866 Brooks Kimble

    you are a god among insects my friend. this finale was most good.

  • Gregg Russell

    Some of my earliest video game memories are from Quest for glory, which taught me how to type

  • http://www.facebook.com/michael.menicutch Michael Menicutch

    Dude,

    That, ending, was, fucking, AWESOME!! One of the best series of reviews i’ve ever watched on any game or game series.

    Great work Spoony.

  • http://www.doppelgangershow.wordpress.com/ Mike P

    That ending was truly amazing. That story. I honestly thought you were going to tear up!

    I’ve never let myself get to attached to things because of the eventual betrayal. A tinier example would be The Bourne series with the latest one being a steaming pile of shit and seeing that happen to that franchise, or more largely Final Fantasy. I still remember just being angry for a month because I paid full price for XIII and seeing it get a sequel? That just hurt.

    Seeing something you love crumble always hurts and you can really see it here. Bravo SpoonyOne, bravo.

  • http://twitter.com/TheMasterSword7 Ben Alsop

    Are you serious?! What a fantastic ending Spoony! Thanks for doing this whole retrospective for us.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cmarleau1 Charles Marleau

    Beautiful, Spoony! This is one fan who will never abandon you! Hell, I want to send you a free t-shirt from my gaming company. :D

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sheila-Jenkins/100000412359301 Sheila Jenkins

    To comment on the more emotional stuff, I’m about 15 or so years older than you, so my gaming didn’t start until I was 18 or so. I saw star Wars when I was 12. The original 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons is still the best. And while I didn’t, at the time, embrace Ultima as fully as you did, I still respect it as an incredible series. I started writing because of games.

    and I feel that sense of betrayal just as keenly and emotionally. My ex was a gamer, and the really good times we all had came from games, both tabletop and computer games. I’ve played Elder Scrolls since the beginning, and while i did play Oblivion, it really ground my gears that the series went from being smart, challenging, and immersive to crap. The difference between Morrowind and Oblivion is the difference between a smart, geeky, and average looking girl who challenges and interests you vs the brain-dead supermodel that is Oblivion.

    tl:dr While I can never fully understand, I do get it, and didn’t want to clog with too much personal info here about my own life, I will add though that I also have severe depression, and it fucking sucks the Guardian’s junk.

  • http://www.facebook.com/matthewbbaumgartner Matthew Baumgartner

    OK yes I watched both versions… back to back. Still Awesome, well more so!!
    I looked at Wikipedia and the original plot of the game which actually makes a lot more sense and actually could have been really good. I honestly understand the level of BETRAYAL!!!

    I could really see your pain after your memory/speech there Noah and it was so very good and made way more reason to why you oh so royally hate Ultima 9. With the throw of the Ultima 9 box it really looked like a combination of rage/frustration/hate/sadness/anger/disappointment, everything.

    Oh and where the hells did Spoony get that anti-magic gun? I am curious, though assuming the almighty Dr, Insano, It does look really cool.

    Epic last line. That is what a true bad-ass is : Pwning n00bs with brains and bullets

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1671557159 Clynton Calderone

    AHAHA THERE’S THE ENDING I WAS HOPING FOR! BRILLIANT!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Wright/220301062 Joe Wright

    Most bad ass ending to a Spoony review ever! Where the HELL did you get that over-sized hog-leg!?

  • http://www.facebook.com/ravenwoodwitch Angela Headley

    I have some of my earliest memories with my brothers in a similar
    sense. I used to sit nearby and watch them as they played all their games, and
    really on tried titles like Sonic or Mario. It was actually Ocarina of Time
    that I remember with the most emotion. I used to watch my brothers play the
    game all the time, and fell in love with the series right there. And, when I
    got brave enough to try it myself, they sat down with me and helped me through
    the beginning, and everything else that I was too scared to try myself. They’re
    both long gone with families of their own, and I do miss moments where we could
    just sit around and play games together. In fact, I still look at them for good
    recommendations of some of the newer stuff. Video games are kind of are bridge
    to find each other again…

    …this is why I can feel the pain here. I don’t even wanna
    think about what kind of blow would have been dealt if Skyward Sword turned out
    to be a joke, or if Twilight Princess had been shit. That would have darkened
    that childhood memory so much. That moment, Spoony, when you talked about your
    history with your brother and Ultima 3, really hit home for me. I appreciate
    the scope and emotion you poured into this video, as it shows a passion people
    need to make these types of videos. This was really brillent.

    I don’t exactly know what’s happened recently, only that
    shit has hit the fan pretty hard. Whatever’s coming up in the future I hope it
    all turns out well for you. The work put into this makes me proud to be a fan.
    I’ll be here for the entire haul, and I hope I can meet you in real life
    someday. Good luck, and keep up the good work :)

    Edit: On a lighter note, I seriously hope that scean from the con was scripted, or the rest of us have several asses to track down and kick XD.

    • http://twitter.com/CheeMoonYeo Chee Moon Yeo

      The scene was scipted. The fans threw stuff at Noah because he requested it, saying he wants to use it for one of his videos.
      The line he used to “enrage” the audience was “You know what, Pokemon is for babies!”

  • Asa Wolfinger

    First, nice ME3 ending gag there with the colors tints. Also I am sorry to see things looking so bleak for you man. A joke is a joke and any thing said in a review is suspect, but as someone who suffers from bouts of deprecation and works in the field of writing, I know what kinda of mode someone is in when they put a bit as bleak as the honest talk, followed by nihilistic diatribe at the end there. Christ man I would tell you to take a brake and try and pull things together, but between this being your job and apathy never relay helping in these kinda situations… fuck man, just no if it ever gets to nasty just throw a dart at a map of the US and I basically assure you that if you let the site know where you are going, when you get there, attest a few of us will be around that state to show you a good time. Right guys? Where all hear for you man!

  • http://www.facebook.com/holly.smith.581 Holly Smith

    First and foremost, I don’t post comments because I’m way to shy to do it on stuff. In fact, this is my first comment on any of your videos.

    But… your speech on how your brother played with you with these games touched me. My earliest memories were of my mother teaching me how to play video games on old school Nintendo. She was in fact the only female gamer besides myself that I knew until much later after I graduated from High School. I remember coming home from Pre-K and Kindergarten and we would boot up the NES and play Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda…shoot, we even had some games that were HORRIBLY bad. But we played them and we bonded.

    She got me into gaming and comics and basically set my mind that I should be my own person. And I’ve lived with that mantra for years, even when my life has come crashing down around me lately.

    But, it’s those little things, those little moments… like you remember your older brother, like I remember my mother… that make life a little happier and worth living.

    But sometimes, you can’t get those moments back, no matter how hard you try. I know you can probably talk to your brother most anytime you like, remembering the good times and the bad. I can’t. My mom died 11 years ago.

    Even now, even with a shitty game, I would love to get a chance to play a video game with her again, even a crappy Final Fantasy game like VIII, X, or X-2. Because it wouldn’t be about the game, it would be about just spending time with her again. What your brother was to you and probably still is…is what my mother was to me. She was my hero. And I would give anything just to tell her that.

    So all you “rabid Spoony fanboys and fangirls” and detractors who one minute are bashing him for not updating faster or his content sucks now to the next where your praising him, go ahead and hate this post for me giving my thoughts to what this review and Spoony mean to me. No matter what has happened in the past or what will happen in the future, that speech he makes makes Spoony a hero in this girl’s eyes.

    So, there’s a 50/50 chance of you reading this, but Noah Antwiler, you have become a hero in my eyes. The stories you share of your past make me remember my own wonderful stories of my past. Thank you.

    • http://twitter.com/Taco_Dan Taco Dan

      Hearing Spoony’s story about his brother, and then reading yours about your mother almost brought me to tears.
      My mother was a gamer, and really the only person in my family that I could relate to. She taught me how to play games like NetHack and Civilization, and if she were still around when I got into them, she’d probably have taught me about tabletop RPGs. When she passed away, I felt lost and hopeless, and I’d still give anything to relive the old days; watching her play Civ III and not knowing what the hell was going on.
      I’m not sure what the point I’m trying to make is, but both of your stories touched me, and lately, that’s been kind of hard to do.

    • J.G. te Molder

      Me and my mother played Super Mario Bros., Duckhunt, and Legend of Zelda together as well. She passed away 7 years ago, now. Like you, and unlike Spoony, the game series that I played with my mom never went to horrible shit.

      Anyway, this review is just plain ffing awesome. Any other review, from any other reviewer even the big ones, pale in comparison to Spoony’s Ultima 9 Finale.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-Donald/547723767 Jack Donald

      I’m a huge gamer, I can play anywhere up to 40 hours a week, possibly more. But I’ve never forgotten where I started: playing ‘Elite’ on an old Acorn computer with my Brother at 3 years old when he was 6. We were both incredibly rubbish at it and I never had the slightest inkling of how good the game was, years later I came across an article in a magazine citing elite as the greatest space sim of all time and I never had an inkling of that. All I knew was that evil space-ships wanted to kill me and my brother and I wasn’t going to allow that.

      Years went by and my brother grew into a very angry young man, he hated school and would often take it out on me. On drunken nights in, when discussions got a little maudlin, I would occasionally name my brother as my greatest tormentor. Even now that he’s found his feet and is getting more out of life we have a very awkward relationship as I have to get over what he put me through. However I always refused to shut him out, all because we would still bond over games.

      Not nearly as touching as either Spoony’s or your comments I know, I was simply moved by all the stories here to add to the picture of what games really mean to people.

      • http://www.facebook.com/maria.white.18062 Maria White

        I remember my first game was actually the Lion King of Super Nintendo. We got that game on name alone and I remember always handing my controller over to my sister or brother to help me get through the harder parts of the game. ((effing giraffes.)) That is a game I remember looking back with fondness no matter how terrible it was because it helped me and my siblings bond. I’m the youngest out of two and getting my siblings to actually care about something I was doing was hard.

        But onto something else… I felt betrayal of a game series… and you man laugh but the first ever betrayal I ever felt as a gamer was Silent Hill shattered memories. I remember watching my brother playing the first game behind a couch, I remember gaining confidence because you were a HUMAN fighting off monsters. You did not have special powers, you were just a normal human and you fought off things that were NIGHTMARES. I had really bad nightmares as a child, to the point that any worse and it would have been night terrors. I remember actually the very first game I ever beat without help was silent Hill three… and I remember that it was the thought that even in my worst nightmares I could still fight these bad things that tried to hurt me. I was twelve, TWELVE when I finally overcame my fears and slept in my own bed. My nightmares were that bad, that it filled me with dared at the thought of being alone, but these characters went through the game alone for the most part. They fought off evil things, and nightmares and got through it still happy. ((my brother when I watched him always made sure to go for the good ending probably because of my parents.)) I basically told myself that I need to be like Harry, like James, and just a half year later like Heather. They were brave, so I needed to be too.
        Once I finally saw that it was alright to be scared, but you just have to be brave and face your fears, through a game I finally was able to STOP having so many nightmares. I don’t even remember my last time having a actual dream where I felt fear now, all because of Silent Hill. Its sounds strange I know, but knowing that these people made it through hell and back was a comfort that my dreams at least were not as bad as the monsters. ((I never had a nightmare about the the games strangely.)) I would likely never have been able to get over a my fears for at least a few more years without the games. And now, I just feel so betrayed that the games are no longer really about FEAR. They are not about facing fears, and thusly becoming stronger. ((this is how I see the games.)) It is about running, or just beating things, or violence. Or pretty graphics. There is no story, there is no I am a human that faced a evil god and WON. It is just running away from a red light or running away from enemies you can’t kill. Or just stupid storylines that never will make sense in the context of the plot of the games.
        The games helped me to face my fears, and now are just so banal that I don’t even glance up at a mention of a new title. I grew as a person, I faced nightmares that put me in sleep paralysis at least five times because of these games. Its sounds strange to think that a horror game that is made to scare you can help you face fears, but these games did help me. and it makes me mad, it makes me feel so bad to just see the utterly FAILURE of the ‘next gen’ games because they fail to see the things they did BEFORE are just as good, and even BETTER then they are doing now.

        • http://www.facebook.com/jacob.blackburn.752 Jacob Blackburn

          My first game that ever played was the original Mario and Dr.mario with my Grandma when i was 4 she died 2 years later still ne of my happiest memories because afterwards we watched george of the jungle. She is actually what got me into gaming. Later my brother and i would play Pro skater 3-5, spyro, and eventually halo, but i guess i have had a blessed experience with games in that few series i stick with have turned to suck… though their are SOME that i could mention. I somewhat understand spoonys unquenchable rage with EA. seriously i fucking hate them

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brooks-Kimble/100000594360866 Brooks Kimble

      similiar with me, my brother and sister were both of the mindset that i shouldn’t play their games since i was too young to win at them, but i can remember my dad sitting with me, taking turns playing mario. one of my very first memories is of him getting frustrated when the controller refused to make mario jump even though he pushed the button. God that’s funny now.

      thank you alot for sharing your story spoony and holly and all the others

    • http://www.facebook.com/seth.henderson.505 Seth Henderson

      i hear that, i have always loved spoony’s work but that story was something else entirely it makes me long to have someone i can bond with like that and you both are very very lucky to have had someone and well for anyone else that has a similiar situation i have this to say. dont take it for granted, because there are people that would give anything out there to have a situation like that

    • spectervonbaren

      My earliest times gaming were first whenever we would go to one of my aunts and I would play on their NES. Things like Duck Hunt, and Kirby. Could never beat the final boss back then on Kirby. I also tried playing Tetris and DR. Mario on my older sister’s Gameboy (The nice brick ones that you could kill someone with) and eventually I even got a SNES. I was really bad at games and usually me and my second oldest sister would get my oldest sister to play Super Mario World and watch her play it and get her food for energy. Heheheh. Most of the time I would rent games and just fool around in them because I wasn’t any good at it and usually only got to see later levels because someone else had done it when they rented the game.

      Even though it took me years before I got any good at games and before I really started understanding the culture and lore and history, and even though I’ve usually been the only gamer in the house and had no one to talk to about it… I must admit that there was a time when I shared my love of games with my family.

      I agree with you that that moment where Spoony brought up those past experiences really touched me too. As for me, my only gripe if I have one, with Spoony right now is that I don’t want him to kill himself to please us because I worry about his health, I’ve been a fan for years and really all I want is for him to stay well and get us stuff only if he can. Because it’s moments like this that he trully shows one of the things that I really like about him which is his ability to be genuine and honest.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gavyn-Duthie/100002174891451 Gavyn Duthie

      *Offers an internet hug*

      I don’t think I can find anything better to say, really.

    • Alan Rizkallah

      Holly, you and Spoony’s stories seem to hit home for a lot of people, including myself. Thank you for sharing it with us. I too bonded with my mother as well as my brothers because of those early years with certain vintage games. We had a ColecoVision when I was about 3 and 4 and my first game ever was the home port on it of Sega’s Zaxxon. It was with this and other games like Donkey Kong and Burger Time that my brothers and I bonded.

      My mother was never really a gamer, but she loved playing Lady Bug on Coleco and the two of us would spend hours on it when I was little. Eventually, that system and games got lost and/or thrown out in the shuffle of moving and cleaning basements out in the late-80s and it always made me sad that we lost something so important to us. Just recently though, I picked up a new ColecoVision console and a new copy of Lady Bug from eBay and surprised her with it; She was ecstatic.

      And Spoony, Noah Antwiler, if you read any of these, I want you to know how much we appreciate you, your creativity, and honesty. Clearly everyone speaking down here found a way to relate to your speech in even a modest way because it’s the honest truth for many of us. I especially feel you on the topic of your brother, my brothers are 12 and 13 years older than me and they practically raised me. They always made sure to include me. They didn’t have to but they did and that’s something I will always appreciate and cherish.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Grzegorz-Wojtczyk/100000046280578 Grzegorz Wojtczyk

      I wish that at least one person from my family was like you….*sigh*

    • http://www.facebook.com/roy.hankins.92 Roy Hankins

      Like you, I don’t comment here either. I want have two reactions to the mentioned scene. The first is a lot like you. When I was a kid, my parents got us a Nintendo 64, and me and my mother played Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Together. We would tag team, and together nothing in those games was a match. They were great times. Nowadays my Mom is a casual gamer at best, and it’s hard to get her into a game. But those days we played together influenced who I am, but in a different way then it did Holly and Spoony. It led to my love of sharing things I enjoy. For me, nothing is better than watching something with a friend and seeing the joy and laughter on their faces. That feeling…is what I’ve based most of my life on.

      The other reaction to the scene is from an acting perspective. Spoony managed to make that entire story seem completely casual and unscripted, and his tranquil fury that slowly builds until he throws the games is perfect. I actually felt sad and scared for him, and that is the coolest thing. Spoony, you are my hero. Well, you and Linkara, but still. I hope to meet you at a convention one day, especially because our states aren’t that far apart (California VS Arizona). Thanks man.

    • notyoursavior78

      My video abruptly ended during his “story sequence” so I am trying to reload it, but this may have been the greatest video I ever seen in my life. It was true emotion. I’m a guy and I just wanted to give Spoony a hug or a pat on the back at some points. It was also funny, just spot on and really makes me respect Noah even more and everything he’s done up to this point. I like Ultima., but I had never been as devoted to the series as he had been. This video shows what a betrayal to the series this game was better than any counter did or anything I ever read or watched about the game to this point.

      This conclusion surpassed my expectations of it. Honestly i didn’t even think Part 2 was all that good, but Spoony got everything out seemingly in this video. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the ending yet (still loading again). But yeah Spoony no matter what anyone says. You did beyond good here! You deserve to rewarded somehow.

    • sprode

      Holly… I know so much what you mean (even to the point of not posting comments).

      My father is the reason why I started gaming, back in the days of the NES. I remember watching him play Punch-out!!! for instance, not understanding what was going on but working through the one point where I remember him losing. It took years, but it was so worth it. Or deleting his data on StarTropics and eventually figuring that game out. It was like exploring the last fragments of the memories I managed to hold onto, and it was worth so much.

      I was too young; we didn’t get to play long enough. I can’t make any new ones like that… it isn’t something I’ve ever been able to replicate. As things fall apart around us, what else to we have to hold onto?

      That’s what I like so much about what Spoony does, though I can’t explain it. I think it’s as someone said – there’s something uniquely personal there, and I can identify with things like that and feeling betrayal at what publishers do now.

      Ah, but now everyone here is depressing me. Thanks for sharing.

    • http://www.facebook.com/erik.mattern Erik Mattern

      You really got to me there. I feel for you… this one just made me so depressed that a whole series could end like this. It’s so hard to erase these betrayals from your mind… especially when the past meant so much to you. It was Indiana Jones for me… I spent my youth idolizing the character and wishing I could be just like him. I was so excited to see another one, and what came was a mindless, soulless, pathetic moneymaker… exactly like this.

    • http://www.facebook.com/seongkeun.yoo.5 Seongkeun Yoo

      yeah.. I’m probably tad younger then most people here, and even so I still connect with theses feelings.
      Our family wasn’t the wealthiest one of the bunch so I started gaming with old beat up, used sega master system, while most of my friends played SNES , or.. well computers.
      Somehow having the newest games made you the cool kid, and having a previous-gen consol, I never was one.
      I was a very lonely kid back then. But the one friend I did have was my cousin. He lived very near our house, was about 3 years older than me. He was a big guy of his age , and didn’t realy have to take care of me, but he would.
      He would occasionally come along and help me beat games like sonic, alex the kid, so on and so forth.
      I barely was the age to read any decent text but the shiny stuff on that big black TV mesmerized me and It’s one of the oldest memories I can think of
      We had to part our ways , me and my cousin, eventually. That’s how most cousin-relation ship works . I guess. But whenever I play games.. Retro games, I can still see that big guy helping me beat those games through the night.
      It was really good to know there are others who had the similar experience.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gabriel-Langevin/100000921051043 Gabriel Langevin

      I’m bad at writing long wall of text, so all I will say is this: If I was single I would marry you.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Nuka-Sonne/718413063 David Nuka Sonne

      Thats was.. was a Touching post :,( srsly this post made me cry. I remembered then in 1999 i played bettlejuice, for the fist time with my brother and with Spoonys story i felt really sad. I might not be as old as you guys on this website (unless there is a few boys under 16 on this website) good post, great video and awesome website :D.

    • Matthew Poulter

      This was a beautiful story, and if it’s okay I’d like to share my own.

      My dad was the one who got me into video gaming. He bought a SNES and a Genesis for the household when I was about 4 or 5 years old. Even before I was old enough and competent enough to play them, he would rent whatever game I wanted to see him play and play through them (and lord did I request that he play some horrible ones), without a complaint ever. After a while I started playing myself and would hog the consoles uncontrollably, but my dad was often patient about it and we’d trade off and play together whenever we had time. The advent of online gaming did even more for us, as even when he’d be posted to a different city for a year, we could play Halo against each other from wherever we were.

      My dad walked out on my mom and I about 5 years ago and has done everything possible since to make our lives a living hell. I haven’t spoken to him in about 3 years and have no intention to ever do so again. All that being said, I’ll always be grateful to him for introducing me to what’s been my biggest passion and favourite hobby throughout my entire life: gaming.

      Sorry to ramble, just thought I’d share my story for yours.

    • http://twitter.com/Zephronias Zephronias

      Hearing Spoony’s story about his brother and him made me cry, and reading your story about your mother made me cry.

      The first games my brother and I ever played were the old Might and
      Magic games. Our mother played, and my brother and I (he was four, I was
      six) would press the A and S buttons to make the characters attack.
      Some of my earliest memories are of my mom shouting “A, S, A , S, shoot
      them quick! Good job! Here, now you can get their treasure.” and of me
      and my brother switching spots because I liked do press S (which did
      magic). Our dad absolutely hated the computer (which my mom built
      herself back in the days when it was cheaper to build a computer from
      scratch than to buy one), and hated that me and my mom especially were
      playing the games because he thought girls shouldn’t like those kinds of
      games, so we would have to wait until he was at work to play together.
      The saddest day ever was when I was eleven, he was nine, and we got
      windows XP, only to find out most of the MM games didn’t work on it.

      Thank both you and Spoony for reminding me of that time.

      As for the video: best ending ever.

    • http://www.facebook.com/aron.marczylo Aron Marczylo

      That really was a touching story.I just with there was something I could do to erase or atleast make Richard Garriet publicly apologise for Ultima 9, even though it appeared that the team working on it were thrown this way and that way and the game was made up from scratch again.

    • http://www.facebook.com/njarvis2 Nick Jarvis

      …You are awesome for this, Holly Smith.

      One of my earliest memories of gaming was being two years old and having my parents try teaching me to play A Link to the Past. It didn’t work, but a year or two later, and I was playing something on the Apple LC II with my mom – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. And then, with my little brother, I played Mario, Zelda, all sorts of things, and when I became a fan of Command and Conquer, my little sister was right there, playing alongside me. Red Alert 2 is a hell of a lot of fun when playing with your family.

      My mom isn’t dead…And well, I still live at home (living on a labourer’s wage on your own is incredibly difficult), but in some ways – I know parts of that feel. And really…Noah, and Holly Smith as well…You’re awesome.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Karo-Gal/100000790948267 Karo Gal

      Me and my brother had a nes we often played on together. He is 9 years older than me, so you can guess who won, but we always had fun.
      But I didn’t get into gaming until he gave me monkey island 1 and 2, and pretty much told me: If you play these games, you will be an awsome little sister”
      So I started playing, and I have no idea how I figured the games out…. being norwegian and not having learned much english must have made it difficult….
      I didn’t really care so much for gaming at the start, but then my brother got cancer. I started playing all the monkey island games, and any other games I could find in his room. Like tomb raider and civilization, and when we visited I would brag how awsome I was and he would say I wasn’t awsome until I played another game, or that he was better at the game.

      It was a long three years, both good and bad, but he came home and we continued with gaming, but added watching movies together.

      He is 30 now and lives on his own, but we still play together and try to beat eachother.

    • Tom Gibbons

      Fantastic first post.

      That was a great ending to the Ultima
      Retrospective, the specific historical reference to what a Paladin was probably about the best way you could ever hope to end this.

      I’d always kind of wondered what Ultima was, I was still pretty young when
      the later games in the series were coming out so I’d never really found
      out. This series really showed me how vast and intricate and
      far-reaching the Ultima series really was, and how much it influenced
      games up to this point. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you showed
      me here.

      I think I’m probably going to end up going off on a
      tangent here, and it’s not really a story so much as some thoughts I’ve
      had for quite some time:

      Growing up, and to this day, I’ve never
      really had a role-model. I’ve never really looked up to any specific
      person or valued one person’s beliefs and opinions above everyone
      elses’. I don’t think anyone really got me into games or heavily
      influenced what it was that I enjoyed spending my time doing. Looking
      back, it makes me question whether I’ve ever truly made a connection
      with anyone I’ve ever known.

      For the longest time, I’ve been an
      extremely cynical person. I always seem to see the flaws in everything,
      when no one else did. I feel like I’ve never really looked up to or
      connected with anyone and that, especially now, after all this time, I’m
      not sure I ever will. I fear that anything even resembling someone I
      could connect to might just be condemned by my cynicism and that I might
      not ever have that connection that will make it all be worth it.

      I’m
      not looking for a few people to reach out to me and offer condolences,
      claiming that pain will be worn away with time and that everyone always
      finds someone in time, I’m too cynical to take such comments to heart.

      It
      makes me wonder if maybe I’ll always have an emptiness inside of me
      that other people lack, because I’ve never had someone to guide or
      influence me.

      I wonder if it’s too late for me, if nothing will
      ever truly be worthwhile to me because of how fragile and finite and
      hollow everything is. I don’t seem to really value any specific thing
      and everything I see seems so fake and devoid of meaning. I have no
      faith in humanity because any virtues that might actually hold meaning
      are of secondary importance to the machine, the constant toiling to
      produce something simply for the sake of continuing to produce, not to
      actually reach a point where all suffering was a nightmare of the past
      that was simply left behind.

      I’m lost and I don’t know why I’m here or where I’m going.

      Thank you for making these videos.

      • http://www.facebook.com/holly.smith.581 Holly Smith

        The truth of the matter is, is that I’m almost the same way as yourself. I tend to over analyze pretty much everything around me. That’s partially due to the fact I was bullied in elementary and junior high. For that reason, I just shut a lot of my emotions out and it took a lot for me to actually let in the few people in my life that I care about.

        I still struggle with being around people and when I am, they don’t really see the true me. They think I’m shy, but in reality, I act like that because I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing and then they hate me just for that one reason. I always go back and rethink what I did or said to a person, sometimes even years later.

        I don’t connect to people because I have a different mindset than they do. And I act snarky and sarcastic to make people keep away from me because I don’t want to let people in. It’s unhealthy, I know, but in my mind, I’d rather have a few close friends then a lot that will just backstab you in the end.

        And it’s never too late to have someone or something guide or influence you. It doesn’t have to be a person. It can be a book or movie series, a work of art, a band with music you like. I recently took up bass guitar because I heard the bass riff of one of my favorite songs and thought it sounded beautiful. I also branched out of just drawing stuff and started focusing on making clay figures and charms. It helps to have a hobby.

        You might not have faith in humanity, but humanity is overrated. To be frank, the way our world is at the moment disgusts me. That’s why I tend to just stick with looking at things that only apply to me. It’s selfish, but I feel if you can’t deal with your problems at the moment, then you don’t need to look at things that don’t directly involve you.

        Anyway, sorry this is so long. Your post just felt like one of my friends trying to ask me for my input. They usually come to me because I’ll tell them straight up what they need to do and not sugarcoat things like everyone else tries to do.

    • http://twitter.com/Das_Bass Das_Bass

      It reminds me about how when my younger brother had to write something about a person they look up too or something like that ( it was so many years ago I can’t remember) point is he said in it about how he and I would spend hours playing Super Mario Brothers 3 ( my favorite Mario game) and his favorite being Super Mario World. How we played both games nonstop on chirtstmas break ’00. When he was 6 or when he’d sit next to me as I played Deus Ex, Heavy Gear II, Slave Zero, Half Life. We have not done these things in years. As I grew up and entered high school I spent most of my time with what little friends I had or alone as I didn’t mind it much.
      Sometimes we’d play SSBM, but most of the time I was playing CSS, civ 4 or Command & Conquer 3. He found the RTS or TBS boring even when I played them back then and as we all know CSS has 1 map =p so he never watched me play them since 12 years playing the same game does that to people?. When I found this and read it about 2 years ago it hit me hard as we had not played ether of those Mario games in at the time 9 years (it was ’09) Well I never told him I found it and I don’t know if he missed those days, but that winter break like we did back then played both games all night :’) One day when I’m in my 30s I’ll think back to it and cry. Keep on keeping on Spoony.

    • frank.gwin

      You know what? I read this post about two months ago and began to think back to when I first started gaming. It was actually my dad who bought me my first console, a gamecube, back when I was about 7 years old. He allowed me to borrow the original Splinter Cell from my friend Kenny when I was only 8, and that series became a passion for me. Back in the day I ended up making complete stealth walkthroughs on youtube for all those games and getting hundreds of thousands of views. Man, those were the days…

      Anyway, I knew all of that in my head, but I had never really sat down and thought about how it all started with my dad. We have had a falling out over the past year because of differences in beliefs and it really hurt our relationship. Reading this post made me think back to who kick started my passion for gaming and helped it along. It was my dad who got me my first Splinter Cell game and it was also my dad who would put up with me chatting away into my headset when I used to play SWAT 4 or SWBF2 online. I seriously don’t remember him complaining once, and you bet I was loud! So anyway, I went back and reconciled my relationship with him over these past few months. So thanks, thank you for making me think back to my roots. I owe you a beer.

    • http://www.facebook.com/jbhaslach John Barton Haslach

      I remember when I was three and my dad introduced me to Star War Episode IV on VHS. Ever since then I have loved the Star Wars Trilogy with all my heart. And for some reason, despite every stupid change that Lucas makes to the series, I still do. I remember hearing the stupid rumor about how the Clone Wars and everything that happened was a hoax and non canon and flipping out. I understand Noah’s feelings about Ultima. I felt the same way when DC announced the Reboot and basically undoing 70 years of history.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000677655417 Jacob Blais

      I’ve been avoiding my mom lately because she has caused me a lot of trouble lately…I’m going to go apologize and play Final Fantasy VII and Silent Hill with her when I have the chance

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Devyn-Sha-ken-Kennedy/1047447079 Devyn Sha-ken Kennedy

      I know this is coming in a little late to reply to you but what Spoony said and what you shared touched me as well. I played my first video games with my mom and dad. My dad, however, stuck with it the most. My dad has been gone for about ten years now but without him I wouldn’t have ever picked up the game controller. People have told me games are pointless, but the bond they gave me with my family in my younger days say different.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gareth.crew Gareth Crew

    HOLY SHIT, SPOONY!

    That was incredible! I actually freaking cheered at the very end. I’m very much enjoying the metaplot that the experiment is beginning to develop here. Please, continue to flex them writing chops. And I do wish I’d been there to throw stuff at you when you shot that scene. :D

    I also really dug when you got personal with your memories of Ultima, and how it touched you. All my life I’ve been something of a late adopter, technologically.

    I was always interested, in Computers, but my parents never really had the money (or the interest up until that point) for one, so I actually started on the Console – first an old Atari (yes, I’m THAT old. Bite me. :P), then, the glory that was the NES. I discovered Ultima 4′s NES version and I thought it sounded really really awesome, in that for a change, you had a completely different, but completely compelling goal in the quest for Avatarhood.

    I loved the hell out of that game, I loved the virtues – and this is tipping one of my own hands, how it managed to be moral without relying on theism, like so many other flawed arguments being thrown at me around that time… But that’s not the point!

    The point IS that I didn’t actually manage to get my hands on a bloody computer until I hit High School and took it upon myself to learn how to build them in order to actually get my hands on a decent one that I started playing PC games.

    I jumped back in at Serpent Isle, and for what it was worth, I had a brilliant time with it. I think it was actually a bit old as well, as I remember a friend playing it first before passing his disks along to me. That winter, the Girl Guides of Canada introduced their insanely addictive chocolate mint cookies, and since my sister was a Guide, she had a steady supply… That fall, I must have done nothing but play Serpent Isle and Wing Commander Privateer and eat mint chocolate Girl Guide Cookies. Good times. I’m amazed my Shadowrun group didn’t rise up en masse and lynch me.

    So while Ultima is obviously NOWHERE near as dear to me as it is to our beloved Spoony, I remembered wandering around Britannia looking for the Abyss in Ultima 4, and I found his death incredibly shocking at the time, and so I literally gasped at the game’s final betrayal… That one would have blown the meter off the screen.

    Anyhow, thanks for that, and seriously, thanks for calling out Richard Garriott on that as well… Seriously, is that any way to end your ultimate D&D campaign, Lord British? Especially one that had some of the most complex looks at ethics we’ve seen in gaming to date.

    Uh, does this mean we can look forward to Final Fantasy XII-whatever next?

    Keep up the great work!

  • http://www.justin.tv/imagoth2004 imagoth2004

    LOL That was by far the best ending to finale I’ve seen.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Martin/1596700226 Stephen Martin

    Still repeating that line in my head.

  • http://www.facebook.com/josh.cornaglia Josh Cornaglia

    At the end of the review I threw my hands in the air and yelled “fuck yeah!”

    Thank you Spoony, that was truly awesome.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000901746556 Allaiyah Weyn

    Man…..I’ve forgotten how bad the voice acting in this game was since the last review. Melodrama & halfassery all around.
    If that’s makeup,
    I like how your eyes turned a darker & darker color as the review progressed & then topped it off with a disheveled wig.
    Continuity goes at the bottom of the urinal, contrivance spills over the sides.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gabriel-Langevin/100000921051043 Gabriel Langevin

    Took me a few minutes to realise the eye make up :P
    Good job and I love the ending XD

  • Kenori Merrik

    Dude, I dont even know where to begin with this.

    This review was a fucking masterpiece. I could tell that you you put a MASSIVE amount of heart and soul into this. I honestly cant tell if you were even acting or not by the end of it. Please continue, I cant tell you that you will always have my support.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1739155497 Dylan Connell

      …………you cant?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Eddy-OSaile/806483839 Eddy OSaile

    That was… wow. That was amazing.

  • Dani

    Well done. Seriously. Excellent work. The review was funny of course but the
    ending just got me, from the story about you and your brother playing
    Ultima to that last bit. Just fucking awesome and very genuine. It’s
    stuff like that that sets you apart from other reviewers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Jimrabbit AJ Hare

    The Bubba Ho-Tep reference made me laugh so hard. what was the AHM in the sky supposed to signify anyway?

    • Jonesy89CFPD

      It’s one of the mantras, can’t remember which one offhand, though

  • http://www.facebook.com/raven.alexander.39 Raven Alexander

    i love the massive amount of positive feedback here. i comment on some of his Vlogs and its nothing but trolls and hate. really pitiful to see. its really cool to see other fans like me continuing to enjoy spoony’s work

  • http://www.facebook.com/fernando.nakandakari Fernando Nakandakari

    Dude, so… epic. I never comment, but I’ve been following your reviews for a good time now, probably watched every single one at least three times. I don’t know how many nights I’ve put some Ultima review before going to sleep and just laid in my bed listening to your remarks about the series and (more recently) your rants about the prostitution of Ultima. I freaking bought Ultima 7 on GoG because you said it was so good. So I had to say something now.

    The last part, about your brother, was just so touching. I know how it is to associate a game with someone. For me and my older brother, it was probably Final Fantasy, especially FFVII. I’m kinda young, and we never had a Super Nintendo (had a Genesis though, I still think old school Sonic beats the shit out of Mario), but from the Ps1 onward every Final Fantasy that came out we would take turns playing it and damn, those were the good times.

    He was the one that got me into tabletop RPG. Every now and then he would take me to play with his friends waaaay past midnight. He was the one that got me into console jRPGs (man, I still remember my first one, Legend of Legaia. I think I learned English because and while playing it). Heck, he was the one that got me into drawing. He introduced me to all of those things and, even though he stopped playing eventually, I carried on. Dude pratically modelled who I am. So I can see how this game must’ve sucked so hard for you. Man, it was hard for me to see Finall Fantasy VII get whored for easy money all these years.

    I believe that your story will resonate with a lot of your fan base. I believe most of us grew up on a time it was not easy being a nerd (it just saddens me to see geek culture being so… meaninglessly exploited these days), so we really got attached to our games and books, and have stories just like yours.

    Keep rocking, dude. Cheers from Brazil.

  • Jacob Semchuk

    Wow…just wow this is hands down bar none the best review/retrospective I have ever seen the heart and soul placed in this one piece of work is truly inspiring, and i for one will always be a fan of your work. And the M3 reference was in my mind better then the ending to the actual game.

  • http://twitter.com/cynical_otaku Lydia Beam

    FANTASTIC job, Spoony. yeah, I’ll admit it, that monologue you gave and the entire finale after it made me cry. I was invested, dammit! That was some DAMN good screenwriting.

    Bravo, my friend.

    Bravo.

  • kfizz

    Hey has he said anything about ultima forever?

  • http://www.facebook.com/maestro.somer Maestro Somer

    Spoony, I just have to say what many have already said: you are fucking brilliant! You passion for these games really comes through. I myself have never played any of the Ultima games, but you made me feel every ounce of disgust and betrayal that you were feeling while playing this game.

    On a more personal note; I know what its like to feel like you’re at your lowest point, and, funny enough, your videos played a major role in keeping me laughing, so I just wanted to say that I will support you, in anything you do. It’s only fair.

    Again, fantastic job with everything that you have done, and I anxiously wait for more!

  • The Incomparible Mevi

    Over the course of the review of Ultima 9, with everything that was going on (as far as we have been able to find out), I was actually truly afraid that this was going to be your last review. I’m glad you’re not giving up. There are a lot of douchebags in the world, but there are those of us who really do appreciate what you do. No matter what, we will be here. And as a man of faith, I don’t know if you believe it will do any good, but I will keep you in my prayers. Thank you for all the years of laughs and awesome reviews. I will always be looking forward to the next video you post.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Goldstarenterprises Andrew Petty

    Hey Noah

    Just wanted to say that hearing what you had to say about your brother made me relate to mine. He would play the third and fourth game with me on the NES and it too was some of the beginnings of me learning to read. While my earliest bed time stories are my mother reading to me before bed my fondest ones are of him getting his old beaten up copy of The Hobbit and reading me the tale of Bilbo Baggins. I too know what this series along with many of the Star Wars games and Final Fantasy meant in my life with him. It was what we did together.

    He helped me make my first RPG character when I was four or five years old for the old Palladium RPG TMNT games (damn you Bay!). Any way I get what your saying. This series along with FF were the first RPG’s I ever played and it was probably what sparked my interest in Fantasy. It was and is part of who I am.

    I know it’s been rough and speaking as a guy who has family that suffers from depression I know it’s been tough. I’ve suffered from it in the past myself. All I’m saying is this. Your reviews bring a smile to my face and make me laugh. Bad things went down on all ends with CA, but you got the raw deal on that stick. I’ve watched your reviews since before you where on there, and before I ever saw the NC for that matte, and I’ll keep on watching them. Don’t know if your a religious guy or not but your in my prayers and I hope things go well and hope that you continue to make all of your review, Great, good, bad, terrible, or otherwise, because at the end of the day I’ll be there for them.

    Love your work and always have since I started watching them.
    Andrew

    PS Loved the Paladin line.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ben.colohan Ben Colohan

    This was out standing. Spoony you out did yourself with this one. Also if you make that last line a shirt I would so buy it. That was fucking epic.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=25102916 Bryan Edwards

    I very rarely comment on your videos, Spoony, but as many others have pointed out, this one compelled me to do so. I was brought to tears by your very personal monologue at the end about you and your brother growing up playing Ultima. While I’ve never played these games and probably never will, you made me care about them with these reviews and feel every bit of the “betrayal” you have felt and continue to feel from other things in life. Just know that you touched a lot of people with that speech and these reviews and you have gained the respect of the only people who matter when it comes to these videos other than you: the fans. I’ve been around watching you since Bayou Billy and I have never doubted your ability to grow as a producer/actor/writer and make people laugh. Keep up the great work and I will always be here to support by clicking that play button and even clicking on the ads from time to time. Cheers!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kristopher-Tiplady/100001382888368 Kristopher Tiplady

    For all those that think depression isn’t a big deal and say to just get over it *cough* Josh McClary *cough*. Try waking up everyday feeling hopeless, completely helpless, and like your life is over. Feeling like that all day, every day. And not being able to sleep at night because your mind is racing with negative thoughts and you have a constant sense of impending doom. Here is the best part… you will never know why, you can’t rationalize it. All you know is how you feel, which is like complete shit. It is not something you can just “get over” and if you think it is then you only prove your ignorance. I have depression too, Spoony, and watching your videos is one of the ways I am able to pass out at night. Note; I used the word pass out not fall asleep. They are a great distraction from my thoughts long enough to get some sleep. You are very talented man and I hope you keep up the great work. Even if you do move on to other projects I hope you still leave this site up so I can keep watching your previous videos, BECAUSE THEY NEVER GET OLD!!!

    On a side note. Didn’t the Guardian used to be so big he was able to snatch up the Avatar….. IN THE PALM OF HIS FUCKING HAND!!???!?!!?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Matt-Kinol/100001311443569 Matt Kinol

    Shepard: Whats a spectre?
    Master Chief: Whats a spartan?
    Samus: Whats a metroid?
    Dovahkiin: Whats a dragon?
    Red: Whats a Pokemon?
    Altair: Whats an assassin?
    Mario: Whats a plumber?

    On an unrelated note, please, please tell me that was makeup. Given that I know how strong these feeling of hatred can be, (other m is to me what ultima 9 is to you) I know it would be just ridiculous for me to tell you to please calm down. I know you can’t just do it, and that you feel like there is no good reason that you should, but for your own health if for nothing else, I want you to relax. I don’t know whether you can afford it, but if you can, I would definitely consider therapy, or medication if you aren’t already on it. Please try to understand, I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life. Its just… you’re worrying me. I know you’ve heard this a just as many times as I have, if not more, but there are people who care about you. Probably you more than most.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cart-Man/100002326540155 Cart Man

      20 other people have asked whether it was make up or not.And the same amount people informed them that it was.Not trolling here but reading the rest of the comments can be of benefit.

  • http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

    i feel the same way about Diablo 3.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Evan-Dawson/100001081996326 Evan Dawson

    Is that a fucking Decker’s pistol/.223 Pistol/That Gun replica?

    I WANT THAT

    • Asher711

      It is and I want to know where spoony got it.

  • http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

    It really is refreshing seeing so many positive comments on such a large scale for a change, and so much of it for the serious ending.

    Sometimes, simply being human is much more important than just being a funny-man telling jokes.

  • Grendle1853

    That was so fucking good dude! You got really dark with this one, which given how close you were with the series is understandable. This whole retrospective was brilliant and my brother and I have had a great time watching it, and your Ultima 1 video is something that I showed a bunch of my friends on the night of the first Pathfinder game I ever ran as a DM, and for most of them it was their first roleplaying game ever. While I do hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel of the FF13 review, this review was just brilliant and I’m really glad I got to see it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/chad.sebok Chad Sebok

    Wow. Absolutely amazing ending to an amazing series you did! Thank you for the time and thought you put into all of this, been a long time watcher, and this is my first time actually posting. Thank you Noah! Fucking sweet!

  • valereth

    Spoony, I do know what it feels like to watch things you loved growing up and things you cherish turn to absolute shit. I mean Star Wars. Final Fantasy. Alien vs Predator. THAT WAS ONCE A GOOD GAME SERIES DAMN IT! THE MOVIES FUCKED IT! The 1998 Godzilla movie. I do know how you feel man.

    Great review, as always. I am looking forward to you destroying Final Fantasy XIII. That game angered me so much that I did not even finish it. I hate it. I hate that it got a sequel. I hate that there are fanboys who are blind to the fact that it has stupid logic and gaping plot holes. I hate that it is getting a second sequel. I want a good final Fantasy again. STOP HANDING THE SERIES TO FUCKING TORIYAMA! HE CANNOT DIRECT! X-2 AND XIII PROVED THAT! Quit letting Nomura design the characters. All he does is generic anime characters with belts and zippers everywhere, and his aura of mediocrity and suck just continues to hang over the series. Maybe it is better if they just killed it off, already. Ugh.

  • Norman Stillwell

    Joke: What do you call a Muslim Paladin?
    A Saladin!

    • Carteeg_Struve

      Are we allowed to simultaneously vote a comment both up and down?

  • http://twitter.com/Dremux Matthew Holman

    You are amazing Spoony! I’ve been watching you since you started and I don’t care what anyone else says, you are the man in my book. I’m with you till the end, no matter what!

  • TCBLB

    Spoony, I am glad that you finished this retrospective. When I was younger, I knew of Ultima on the Nintendo which we all know as Ultima 3. I never saw much of or knew of the other games and I am glad that you got to show us all the games and that this piece of your library is now complete.

    Spoony, as any consolation to what you said towards the end of betrayal and ruination, I think this series of your videos shows that not everything ends so badly, not everything has to have a terrible conclusion and something that someone likes can have that full line of quality given to it.

    Even though I haven’t met you I feel bad that something you held so dear turned out to hurt you as much as it did. I hope there is that movie series or game series or SOMETHING out there that you can enjoy and bring you happiness and memories, cover to cover or reel to reel.

    Take care and heres to the next one of your Final Fantasy videos- something that so far hasn’t let me down either.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Marek-Smolny/100000588255521 Marek Smolný

    Better ending than Mass effect 3 :D, but seriously, this series was amazing. i cant even imagine how much work you put into this. thank you and have a good life sir.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bovakleen-Dragon-Born/100002077196790 Bovakleen Dragon Born

    amazing review my friend, dark as hell, but amazing. I must say it is sad to see a great series end in such a bad way especially given what personal connection you have with it. personally I’m of the mind set that bad movies or games in a franchise do not detract from the previous ones or lessen their memory but that’s only comfort if you at least know the franchise will go on, which is why it always makes me mad to hear someone say “this franchise should just die” because then you remove the chance of there ever being another good one. final fantasy may yet return to glory one day so long as you don’t give up.

    but anyway great review and good graces to you for sticking your neck out there and emotionally opening up like that. your sincerity is one of the reasons I enjoy your show and value your opinion. and looking through the comments it’s very heart warming to read about all of the wonderful times people have had with family while playing games, my own earliest memories is playing games with my mom and dad, my mom in particular got me into gaming and her free will and ability to find the childlike joy of every moment in life will always be an inspiration to me and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her.

    there’s my two cents for what it’s worth. looking forward to ff-XIII and all that is to come.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Arth-Bumadoir/683699422 Arth Bumadoir

    It was funny, it was emotional, and even saddening at times, but I have to say as a long time fan it’s one of my favourites, keep up the good work :D

  • Marko Grujic

    I had a feeling that, and I might be wrong, whole Spoony getting fired was a plot point for Ultima 9 review. And maybe some that will come after this one. And that one day they will get together and explain everything.

    • http://www.facebook.com/arne.maes Arne Maes

      Haha that had crossed my mind too, but if that’s the case they really mishandled the community shitstorm that arose over it

    • http://twitter.com/Frevoli John Teece

      I was thinking something like that – like it’s this hugh Joequin Phoenix / Andy Kaufman thing, part of the darkness manifiesting with the dark eyes and scratches, and is gonna culminate in the fourth year anniversary. The guy in the chair could even be Turl… I guess we’ll find out

  • http://www.facebook.com/Airus Michal ‘Prken’ Hubka

    Noah saved us all. I’ve loved every second of these series. Thanks

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Lauderdale/100000047693553 Chris Lauderdale

    “That, my friend, is a paladin.”

    Badass.

    Here is my story:

    I have been playing video games since my earliest memories. My serious first memories were of me, around 3 years old, playing the original NES. The games we played were Gyromite, Ballon Fight, and Super Mario Bros, but the game I remember being the most entranced with was Legend of Zelda. That game was memorable, with the title screen and music, and running around exploring…

    My brother and I have always been fairly close. He was 3 years older so I was always the bratty brother following him around, because I thought he would do cool stuff. He is as big a gamer as i am and he really pulled me in. Being the little brother I always was Luigi.

    But I always loved Legend of Zelda. Link was this cool puzzle solver who would use a badass sword and all these cool items. Tricks and secrets, they became my bread and butter. I would soon learn to love other fantast games and RPGs, including the original Final Fantasy (for a bit), Dragon Warrior, and Shadowgate. I always loved Shadowgate because it was the original point and click adventure. Between that and the Kings Quest games, i got hooked on point and click, and because of one other game that I played on the NES, I learned to love the RPG.

    That was Ultima 3, Exodus. On the NES. I didnt understand a thing, just like you, but I loved it all the same. Looking back I didn’t make it anywhere, but it was fun to just dink around and explore.

    Growing up I built my love of PC and console games. i played oh so many NES and SNES and PC games.

    I played the Nintendo 64 and eventually played games like D&D. But it always came back to me that the benchmark of games…was Legend of Zelda.

    I love the Zelda series. I grew up loving the puzzles, and Ocarina of Time was a game I fondly remember loving to death, though I think Link to the Past holds some more nostalgia for me.

    The point is though, many of us grew up around these series. They are a part of our childhood. They represent what we thought of when we were growing up. This became a part of our morality, our thoughts, our mindset. We look at games and we know what it is to be a kid looking to play these games, but even closer to us is the idea that we need to know the story ends well. The old games gave us so much, but in the end we give just as much.

    Sometimes we need to know that it is just as important that the game makers care as much as we do. It is important to us that things that happen in the game matter, otherwise, THEY HAVE NO WEIGHT.

    Moments where we cry and cheer, become hollow when someone just disregards it or throws it to the curb because they didn’t care. How can we go back to hoping to see Spidey getting married again, when we all know now that an author can just wipe it away and not give a damn to what they are destroying.

    What happens has to stay, IT HAS TO MATTER, otherwise, we just don’t have it in us to care.

    Obi-Wan, not really dead, just ghosty. Darth Maul? Not really dead. Just a little less legs. Goku dead? Nope. Dragonballs.

    I know it is a sad experience, but sometimes, a person needs to stay dead for their life and DEATH to have real meaning. Let them be what they need to be, tragic, inspirational, let their accomplishments matter, don’t break them down whenever they appear, and down cheapen a tragedy with a “Just kidding!” or a deus ex machina that ignores the story.

    Sometimes, Dupre just needs to stay dead.

  • BrendanConcannon

    This reminds me of a saying by Gimpy in “The Undergrads:”
    It’s only a game. Although the fate and balance of the universe is at stake, it’s only a game.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cart-Man/100002326540155 Cart Man

      Playing a long running game franchise like that can invoke more emotion than the eejits playing Call of Duty 55 year in year out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/KoeLeos KOstantinos Piou ELeftheriadis

    this review is the stuff of legends, EPIC JOB and the make-up was an excellent idea, i was like ..is he doing this review while being sick or not slept for days :-|
    I have more or less the same things to remember with my sister and sonic 1 when i was 5 and i remember she said we have to free those animals in that are trapped in the cage by Robotnik and i was like we have Nero (parrot) in a cage too and she went like THIS IS A GAME, SO DONT YOU DARE OPEN HIS CAGE AND ”FREE” HIM WHEN MOM ISNT HERE, GOT THAT.???
    Also the THATS A PALADIN is a freaking screenshot of badassery right there man
    Plus i am defenately gonna wait for your FF13 review cause its the only i played except 7 so i am gonna compare my original reactions to yours
    P.S i felt near the and that THIS was like your last review..you scared me there man :@

  • http://steamcommunity.com/id/alyxxvixxen666 Alexandria

    If TGWTG is quantity, then Spoony Experiment is quality. This is easily far above the standards of anything I’ve seen Doug Walker do and it really touched me on a deeper level too… I mean no disrespect to him and the gang at TGWTG, but what they do isn’t like this at all. It wasn’t just ranting about a bad movie or a bad game, this time it actually felt personal and serious. The Ultima games are a part of who you are and the very fabric of your personality. The way Ultima 9 practically takes a foul putrid shit all over that makes it more than just a bad game. Like you put it, it’s a betrayal. Not only to the fans of the series but also to you as a person. This is easily the most disgusting shit to come out of the bloated corporate pig that is EA and while I think they have released a lot of good games, for every good game they release, there are at least a few steaming piles of shit like Ultima 9.

    I actually cried a bit when you talked about your brother and what these games have meant to you. It really made me understand the pain you feel about Ultima 9. Great use of makeup too!

    I can relate to being betrayed by a sequel. I can remember playing The Longest Journey on PC around 1999 with some friends and really getting attached to that game as April Ryan was one of the few realistic female protagonists I’ve seen in gaming and she felt believable as hell. So naturally I was hyped about Dreamfall as it was the sequel to TLJ. When it came out, I felt horribly betrayed as it contained a ton of inconsistencies and horrible design choices that completely ruined it for me and it’s actually the only game that I have sold. It was so bad that I didn’t even bother keeping it and that’s saying a lot. People rip on games like Duke Nukem Forever for being bad but at least that was being bad on purpose. Dreamfall felt like it was trying hard to be its own thing but failing entirely on being a sequel.

    So anyway, I’m a huge fan of you, Noah, and I wish you all the best! <3

    Hugs and kisses from a fellow betrayed gamer!

  • ElderVIII

    Epic.

    That’s all I can say to describe this. Most Hollywood actors couldn’t evoke the emotional power you unleashed at the end. Just… epic.

    My gaming betrayal is from a more recent era. I didn’t have a computer until the seventh grade, mostly because my dad didn’t need one for his business. It came with some fairly standard freebie games: PGA Golf ’95, Magic Carpet 3D, etc. Shortly after buying it, I acquired a copy of Diablo, recommended by the parents of a kid I babysat at the time. Oh, the hours I pored into that game. My younger brothers played it, setting the course for the archetypes we would always pick first in any other RPG we’ve played since. We talked strategy on beating some of the big baddies. I eventually got the “unofficial” expansion Hellfire on release. I still have a copy stored away. Diablo 2 comes out, I’m buying it. The series continued to satiate my thirst for demon slaying. That game stayed in my CD-ROM for the better part of a decade. Even when other games could pull me away, I always eventually returned to the realm of Sanctuary to save it from evil.

    And then Diablo 3. I was pumped for the game. The first trailers came out promising a return to Tristram. The return of Leoric! Diablo stalks the earth once more! My brother was pumped to play it as well. But I should have heeded the warnings. Online always. Streamlining to make it more MMO accessible. The game being patched more times in two months than the previous game went through in twelve years. Server crashes and security breaches.

    This wasn’t Diablo; this was WoW-lite. You didn’t earn your power; you followed a programmer-designed tree where the variations were “you deal lots of damage” or “you take lots of damage.” You want a super rare item? Go the the Auction House and get scalped like there’s no tomorrow.

    I uninstalled after two months of playing. It will collect dust along with my other fail purchases of Hellgate: London and Prey.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690590820 Steve-o Anders

    Hey Spoony. I don’t know if this will make any huge changes, but the community guys at Ultima Reconstruction did try to tidy up the games continuity with some fan made patches. Check them out here.

    http://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?event=project&typeKeyword=upgrades

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Wout-Oostendorp/100000101961538 Wout Oostendorp

      It doesn’t matter. This is not how the product was meant by those who conceived it. And they conceived it as a betrayal of everything the ultima series, the avatar and their philosophy stand for. Quite literally, a complete blasphemy.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ulf.hoffman Ulf Hoffman

    goddamn that was good you are my favorite reviewer man i mean the even if it takes you a long time to put it up sometimes. The entertainment i get from it is better than most movies i have seen you are really making a example of how much effort a reviewer should put in his videos and really liked your speech about you and your brother you really put your soul in it for the whole world to see thank you for your work man.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tessa.teixeira.3 Tessa Teixeira

    That speech about your bother, as well as the awesome end, finally got me to comment on here. I’ve watched your videos for a long time, sometimes disagreeing with things but still enjoying them, but this teared me up a bit

    When I was younger, my brother (nine years older) and my sister (four years older) used to play games with me. Not a lot, since I was bratty and my reflexes were terrible (and still are,) but they played with me. We only had one system, a N64, and very few games that were appropriate for any of us. I used to watch them and play spotter when they played Rainbow Six and Turok. My brother played Pokemon Stadium with me and not only sparked my interest in the games, but taught me the mechanics and how to avoid losing as horribly as I used to. Those are some of the only memories I have of my brother before he left for a long time, and I doubt he remembers that, but I do.

    Then I began to become a gamer, focusing mostly on handhelds. The first time I got a Gameboy Advance and Pokemon Ruby, I literally played until I threw up. I still remember beating Steven for the first time. Lately I’ve been trying to branch out, but I don’t have the money to pay for game systems outside of the ones I already own, most of which were given to me by my brother. I actually found a lot of our old N64 games and gave them to him since he wanted to play them again.

    Last summer I came back from a long trip to Austraila, and my brother let me stay at his house for a few days afterward. He has a PS3, and I wanted to learn how to play, so he sat me down, put in InFamous, and taught me how it works.

    I barely even realized how these events were connected until you started to talk about growing up with games, and I realized my life would be missing a huge chunk if my siblings hadn’t taught me how to play when I was four.
    So in a roundabout way, this is me saying thanks for that, and thanks for all the videos you’ve ever made. You rock.

  • http://www.facebook.com/FlamingDonuts Victor Negrea

    1. The story about your brother was touching. I have similar memories with Fallout 2, which I love to this day,
    2. The video is kick ass, and I love the way you ended it, awesome work. Usually when I look at internet reviewers, 3/10 reviews are either boring or not up to par. I always, and i mean always look forward to yours, despite not being interested in the subject matter sometimes.
    3. Man, you should go audition to be an actor (if you aren’t doing that already). I don’t know how many takes you needed, or even if you were acting, bu that 3 minute long take was great.

    All the best man!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Wout-Oostendorp/100000101961538 Wout Oostendorp

    I absolutely loved this. Award-worthy. I can’t say much that the other comments haven’t, though a question is nagging:
    Does the stinger foreshadow a definite ending to the Spoony Experiment?

  • Crunch Bogus

    That was beautiful, man.

  • http://twitter.com/stonekhan117 Mish

    Wow Great ending…. and Great writing….. love the the reviews… waiting was well worth it…

  • http://twitter.com/FPShane Shane Fitzgerald

    Wow…I have to admit, I was not prepared for how deep and intense this review got in the end. Naysayers be damned, your stuff is always worth waiting for. I rarely comment on videos, largely because I know anything I say was probably already said, but you had so much damn emotion in this one. The closest I get to good gaming memories like that was when my mom randomly wanted to hook up the NES and play Duck Hunt, and I was in my 20s. I can see how watching something that had such a major impact on your life get dragged through the shit-filled mire of Golgotha can just ruin you.

    And even with that, you still manage to make it entertaining, especially with that ending! I can’t wait to see what you have in store. And from a very grateful fan who got to meet you at ConBravo, just remember what ol’ Jack Burton says when the pillars of heaven shake:

    What the hell.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Petr-Matafonov/100002602177171 Petr Matafonov

    Dat was kewl

  • http://www.facebook.com/naomi.latham.1 Naomi Latham

    I don’t think I’ve seen a review quite as masterful as this. It feels like you put your heart and soul into this review, and it pays off. From watching this, I can see exactly what makes this a betrayal, on a personal level as well as general. And your plot with the Guardian…I hope whatever you’re going through now isn’t as bad as this is suggesting. Brilliant from a story standpoint…I just hope you’re not going to end up slipping to a dark place in real life any time soon.

    This video, this review, hell, your entire Ultima retrospective series, is what I hope to come close to achieving someday. I’m nothing special right now, but I hope you realize how many people you’ve inspired. Be proud, Spoony, even if you need to take a break from all this.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-Paynexkiller-Hobbs/100001369657106 Josh Paynexkiller Hobbs

    So, is it worth playing?

  • http://www.facebook.com/noah.quilantan Noah Quilantan

    …Let me tell you ’bout Homestuck…

  • Radosław Hołdys

    Did they honest to God ressurect Dupre?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-Paynexkiller-Hobbs/100001369657106 Josh Paynexkiller Hobbs

    Consistency! Why is Final Fantasy 13 on Burton throughout the review and then handed to him at the end?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cody-Ward/100001744038901 Cody Ward

    Okay, so I’ve been thinking since I saw the finale for the first time yesterday, and I’m compelled to make sense of what was SUPPOSED to happen. I want to paraphrase that I have never played the Ultima games – unfortunately – and all my knowledge of the games comes from these reviews.

    So. I have been going over in my head everything that led up to the culmination of the Guardian trilogy. And this is what I have come up with. The Guardian trilogy is supposed to be the replacement of the cosmic serpents. Pagan, Britannia, and Earth are connected with Britannia being the intermediary between Pagan and Earth. You can’t go straight from Earth to Pagan, and vice-versa. (“Britannia FIRST”) Each of the worlds represent one of the great serpents: Earth being the world of order (having no magic of its own and governed completely by technology and reason), Pagan being the world of chaos (being governed by the chaotic powers of magic) and Britannia being the world of balance (equal parts technology and magic, evidenced by the Kilrathi starships, etc). Each world produces an avatar of inverse nature to the world itself. The world of chaos producing the Avatar of Order; the Guardian subjugating and ordering everything to the point of opression, the World of Order producing the Avatar of Chaos; the ‘Avatar’ living a life of obscurity and using any means necessary to achieve his goals (i.e. the moral gray area of Pagan) and Britannia producing the Avatar of Balance, having some fame but not having any true political power – Dupre.

    When the Avatars are born, it means that the Great Serpents are nearing the end of their life-cycles. With their waning influence, balance is upset and Britannia becomes an arena for the powers that would replace them for good or ill, explaining the arising of things like Mondain, Minax, Exodus and the Shadow Lords. When Dupre sacrificed himself to bind the Great Chaos Serpent, the cycle was broken as he took the role meant for the Guardian. With the cycle broken, the powers that be had to find some new solution. In the mean time, the Guardian is able to send the ‘Avatar’ to Pagan, forcing him through all that crap while making him an equal for the Guardian. Titan of Ether translating into the Titan of Chaos. Upon returning to Britannia, it has been reduced to a battleground for the two titans. The Guardian and Avatar eventually becoming locked in eternal combat with none gaining an advantage over the other, until their powers cause them to rip open the Ethereal Void where the new Serpent of Chaos is overcome by Dupre’s spirit, making him the new Serpent of Balance and proceeds to bind the Guardian and Avatar into their predestined roles, thus restoring harmony and everyone lives happily ever after.

    Again, this is just my interpretation of what 9 was supposed to be. An end to the Avatar’s story while opening up future possibilities for a new hero, and my need to make sense of things.

  • http://www.facebook.com/angel.d.figueroa.9 Angel D. Figueroa

    so the game ends when you cast the Armageddon spell in a contained area, killing yourself AND the guardian at the same time…I can actually see how that would be a poetic ending, if they were building him up to be your dark half, and that one couldn’t exist without the other, then it is logical that destroying yourself is the only way to finally purge his evil from the world. Of course that meaning is completely BOTCHED considering how that dark side thing was pulled out of some hack writer’s rectum…

  • http://www.facebook.com/orastella Aileen Mason

    wow!

  • calbeck357

    I guessed 500 gold pieces. Damn, I went over!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dustin-Smith/100001487648807 Dustin Smith

    I don’t think that any fan of this series believes that this game is part of the ultma canon. I know i wouldn’t. There are so many plot holes that it might as well be written by someone who never played the games.

  • http://profiles.google.com/joe.england Joe England

    Man. I thought the Nostalgia Critic and Angry Joe and the AVGN knew anger. And don’t get me wrong, they do! I’m still a fan of all those guys and I certainly hope that some kind of harmony can continue between reviewers. All you guys are pros and the cream of the crop so far as online criticism goes.
    But I have to say, this was far and away the most visceral angry review I’ve ever seen. You, Spoony, are the king of anger.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Wojciech-Olczyk/1463241380 Wojciech Olczyk

    Pure Awesomenesss

  • http://twitter.com/dunebat dunebat

    Ohh! And the song the video ends on! Fucking flawless!

  • http://profiles.google.com/joe.england Joe England

    By the way, I’ll also compliment your makeup job. Excellent review, all around. Like I said, king of anger, dude. That takes skill.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Freddy-Duran/100000817426762 Freddy Duran

    Touching man, although after the book throwing i was hoping for a Citizen kane esc room trashing.

    and my god thats sad…we need to kill EA for ruining this series…

  • http://twitter.com/lenaandreia Jennifer Fowler

    Spoony, oh Spoony. Amazing job, man. Though you’ve heard enough of that here.

    When you talk about betrayal, I swear we’re on the same wave length. I was first drawn to this site over the FFVIII review–mostly because it was so refreshing to see someone else who was brave enough to call that game out for the piece of shit that it was. Our opinions on things tend to be the same, and I was tickled pink when you started the Ultima retrospective. I’ve told my husband many times about my fond memories of Ultimas III and IV, and had always wondered where the series had ended up. I didn’t have access to a computer until 2002–after the series had ended–so I’d always wondered what had become of it.

    The reviews were really informative and fun, and you even got my husband curious about the series. When we saw how bad Ultima 8 was, we sort of chuckled and went “Well, that’s EA for you”. We surely didn’t think 9 would be that bad. Of course, when we saw the END of that video–and you somberly told us that Ultima 9 was the REASON for the entire retrospective because of how shitty it was, we were like “Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

    The betrayal counter in the first part was funny, and we figured that most of the problems with Ultima 9 were that the story was watered down and stupid, and there were some dumb dialogue problems and plot holes. You know, regular bad game stuff. Bad enough to hate, but not so bad that it fucking raped the series. I don’t know why hearing BETRAYAL 93 times didn’t make that sink in, but maybe we just couldn’t imagine how bad it would get.

    My… My god. That scene with Dupre “coming back to life”… I almost punched the screen. My mouth fell open. My husband–who’s never played an Ultima game–was enraged.

    Your speech afterwards–I could feel the years of frustration that were built up behind it. You see, I had an experience like yours with the Final Fantasy series–though I was the older sibling. I started that one with FF1 back in 1990, when I could barely read. My mom and I played through it and FF2 (4) together. I learned to love reading thanks to that game. My little sister, who was a toddler, loved watching me too, and I really began enjoying reading the text to her, doing little voices for the characters and so on. When Final Fantasy III (VI) came out, she was as excited as I was, even though she was only 5. I read everything to her, and Kefka is still to this day one of her favorite characters in all of gaming. She used to this maniacal laugh and exclaim “I’M GETTIN’ TWISTED!” Hearing a 5 year old little girl do that is freaking hilarious. We were both invested though. She got upset when Shadow stays behind at the end. Heck, when Cid died.

    We played Chrono Trigger together, and she was starting to learn to read. By the time FFVII came out, we could alternate reading lines. I never played if she wasn’t around. We solved puzzles together. Those were some of the happiest memories we have together.

    Then FFVIII came out. I hated it from the outset. I knew it was going to be terrible what with the namby pamby character designs and the stupid SeeD thing. I was in high school, and the last thing I wanted to do was play a game where I was IN SCHOOL. Still, my sister and I played through it, and though we hated the story, we at least had a fairly decent time (her resounding “YES… YESSSS!!!” when Rinoa was dying in space was worth it).

    Then of course Chrono Cross was next, and that raped Chrono Trigger so badly I could probably rant as long about it as you did about Final Fantasy VIII. Yeah, FFVIII? I think the reason I remember so little of it is the rage I felt towards Chrono Cross caused me to lose that entire year. That game drove me to babbling incoherence with its bullshit metaphysical crap.

    Don’t play it, Spoony. Don’t ever play it. It’s like Evangelion raped Xenogears, and produced a retarded baby.

    So the series has since spiraled into overhyped shit. I remember a time when I was like the ONLY KID in my class who knew what Final Fantasy was. Everyone else was busy playing Mortal Kombat or looking forward to Donkey Kong Country, and I was getting excited about Final Fantasy III. Nowadays, they slap the logo on anything. It’s pseudonymous with overblown, stupid plots and over the top effects. It is to video games what Transformers has become to movies, and I pray every day that they’ll finally declare it finished so it can freaking rest in peace. I think the only series I’ve seen degrade so badly over the same amount of time is the Simpsons.

    But Ultima… God. I had no idea. While I was ripping my eyes out of my face over the bullshit stupidity in Chrono Cross, you were experiencing Dupre doing the whole “Avatar! Your “NOO!” brought me halfway back to life!” thing. Seriously. My God.

    I sometimes think that creative people don’t realize the impact they have on their fans. That a lot of us have based the canon of our lives off of their work. It’s how George Lucas can get away with some bullshit claim that “Well, the fanboys didn’t like Phantom Menace because they’ve just gotten old.”. They refuse to admit that the problem is that they–THEY–just don’t give a shit. They just want to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible, and don’t care who they have to rape to get it. They want money without effort.

    Ultima IX should have been amazing. It should have felt like the end of a 20 year long journey. Something that gamers would hold up as an example of how to end your game. It should have been like a high level D&D campaign, where your whole party is around level 18 and 19, so they’re able to seriously fuck shit up, but so are the enemies they’re against. You should have been fighting the Guardian’s hellspawn while climbing through his death fortress. This shit should have been like LOTR 3. All of your stalwart companions reunite for one final battle. The stakes have never been higher.

    But no. Because EA games wanted to make their money sooner rather than later–because the creators were so obsessed with the latest and greatest hardware–because everyone was too short sighted to understand that graphics DO NOT make the RPG–they decided to tear down 20 years of world building. Brick by brick. They decided to SPIT in the face of anyone who had taken interest in the series over that time. They didn’t even CARE enough to try to make the dialogue fit.

    Dupre comes back to life just because?! What, did the Avatar use the motherfucking Dragonballs?! Is THAT what is in the shrines?! How the fuck does fixing them bring back Dupre?! That makes NO SENSE! I don’t care WHAT they claim. Deadlines, pressure from EA, drugs–NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN THAT ON PAPER AND THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA!

    It isn’t a goddamned sacrifice IF YOU CAN COME BACK AFTERWARDS WITH NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER!

    His resurrection was a goddamned SIDE EFFECT! SERIOUSLY! What even the FUCK?!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ben.colohan Ben Colohan

    I see some of the stories that people have left here in responce to the one that you told about you and your brother so I want to leave mine.
    I remember being 5 and playing an NES with my dad on Super Mario Bros. My dad was much better then me at the time so I would be stuck at like 1-2 and my dad would be on 2-3 running the bridge with the cheep cheeps attacking him. I would start shouting like Ernie on Sesame Street going “Here fishy fishy fishy!” and almost every time my dad would get hit by one of the fish. At the time I thought it was because of me saying that but later I found out it was because of him laughing so hard.
    I remember later playing RE3 with my dad and him getting the unlimited ammo gattilng gun and just mowing down zombies. It is those things that make me miss how close me and my dad used to be. How now that I am married and have my own son how we play I know how dad felt back then. The pride you feel when you watch your child figure out a problem and then look back at you all smiles because they did it.
    I think it is important to keep those memories. While we can rage against shit and betrayals don’t allow yourself to forget the happiness that the memories give you.

  • http://twitter.com/TBennett247 Troy Bennett

    What has always separated The Spoony Experiment from all the other internet shows was Noah’s personal touch. His best material came from memories of his childhood, and now I can see why he really DIDN’T belong on TGWTG. Spoony isn’t a reviewer of the latest video game, or bad comic book, or nostalgia from the 80s/90s for the sake of nostalgia. He doesn’t have a schtick or niche like all the other producers on that channel. He has always been, and always will be, unique to himself, because all of his material impacted him on a PERSONAL level.

    It wasn’t more evident than this particular episode, where he revealed his relationship with his brother and how Ultima 3 brought them together. As a viewer, something clicked in my head. Logically, I knew why Spoony was this upset about a game, but in that single story alone, you become emotionally connected; just as emotionally connected as him. Now, you TRULY feel his pain. That, my friend, is brilliant production, and brilliant storytelling.

    With the finale, it makes me wonder if Noah felt some sort of betrayal about the Final Fantasy Series as well. Maybe he was a fan of the earlier games, or a huge fan of FF3/6 like we all were back then. I guess time will tell.

    Still, the Ultima Retrospective, seen beginning to end, is Noah’s best work, and summarizes what TSE was meant to be. This is what keeps me coming back.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mitchell-Bandes/100001750373297 Mitchell Bandes

      You bring up an interesting point, regarding the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII review. I’ve looked forward to his FF reviews more than anything else, since that is the RPG series I’ve played the most. And yet, how could FFXIII be a betrayal anywhere near the magnitude of Ultima IX?

      Ultima had a continuous storyline running through the entire series, and the final game just shat on the continuity that it had been building up that entire time. When the last Ultima title came out, it retroactively ruined the rest of the franchise, not least by cheapening Dupre’s death.

      Final Fantasy doesn’t have continuity. Each title in the series takes place on a different world, with different characters and different problems. Bad music, linear gameplay, and irritating characters may make a game disappointing, but it doesn’t do anything to affect what happened in the franchise previously.

      • Matrim

        Well, if you go by FFT, all the Final Fantasies from 1 to at least 6 take place on the same world (you can find ruins and artifacts from each of those games around the world), but I doubt that you’re supposed to take that seriously. ^_~

      • http://twitter.com/DragonStryk72 Sean McTiernan

        Well, basically, FFXIII did absolutely everything you don’t do in a final fantasy game. Even the *fans* of it will tell you it “Gets fun about 25 hours in.” That is just not a selling point. Other FF games managed to start getting fun within about 15 to 20 minutes, so 25 hours is a *huge* gap of time. No game should have a 25 hour long tutorial, and that’s only the most basic issue with the game. Crap, FF4 (2 in the states) sucks you in immediately, and you can really feel the conflict within Cecil’s character as the realization that his king has become a villain sinks in.

        The story makes no sense, and they keep slapping terms around, like Eidolons (summons), Fal-Cie (So other form of summon.), and various other crap, without ever really giving context, so you’re gonna spend that first 25 hours going “Wait, why?”. They continually put really awesome looking vehicles in front of you, make it look like you could get to pilot them in some fashion, then yank them away. This is the case for at least 25 hours.

        I can sum up 25 hours of the game thusly: Start at beginning of linear corridor, walk to end, take any turns, cause that means there’s a treasure, beat boss by using Libra and everyone auto-attacks with whatever its weak against, then watch cutscene. That’s it, that’s every challenge in the first 25 hours of the game.

        Also, Final Fantasy games have sequels such as XIII-2 and X-2. Yeah, so they don’t even have that anymore now.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mitchell-Bandes/100001750373297 Mitchell Bandes

          You’re right. But that’s just bad gameplay and bad storytelling. These are problems contained WITHIN the game. It failed to live up to the fans’ expectations, but it did nothing to harm the stories that preceded it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/glen.berkel Glen Berkel

    Apologies to other readers of this post… this is the first time that I am ever posting a comment on a review. I too am very shy, but just wanted to share my appreciation. Not doing so would be a sin.

    Hi Spoony, I have been viewing your video reviews for a number of years now. Having encountered your work via TGWTG, I know that I had stumbled on to something unique when I saw the review for Yor. That is one of my fav clips on the entire Internet… period! I enjoyed just about every one of your reviews vids until your work with Bennet the Sage on Space Thunderkids. From there I was extremely hooked. I found your actual website and BLIP.tv pages, got motivated to check out even more work of other reviewers with whom you have collaborated, and got caught up on all the work you had done in the past. I had already checked out a few older clips. But I realized that I owed it to myself to dive into your older reviews and Let’s Plays.

    Then… Rebruary was amazing! I really hope that Mr Brown knows how you honor his work in your comedy, and that you can do an interview with him someday – or better yet, review a movie with him! Same for the Ultimate Warrior. I really hope that you can interview him someday, with both of you in and out of character, I even check out your commentaries to some some more insight on your reflections as an actor, a producer and a fan of the material you are working on and critic of your own work.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the Counter Monkey clips. Particularly the “I forgot my pants” story & the one on alignment, and the way that you warned all fans that your experiment id about coming together to have fun, appreciating every view as valid, and poking respectful fun at the craziness and magnificence that is our entertainment and stories (like The Toilet Pizza).

    All this, and I am not even a D&D fan, have never played an RPG beyond 1 hour, am not a Star Wars fan, only appreciate SciFi, have never seen a Highlander movie in full and am not a huge comics fan.

    Apologies again for the length of this post… I am just saying that I watched and enjoyed your experiment evolution to a point of consistent genius productions.

    But Ultima… a game series that I have never played, and likely never will play… Ultima…. reviews that had my going to look up Motorhead and Manowar songs on Youtube and clicking thumbs-up whenever someone stated “Thumbs Up if Spoony sent you here… Ultima… Don get me wrong, I have my favs of your work in that series (… how does a tree even grow down here? It´s a sewer-argh!!!) And the collaboration with your brother, HUGE cudos to him for his role in the productions. Still…. what you guys and Oreo have wrought… ULTIMA!!!!

    The first Ultima 9 video was sheer, unrelenting brilliance… I wanted to post a comment so badly, but held back (this is really not my thing). Part 2 caught me off guard – taking away the glorious Betrayal-counter, inviting us deeper into the demise of the series and its impact on you. But this last vid…. worthy of nothing less than a standing ovation. I am not sure how much of it was really “acted”, but the heart & emotion, sharing of your investment over the years, passion, sense of loss… and sense of being robbed… that was not just a “performance”. If it was, I really hope that some agent picks you up and puts you on the big screen. If it wasn’t, I REALLY hope that some agent picks you up and puts you on the big screen

    I am not privy on any tensions with you and the TGWTG people. I hope that that all goes well. Talented, passionate people should strive to work together to make great things. A great friend of mine suffers from clinical depression. She is doing well, and I wish you all the support you need to get over the complications – there are no quick fixes for this, but their are people who are their for you… God’s hands, listening ears, encouraging lips and shoulders to cry and lean on. I hope that you can find these and that you will be lifted out of any dark place that depression would drag you into and repair any relationships that are dear to you.

    I just wish that you had more vids with no/less swear words so that my kids (6 and 8) can become fans sooner as well. How about reviewing (crappy) kids toys from when we were kids and comparing them to the just on offer today? They deserve t be hurt back too.
    Because I also wish you continued applause from an ever growing, dedicated fan-base. Because, EVERYONE owes it to themselves to know who the Twelve Peers, the foremost warriors of Charlemagne’s court, were. Everyone should know… THAT’S a Paladin.
    UNADULTERATED GENIUS!!!!!!!

    Good luck and God bless, man. By the looks of the posts below and all over your website, I am pretty sure that your vocal and no so vocal fans will always be here. I know I will.

  • DarkIron112

    Spoony,

    I’m drastically underinformed regarding the recent troubles in your life, and frankly, I feel that’s how it should be. I don’t really care what’s happened, you were one of the first online reviewers I ever watched, and I respect you as a talented reviewer. Whatever personal demons you have to worry about are your business and it always bothers me how much psychobabble comes to be the subject of your commentor’s discussion. Your life is your life and you should be able to handle your own problems without worrying about them. Then again, that may be the hell of fame.

    On a side-note, where did the footage for the convention come from? Where you got attacked? Was that… real? And, is this experiment of yours truly over? Please, say no.

  • http://twitter.com/StillGaming Still Gaming

    Epic

  • SunOvaGun

    An awesome review and woot glad to see you resisted that Red asshat now onto further adventures and horrors. And I am also a person who reads every bit of flavor text and history in game worlds so glade to see I’m not the only one that gives a shit about that. XD

  • kevinfumero

    Dude thanks for finally getting this over with. Fantastic job and great story about your past with this series.

    The best part, for me, was the Mass Effect 3 ending reference! Sensationally done with the colors and dialog and all. Although since you went with the secret 4th ending (shooting him in the face) I guess your screwed now aren’t ya’?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Markus-Melander/511156243 Markus Melander

    HAHAHAHA! Oh man! I was right! 100 gold! Priceless!!

  • insanoludacrous

    i must say that this may have been the greatest way to end this review. Spoony, you are an artist.

  • urupomias

    the length of all the comments show how much emotion was packed in this
    the ending was more epic than in most masterpiece movies
    my jaw was literally dropped for the first time maybe in my whole life when i heard that dupre line, not only because it was the most insulting, controversial and idiotic line in the whole series which basicly took a dump on anyones head who ever invested in the story, but also because i knew spoony would go batshit crazy
    Its always awesome to hear gaming stories from childhood, so really enjoyed the monolog
    way to end your review with style! :D
    i would enjoy though a few reviews with a little happier note

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Emerson-Junior/100001244946050 Emerson Junior

    This review was the epitome of awesomeness plus the pinnacle of epic all blendered in the blender of amazing… the result is by far the best review i have ever saw, it kept me trough the whole thing and i dreaded every moment it stop to buffer.
    You learned how to read by video games, I acquired my fluence in english all thanks to wanting to understand all the great shit you say. It paid of, beatifuly so.
    I expect you to top this review time and time again.

    BTW, The thing I hate by stabbing westward… brilliant ending music.

  • Zack Beagle

    To continue the trend of first time commenters I’d like to say a few things.

    Firstly, bravo, sir. Just bravo. This series was pure magic. I’m not sure what I can say about your speech that hasn’t already been said in the previous posts, but it was one of the most moving speeches I’ve ever heard in my life.

    I had similar experiences with my father. I remember the first video game I got was Starfox 64 and my dad and I would play that almost everyday. We would spend hours taking turns playing and watching the other play. Every time Peppy would say the line “You’re becoming more like your father.” I would look up at him and smile. Thinking about those moments always get’s me a little teary eyed.

    The next game that we both played a lot was DooM 64. We were both crazy about it and that’s the game that really got me entrenched in video games and eventually led to me playing the original DooM games which is what made me realize that I wanted to be a game designer and got me where I am today studying it at college.

    This video also effected me in a way that almost no form of storytelling does these days. It kept me in suspense. Towards the end during the Guardian’s speech I was legitimately worried that something terrible was going to happen. I wasn’t just assuming that everything was going to be okay, good triumphs over evil, etc. The usual storybook fair that most movies and games tend to be engaging in nowadays. But, not this. Kudos, sir, on a fantastically portrayed ending.

    I’ve also since played one of the Ultima series after watching your videos. I grabbed Ultima IV off Good ‘Ol Games after you linked it. It was one of the most fun experiences of my life. I spent two hours reading the manual and spellbook before even finishing the opening of the game. It was amazing! I turned out to be garbage at finding my way around so I haven’t actually finished it, but making spells and trashing monsters was some of the most fun gameplay I’ve ever had in an RPG.

    I realize this may not be the correct forum for this, but I feel I should mention it here as well. Your Counter Monkey series is not only one of my favorites of the site, but it has also greatly influenced and inspired me as an aspiring game designer. In fact, it’s actually gotten me into D&D. I grew up playing a lot of RPGs, many of which were based on D&D, but I never got the chance to play the tabletop game. Right around the end of high school I finally got some friends together to play it. It was a disaster. Sure, we were all familiar with the concept of an RPG, we all had some decent knowledge of the material, and most of us had engaged in some sort of roleplay before, but what really held us back was a proper DM. A few of my friends tried their hand at it, but they never planned anything! They just made up a story as they went. And in their defense some of it was fun and we had a lot of laughs during every session, but it never felt real. It never felt like real D&D. So, about two years later, after two years of studying game development AND watching your Counter Monkey videos diligently I decided: “I’m going to DM a game myself.” So, I notified my friends, got their character sheets and wrote up my own campaign. And you know what? It went pretty damn well for a first run. I’m still absolutely a novice, but thanks to your Counter Monkey videos I’ve got a great basis of DM knowledge to start with. So, if you’re reading this, Spoony: Thanks, man.

    I’ve been a fan of yours since my buddy Frank showed me your videos a few years ago and I can guaran-god-damn-tee you, especially after seeing this, that I’m going to stay that way.

    Thank you and best of luck to you in your future endeavors (Final Fantasy XIII),
    Zack J. Beagle

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=817506911 Daniel Kong

    10/10 Would watch again.

    I picked up the Mass Effect 3 ending tints the second time around.

    The “Thats a Paladin” one liner doesnt get old.

  • http://www.facebook.com/wagnerpaivafernandes Wagner Paiva Fernandes

    My god, what a beautiful review, amazing writting, almost made me cry at some parts.

    Noah Antwiller, you are the best

  • ScutigeraColeoptrata

    Best. Ending. EVER!

    Remember, you’re never alone man!

  • http://www.facebook.com/benjamin.cosgrove.7 Benjamin Cosgrove

    Is it wrong to say I wanna hug Spoony after seeing this video?? Seriously now that was deep your brother story made me think of a game that touched be deeply and made me into what im into today.. So Im 10-13 (was so long ago) and I visited my nan from down south, I went into town and wondered into a 2nd hand shop and picked up this White covered psx game with Final Fantasy VII on it.. now at first I was like WTF??? looks borring but.. I noticed the disc count 4 I was like “4 discs must be long” got the game ran home slapped it in.. I think after seeing the intro and some dialogue I was hooked.. from then one my m8s played it together n loved it and so on.. it’s called a Magic Moment!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/bob.daniels.18007 Bob Daniels

    I hope shooting the guardian won’t end up like shooting the godchild in mass effect 3.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Landon-Mcmillan/100002530239252 Landon Mcmillan

    Oh god… oh god man Spoony one I am so sorry I mean that must of came out the heart when you did this and this must been leading up to… all the highlander FF 8-10 all that pales to what ultima 9 was to…. and my god…. I mean My god I working beeing a Lore keeper of most game Hell I even read most the text of world of warcraft to keep things in track but my god…. FUCK THAT GAME IT RUIN EVERY THING, IT EVEN RUIN A MAN LIFE!!!

  • Zeithri

    Watching this Ultima Retrospective-Review has been an amazing experience and made me very interested in the Ultima franchise. I believe that Ultima XI is probably one of the most important games in the series simply because of it’s complete lack of consistency and continious contradictions. It clearly shows that no matter how great something is, there is always the chance that it will fall from power and it’s fall will surely create a new low.

    No matter how bad Ultima XI is, you still have the amazing memories with your brother and you can always invite your brother over to relive memories. I can only hope that my little sisters will speak of such memories of me as I taught them how to play games and even showed them many, many games.

    I’ve been following the Spoony Experiment since around the time I stumbled across your review of Heroes of the Lance for the NES, shortly after I had discovered the Dragonlance universe through the song ‘The Soulforged’ by Blind Guardian, a song about the mage Raistlin Majere and a song I can personally identify myself with. This, all of your Ultima reviews, is by far my favorite reviews as I watch them often or just listen to them.

    I’ll look forward to your next review, vlog or counter monkey!
    Keep up the great work and See you next time!

    ~ Ps. I, too, have had the experience of betrayal.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho

    I never played Ultima when I was younger, reason being is simply because when I found out about them, I didn’t care much for that out-dated engine, I was playing another game at the time, Diablo.

    With this I’m not saying Ultima sucks mind you, if anything these videos made me WANT to play them, I’m a retro gamer after all and I play many many older games, but for some reason I never went back to Ultima. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is, Diablo 3 is for me, what Ultima IX is for Spoony. But still, comparing the two isn’t completely right for one reason. After watching all these videos, the sheer amount of story this game has, the messages and all it teaches, is much MUCH ahead of what Diablo had to offer. It’s a much much bigger disappointment, it’s incredible how this came to pass =/.

    That being said, Diablo still had an amazing storyline, characters and lore for me, I even read the books, and then Diablo 3 appeared… my god. Anyways, I get you Spoony and if anything, you at least gave me the want to play these games and I shall. Thank you and forget about Ultima IX, the best thing to do is ignore it even exists.

    Maybe one day, someone will pick the franchise again, redo Pagan (properly) and then Ultima IX, because the premises and the core ideas are amazing, it’s the execution that suffered. Who knows, one can only hope. I’m still hoping for an ending for the LoK series =P and hope is all I can do.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Asnip/100001401394818 Daniel Asnip

    Hello. I am another first-time commenter, and I am blown away by what
    you did. I cried. The last time I cried when I watched something was Toy
    Story 3. That’s how amazing your video was.

    My first video games were on a computer that ran Windows 2000 my Dad had
    in his home when I was about 7 or so. My parents divorced when I was 3
    months old, so I didn’t get to see much of him, but he taught me how to
    play the games and use the computer, and got me into video gaming. He
    wasn’t the best father, as he is a bit of a sociopathic liar, and,
    because I have autism, and it is usually passed down paternally, he is
    possibly an undiagnosed autistic, but he was still really amazing, and
    to this day, he is a man I respect deeply. It’s actually kind of
    interesting, because I used to think of him as this really tough guy who
    occasionally made jokes at my expense, but as I grew up, and turned
    from a kid into a teenager, and then into the young adult I am now, I
    found out that he was a nerd. He collects old science-fiction books, and
    writes alternate reality fiction on a forum. He is what might be
    considered in Japan a military otaku, partly due to his immense gun
    collection. He doesn’t play PC games, mainly because his work doesn’t
    allow it, but he finds some cool online games to play, and regularly
    sends me funny pics and videos, or a link to something awesome. Even
    though my mother hates him, and I’m sure I’ve picked up some of his
    negative attributes, I don’t care what she thinks. I’m proud to be his
    son.
    Spoony, your work has always blown me away. I discovered you through
    TGWTG a few years ago, and your Ultima 9 videos were so good, I have
    been checking the site a few times a day, just to see if the next part
    was up. You don’t churn out videos because you have a quota to meet or a
    deadline to make. You craft your reviews because they mean something to
    you on a personal level, and that’s what makes you so incredible, plus
    it really allows you to stand out among other reviewers. While I was sad
    to see you go from TGWTG, I think you’re going to do fine on your own.
    Also, I cannot wait to see what you have to say about FFXIII. I am one
    of the few people who actually likes the game. While it does have its
    flaws, such as the linear level progression, the terrible leveling
    system, some of the characters being totally annoying (i.e. Hope and
    Vanille), and the story needing a dictionary to figure out what things
    mean, it is an absolutely beautiful game, and the combat system is
    really solid. FFXIII-2 is one of my favorite games because it manages to
    fix the problems of the first game, redeems those annoying characters,
    and it goes back to Final Fantasy basics, such as time travel elements, a more clearly-defined baddie, and a plot both newcomers and veteran players alike can enjoy.

    Thank you for continuing the experiment, Spoony. For me, and for all of your fans, both regular and new commenters.
    -TheFinalFan

  • Quensama

    But Spoony you never felt betrayed by the Persona series :/ Please review it. I would love to see a review where you praise a game than bash. It will also be entertaining. Maybe you can try out a new form of humour?

    • Testsubject909

      I don’t think he started at the beginning.

      Plus, in the case of Persona, the game was still generally good and if you speak of Trinity Soul, that was declared non-canon. As for P3′s The Answer… Yeah, well, I just like to think that P3P, the definitive version of P3 though limited by it’s console of choice, took out The Answer, so I’m considering that the new canon.

  • Eric

    And this is why I don’t mind the wait for Spoony videos. Excellent productions that can be watched many times over.

  • http://www.facebook.com/FIGHTTHAPOWAH Patrick Walters

    Spoony, this proves you are the greatest internet reviewer who ever lived. That’s a paladin.

    • Testsubject909

      No… No, a reviewer is not a paladin.

  • Scottie4Mayor

    Fucking Awesome!

  • http://twitter.com/42Megabytings Airrider

    …I feel like I need to honor that bit with a story of my own.

    My older sister may be too busy to play games now or at least anything above a fairly casual game, but back when all I had was an SNES, she played with me.

    I’d say she was better than me back then, but the truth was we were both terrible. We only got halfway through Super Mario World, and most of that was on my shoulders, long after we’d got other games. We both thought getting through the first couple Grands Prix in F-Zero made us pretty great.

    Then times changed, she got too busy for anything outside an iPhone app and I was left alone when it came to gaming. I haven’t looked back since then but I still kind of wish she and I could sit down for something. I know that probably might not happen, but it’d be a good way to sort of share something from our childhoods.

    Adding a story like that certainly puts the meltdown into perspective, and really, y’know what, we may yammer and comment and argue in the comments sections but I think most of us know what it’s like to be stuck in the trenches with you like this. I know I’ve been here since the beginning myself.

  • http://www.facebook.com/derek.perkins.524 Derek Perkins

    And, because of this game, I will never buy a game made by EA.

    • Testsubject909

      Some games are made by EA. Other games are made by other developers who’re getting published by EA or are given specific timelines by EA. This gets rather complicated then.

      But I get where you’re going with this.

  • http://twitter.com/TheBilldozer64 Bill Olson

    Good lord Spoony, good lord. I know you’ve probably read some of these comments and got the same thing from them- you did an excellent job. Well, you did. I’d also like to note how your storylines within your reviews are far more interesting than most other reviewers who attempt the same thing. I’m happy to see that you’ve still got a passion for what you do, and even for some of the games you review (the part where you got pissed and started throwing the game boxes and manuals solidified that, to me). It’s gonna be great to see you tear apart another bad FF, but if this were the end of the experiment, I would not be disappointed.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Norgavue Michael Galczynski

    That was a very touching story about you and your brother. I reminded me of all the times my mother would take me to the arcade she worked at in the late seventies before I was born. Playing Table Hockey with my uncle and losing all the time. Playing on the Commodore 128 with my father into the wee hours into the night. This review was prolly one of the better ones I have seen in a while.

  • http://twitter.com/Bozdrs Ivan Severin

    I really do not know what to say…

    I do not know whether Spoony´s eyes in this whole video were there
    because of some disorder or anything else and maybe it does not matter.
    This was THE MOST touching and honest video of the year/decade/century. I
    am not even kidding. This is the tip of the iceberg of whole internet.

    This is my first comment on Spoony´s video and one of my very few
    comments on any video in general due to me not caring enough about what I
    am watching. But this is different, WAY different. Let me thank you in
    the name of all your fans for what you have brought tu us as a fanbase
    and community. Let me show, that we care about quality of the content
    you offer to us for free, that many of us take for granted, but it
    definitely is not.

    You might want to take a break from your amazing content creation and
    that is perfectly fine of course. The whole point of this comment is to
    praise the love and care you bring to you videos, that is simply not
    there in content provided by other people. You have done more than you
    can imagine for community of gamers and your fans. You will be always
    THE ONE REVIEWER for many of us, even when you feel like to end this due
    to your personal life and/or work.

    I would like to thank you in the name of your dedicated fans for
    everything you have done and said and I am sure, that I am not the only
    one who feels this way. The Spoony Experiment became more than just an
    experiment. It is a way of life.

    I (/We as a community) hope for the best of you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/stanley.delacruz.16 Stanley Delacruz

    I just want to say I have been a fan of Spoony probably since the beginning when he was in youtube. Spoony introduced me to TGWTG but none of them can produce quality entertainment like he can and I can’t wait until he reviews Final Fantasy 13, I love the game and I cant wait until he rips it a new one just like 10 and 8, which I also still love.

  • http://www.facebook.com/marcus.romano Marcus Romano

    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

  • http://www.facebook.com/JoshuaCottrellRaz Joshua Cottrell

    I’ve never posted a comment on any of your videos before, hell I RARELY EVER post comments. But I just wanted to say how fucking brilliant that video was. It started off with your usually light hearted hilarity, but as it went on we could see a change happening in you, and a change happening in the humor of the video. Then you hit the breaking point and stop to tell the story about you and your brother playing the Ultima games as kids… That hit home for me… My brother would do the same with me. We played tons of Playstation games together as kids, and he helped me learn to read with the game Brave Fencer Musashi. (oh and to understand the humor in puns, cause I think I was maybe… 4 when I played that.) And the ending… god that ending… Perfect. I truly can NOT wait for your next video. In the meantime I plan on watching back through your other videos. Thanks for all of the great times Noah. Keep it up.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tessa.teixeira.3 Tessa Teixeira

    I just thought of something: the Time Lord specifically says Lord British is summoning the Avatar for his last adventure- as in, LB KNOWS it’ll be his last. Then LB claims not to know what’s going on until the end. Did LB already know that the Avatar would have to kill himself?

  • PeaTearGryfin

    You know, I just had a weird thought. How is it that the Avatar get’s to be uppity with people that they don’t know who he is when he needed somebody to teach him to eat and had no idea about the book that is the crux of a religion that he basically started?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Riku-Himawari/100001113904887 Riku Himawari

      Yeah we… all… kind… got that thought. Since, y’know… Spoony kind of let the review in that direction in multiple segments.

      o_õ

      Anyway, Captain Obvious aside, this review freakin’ rocks, Spoony. Finally glad to see you return to form.

  • http://twitter.com/ArcWhiteFlame Arc Robertson

    all this building up to a review of ff13 really? that game was boring as hell and it was extremly linear and it had one of the worst combat in any of the final fantasy games but it was nowhere near as bad as 8 or 10 storywise.
    There are so many other final fantasy related shite out there like advent children and dirge of cerberus, actually that’s a point why is it that almost everything that spawned from ff7 is shit?

  • Thor Watson

    The story that Noah told for this review was one of the most touching things I’ve ever heard. While Ultima was not a series that I personally played as a child, I felt a touch of the connection that he had for the storyline and the overwhelming pain of the betrayal he felt when playing through this game.

    I especially identify with the story of how his older brother would play games with him and teach him things, my older brother did the same with Final Fantasy 2 when I was a kid. While I’m disappointed in the direction that series has gone, at least it wasn’t meant to be one cohesive storyline that was assraped by plot holes, continuity errors, horrible writing, and all around stupid shit.

    In addition to the personal connection this review gives, it is starting to tie everything, not only in the Ultima reviews but the whole Spoony Experiment itself, together into one cohesive knot. It sounds a little like Spoony is bringing his site to a close in a dramatic storyline fashion, but I really hope that’s not true. Because for as long as this site has existed I was, and shall always be, a huge fan of Noah and the incredible amount of hard work, dedication, and quality of his reviews.

    This review was amazing, your past reviews are amazing, and I can only see them getting better in the future. Thank you for all the work you’ve put into this amazing series of reviews.

  • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

    Man, Spoony’s tale of childhood nostalgia reminded me of how important games were in shaping my childhood. I’m a professional writer by trade, and an aspiring screenwriter/novelist/game designer by night and on weekends, and I owe all of both my skills and aspirations to games, from Classic DOOM on PC to Ted Woolsey’s SNES Squaresoft translations.

    Good times.

    Thanks for helping me remember, Spoony. Sorry it didn’t end well, for Ultima at least. :(

  • CapitaoBaumgarten

    Spoony, if you read this… YOU RULE!

    This ending and the whole brother speech was one of the most touching moments of my entire internet experience…

    Congrats, man. You are really awesome!

  • http://twitter.com/JonesStealhorse Monkey King

    Long live the SpoonyOne

  • http://www.facebook.com/allen.a.rodriguez.3 Allen A-Rod Rodriguez

    Just reading all of these comments and seeing your video really brought many emotions out of me. I remember back in the 90s when I was about 4 years old and I would play with my dad all the time. Bomberman World was one of them. Heck, he used to beat me all the time. Then I became the winner. Sometimes I wish that I spent more time with him playing games rather that with my friends. But it wasn’t the game that made everything. It was the moment that my dad and I were able to spend bonding with one another.
    I understand your pain, spoony. All I gotta say is I’ve enjoyed this series along with the rest of your work including your team-ups. I wish the best for you and hopefully everything turns out right for you at the end of the day.

  • http://twitter.com/CeeSique C-Sick

    i had to stop watching when spoony said that ultima taught him how to read. thats retarded. maybe playing it made him read better, but it did not teach him how to read. thats impossible and retarded.

    • http://www.facebook.com/kyle.johnson.984991 Kyle Johnson

      You do know that any medium that uses language could theoretically be used to teach a person, right? That’s the whole theory behind educational games. And secondly, I’m sorry to point this out, but you have the vernacular of an infant chimp; varied word choice could make your sentences more tolerable to read. ‘Sides, learning how to read is, like most things, a life-long pursuit; we get better, but we never quite master it (think chess, but with more pieces and half the spaces are actually pits).

      • PeaTearGryfin

        Too true. I remember that I learned how to read sitting on the playground at school reading Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard. Actually, my school had a program where we got graded based on our comprehension of the books we were reading by doing these tests. The other kids would have to read like 5-6 books a month to get all their points, but I usually only needed to read one because the books I was reading were at such a high reading level.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kyle.johnson.984991 Kyle Johnson

    You talking about your brother really resonated on a deep level with me, Spoony. My bro is seven years older than me, and I know I’m a pain in the @ss, but he and I would hang out, even when I was a snot nosed little spawn. I remember playing Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG, Link to the Past, and other great games with him, and yeah, they weren’t two player, but we’d trade off and just have a lot of fun.
    Which is percisely why Ultima getting screwed over has pissed me off to no extent. We shouldn’t have to deal with having our memories being tarnished with the screwups of today, right?
    Which is why I’m wanting to issue a challenge to all of Spoony’s fans, or even just people who have too much spare time; all you folks, clearly someone was taking a crap all over the ultima franchise when they made this atrocity, so why don’t we show them how we make a REAL game? How about we (individually or in groups) make fan-versions of Ultima-9 that don’t suck the slime off a bathroom stall floor? Make it in any RPG maker you want, I just want to prove this sort of thing is absolute bullshit.
    You game for the final versions, Spoony?

    • J.G. te Molder

      No need, it’s already being done. Just google “titans of ether”. I think someone actually posted a link somewhere here, or with the cut in two parts article comments. All we have to do is be patient for it to come out.

      If you do want to actually work on it, and have the skills, offer them your services, don’t reinvent the wheel!

      • http://www.facebook.com/kyle.johnson.984991 Kyle Johnson

        Nah, nah, I they’re doing it as a morrowind mod, which, while I think is awesome, I was wanting to try and make it in the classic 2-d style. I can’t do jack with mod-engines, but I can make stuff work in O.H.R.RPG.C.E. It’s more a question of what I am physically capable of rather than anything else.

        The way I see things is thus; I’m not good enough to be anything other than writing assistant for those awesome folk with their mods and such, but I can make my own sort of game, even if it’s only in 2d. And who knows, I may have an alternate look on things then they do: if reinventing the wheel has the end result with more people thinking in more diverse ways, then it’s a success, even if the reinvented wheel is crap.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kyle.cornettching Kyle Cornett-Ching

    My cousin and I used to play Sonic 2 when I was like 5. The first three Sonic games have a special place in my heart as a result. It was a good game for that, because it had the Tails ‘little brother’ mechanic, something I wish more games would do. My sister and I bought the whole 2D collection for the PS2 a couple of years ago and played through the whole thing while I was home from college. To my embarrassment, she’s better at it than me, despite hating video games : D

    This is my first time posting, in fact, anything on the internet. I don’t know how many of these you read, and I guess I’m repeating a lot of people here, but that was really beautiful.

    Never give up man. You’re not alone out here.

  • Anthony Black

    Talkin’ out o’ turn? That’s a Paladin.

    Seriously though, I remember playing Ultima 8 growing up, and getting extremely frustrated with the jumping puzzles. Watching this retrospective series was a lot of fun, not only because of your humor, but because of how much I learned about the other games.

    Great work on everything! I’ll see you soon at an upcoming convention!

  • KaorHashinake

    Spoony, there’s nothing else that anyone hasn’t said. I don’t have any stories of my own (my younger brother was never willing to play with me, and my older brother wouldn’t even be in the same room as me most times) but hearing your story…it touched me man. Seriously. The retrospective was amazing, and the ending was the best, the subtle references to ME3 (which I didn’t notice until afterwards), the progressively worsening eyes, the amazing speeches, all of those subtle nuances made this your best review. I wish you good luck, and here’s looking forward to an epic review of FFXIII!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Freddy-Duran/100000817426762 Freddy Duran

    and one minor complaint…i think you used a bit too much make up around the eyes…it should have only been crazy at the end

  • malcior

    I actually had kind of a similar experience with my older brother, but ill spare the story since there are clearly people in this comment section who can write about their own experiences much better than I can. Awesome job on the review Spoony, although I think I can gusse where (or should I say who) you purchased that Anti-magic gun from, hehe. Good luck with your reviews and, more importantly, your life in the future.
    All will be well :)

  • capthavic

    By the way, where did Spoony get that gun? I sooo want one!

  • http://twitter.com/izy2weird Izy Robbins

    BEST VID YET! I SQUEED

  • John Doe

    Dude, Spoony…calm the fuck down man. It’s just a video game. You should really get out more.

    • malcior

      He had a connection to it. If you had a valued something from your brother, parents, relative, whatever, you would feel bad if someone shat all over it wouldent you?

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=817506911 Daniel Kong

        He clearly hasnt been watching spoony for very long. XD

        • John Doe

          Been watching him for years, dumbass.

          • http://www.facebook.com/william.singletary.75 William Singletary

            Then you should realize just how much he loved the Ultima series, and after the story about his brother and the bond they forged over Ultima 3, just how betrayed and disgusted he would feel after seeing the crapfest that was/is Ultima 9.

          • John Doe

            IT’S A FREAKING VIDEO GAME. for christ’s sake. there is NO NEED WHATSOEVER to become THAT offended by a damn video game. my god you people are dense.

          • http://www.facebook.com/william.singletary.75 William Singletary

            It’s not the video game he’s mad at per se, it’s that something from his childhood, that he bonded with his brother over, was utterly and irrevocably crapped on by EA when they made this shit-ass sequel. It could have been anything else, a book, a TV show, a fucking song for crying out loud, and it would have had the same effect. Learn to read between the lines a bit and think outside the box.

          • John Doe

            What I’m saying is, it is *extremely* silly to become THAT emotionally attached to a video game, no matter what game it is, for any reason.

          • J.G. te Molder

            The same goes for football games, right? TV shows? Movies? Books? A couch? A doll? A toy? A pluchie?

            If your answer is no, you are a hypocrite.

            If your answer is yes, then you must acknowledge that it is human nature to attach to things emotionally too much. In which case you must either recant your position on it being ‘silly’, or never point it out in specific cases and use as fodder against people, which makes you either a hypocrite, or a malicious hypocrite.

          • nuclearaptor

            This video game was his entire childhood. It’s something that he followed through most of his life and is a representation of most of the things he holds dear.

            Now fuck off.

          • John Doe

            Ultima was not his fucking “childhood.” his childhood was his childhood. Ultima is a video game. a VIDEO. GAME.

  • LeoMoon

    You know I do have a story and I feel for Noah, I’m not a smart kid and my only friends in life are the games I play and people I meet but I’m sure hes had a bunch of people send his story, but this inspired me to send Noah my favoret RPG’s.

  • http://www.facebook.com/mike.scalora.3 Mike Scalora

    Spoony, dude. You look terrible; like you haven’t gotten sleep in a while. I hope you’re feeling okay bro.

  • http://www.facebook.com/michael.jacquart.9 Michael Jacquart

    All I will say is “masterpiece”…this is the best and most heartfelt review I’ve ever heard. Congratulations Noah, you’ve surpassed AVGN, Nostalgia Critic, and any other rival and become the best…that is all that can be said

    • John Doe

      Spoony has ALWAYS been better than them.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ryan.stoudenmire Ryan Stoudenmire

    ultimaforever.com…because there is no god.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Freddy-Duran/100000817426762 Freddy Duran

    spoony you also missed out on the gaurdians size, is Pagen the avatar was a million times smaller than him

    • http://www.facebook.com/kyle.johnson.984991 Kyle Johnson

      That one isn’t quite as bad as it would casually seem; during Black Gate, the Guardian was big but not the size of a small moon. In all likelyhood, the Guardian can change his size.

  • Daisanome

    what song is playing at 4:43? And what is the footage that follows right after that?
    Awesome work spoony, thank you.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1528258562 Michał Sulkowski

      That’s from Bubbahotep soundtrack

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=679095318 Randy Marchese

    Spoony your videos have brought me much laughter and joy over the years. In my eyes you’re a great guy and a true inspiration. I will continue to watch your videos as I think you are definitely worth watching. That’s all I have to say.

  • http://twitter.com/Rpground Rpground

    when dupre came back to life. i fell out of my chair in disgust. i dont know anymore. i never really followed the ultima series, but i played a few and glanced at the others,and just seeing that. just felt like the ultimate. there is nothing that could possibly describe that. though i will admit that just hurt. there are many games that do this,just screw people with its sequels. i dont know why,but many game developers do this. it must be out of spite. cause you’d think human stupidity could only go so far…

  • http://www.facebook.com/jewel.mcphearson Jewel McPhearson

    Apparently I’m not he only newcomer to comment, as it seems to be a trend. I wanna say that I’m a casual gamer, and I haven’t even been that for very long. My boyfriend is a huge NC fan and he’s always asking why I prefer you.

    This episode is why.

    I guess I can’t really say anything that hasn’t been said two hundred times before. I don’t have an emotional connection with gaming and family. I don’t have a sob story. But this video nearly made me cry (I never really found Mufasa’s death that upsetting, just to give the previous statement scale). This episode is SO clearly your life-blood, your essence, your… EVERYTHING that you have brought me and everyone around to our knees.

    This doesn’t make sense. I’m rambling.

    My point is this: You’re not for yuks and a quick buck. You’re human, just like the rest of us, and that is rare and admirable. Please continue as long as you can, and if you find yourself tired and spent from all the ranting and betrayal, well take a rest! Hell, stop if you want to! All I’m saying is we follow Spoony, and not his content.

    I hope I’ve made my self clear (I tend to ramble incoherently), and I hope I haven’t offended anyone.

    “What’s a paladin.”

    BOOM

    *raises fist*

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Calvin-Jarchow/1131125364 Calvin Jarchow

      I still watch tons of stuff on TGWTG. All the shows I watch I enjoy for different reasons. And Spoony’s Spoonyness is something that can never be replicated. Spoony got me into D&D. I didn’t have any friends who played when I was a kid and I’m not a strong reader so I didn’t investigate it myself. I was always very interested though. The Counter Monkey stories pushed me over the edge. I always loved the spoony bard joke from FFIV and now I desired to be one myself.
      Hell I went to Can’t Stop the Serentity feat. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog dressed as Doctor Insano. Only 1 guy knew who I was but that was still really cool.

      You’re monologue at the end was really something special Spoony. Somehow you smashed the 4th wall to pieces with a mix of story arc finale and actual hurt, memory, and anger for what Ultima was and what EA did to it.
      You really are the Goddamn Avatar

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Henry-Walsh/100001272892039 Henry Walsh

    Well Spoony… If I, as a fan can say this… I hope the Experiment never ends and I, for one, will never turn on you.

    • Nick Hartman

      I don’t know, that ending seemed a little ominous when they talked about how the experiment was a success and stuff… it sounds to me he might either end the experiment or maybe just reboot it or something… idk

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Henry-Walsh/100001272892039 Henry Walsh

        You have no idea how sad I would be if that turned out to be true… Spoony has seen me through a lot of crap and to see the Experiment end would blow. Spoony kept me laughing through my cancer treatments, and I am pretty sure that he now owns the exact same copy of Power Rangers for Sega CD that I sold to the Bookmans in Tempe Arizona way back… That is a bond that can never be broken… Those who suffer together and all that.

  • http://profiles.google.com/joe.england Joe England

    Y’know, before this, I would’ve said that Diamanda Hagan was the darkest reviewer out there. But I think she’s just been dethroned. This left me genuinely disturbed, and I’m still not quite over it. And yet, I think I can relate. God knows some of the crap DC Comics has pulled in recent years has gnawed at my soul. I’m sure you speak for many silent gamers, Spoony.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Grzegorz-Sasiak/100001217719550 Grzegorz Sasiak

    Holly shit.
    The review is cool and stuff, but the ending is just genious.
    Honestly you are probably the only guy out there that can make his post review plot interesting and funny (linkara being on place 2). The badassnes of the ending was just amazing. I soo wish i could have played an rpg with you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gavyn-Duthie/100002174891451 Gavyn Duthie

    …

    You read ALL the books in any RPG?

    You must have alot of time on your hands if you ever play any elder scrolls games Spoony.

    Though, you are right, most def about them containing some of the most interesting shit therein.

    • http://theinsaneartist.deviantart.com/ theInsaneArtist

      … I read all the books in the Elder Scrolls games…

      • Amanda Pallkvist

        Me too. Three Thieves in Skyrim is one of my favourites (and ofc The Argonian Maid) hehehehe.
        Seriosly, sometimes I just flip of the dungeoncrawling, travel to my house in Solitude and read some of the many (MANY) books I’ve collected.

  • http://twitter.com/animegamingnerd animegamingnerd

    first time i ever commented on your videos spoony. i must say your whole speech about how you and your brother would play these games all day was a tear jerkier. while i never had with any of my family though i do play and watch my younger brother play a lot of games ( he is 12 and i am 15 ) like i would watch him from to time like all 4 MGS and him watching me play games like persona 4 even played some games together like we beat halo 3 odst together in 1 sitting and most of dead rising 2 together i even in like 20 minutes got his character in borderlands up to level 50 since he was to lazy and mine was level 69. and we both know what it feels like to have a game story pretty much say fuck when we beat mass effect 3 we were both pissed and he is now done with EA and bioware ( i am waiting to see how DA3 turns out).

    PS “that my friend is a paladin” is the best line ever

    PSS and to EA
    ……………/´¯/) …………,/¯../ /
    ………../…./ /
    …../´¯/’…’/´¯¯.`·¸
    ../’/…/…./…..:^.¨¯
    (‘(…´…´…. ¯_/’…’/
    ………………’…../
    ..”…………. _.·´
    ………………(
    .?……………

  • http://www.facebook.com/eadwulf.falaran Eadwulf Falaran

    I have to be honest; that bit about reading Tolkien whilst other kids
    were struggling with much simpler stuff really struck a chord. I’d read
    The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by the time I was 11.

    Also, I have to say thanks for this review in particular; it has made me most
    especially glad that Ultima 9 was the only game in the series I’d never
    even touched (mostly because I’d pretty much grown out of the main series by
    the time U8 rolled around, and when U9 came out I was into Ultima
    Online, and even then only casually). The bit with Dupre coming back to
    life almost literally made my jaw hit the floor… The
    entire ride in these reviews was bloody entertaining, of course.

    People who consider Ultima 9 to be a massive disappointment are hardly
    alone. I’ve found out that there’s been a considerable number projects
    ranging from patches and mods to outright ports to other game engines
    with the specific aim of making U9 more faithful to the REAL Ultima
    canon. I can’t vouch for how good they are; I’d just as soon simply leave U9 untouched.

  • http://www.facebook.com/christofor.barrett Christofor Barrett

    LOL he is right FF13 is suicide

  • http://twitter.com/TheNikus Omnikus Schlotter

    Best thing in a long time.

  • ANNONNY

    I feel for your hatred of this game after all these retrospects, but I also feel the same “pure hatred” that you seem to be leading up to a FF7 video after FF13..

    Either way, still a lot of effort and great watch.

    Also is funny that most of TGWTG is praising your recent videos and talking about how great they are also.. Can only hope for more success for you Noah.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Miller/100000977694188 Jason Miller

    This was truly moving and an excellent cap stone to the Ultima Retrospective series. What better way to end it then making a Wikipedia quote sound badass?

  • http://www.facebook.com/SergioZamoraGrancelli Sergio Zamora Grancelli

    Good ending! …though your make up by the end really freaked me out xD

    I love –that’s the correct word– the Final Fantasy series since I was just a kid, but I’m looking forward to your FFXIII review. I know I won’t agree with your opinion in a lot of aspects, but I respect you and wanna know what you think about the game (albeit you’ve said a lot of times you hate the series xDD)

  • IrkenTrad

    Spoony. Love the video, love this restrospective series. And… wow.

    Following this retrospective, I was with you and your love of this series. And when you showed Dupré coming back… I was already full of hate before the video suddenly paused. And then those broken expressions, throwing the Avatar emblem, talking about your brother and your personal connection between the two of you and the games… that was surprisingly heart-breaking. And when you threw the books, that rage felt genuine.

    I have seen a couple of my favorite series either turn to crap or die before they could end, but I don’t think I could emotionally come close to what happened here, this travesty. And I’m almost sickened by the thought that it can’t be undone.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Owen-Kuhn/1483118915 Owen Kuhn

    Spoony, this was – as others have said – a great ending to a great review series. Loved that fucking ending speech, and you delivered it like a boss. As a matter of fact your delivery through this entire thing was completely above par.

    But on the whole — and I say this from the heart — taken as a whole, this review transcended being just another Experiment video. This one became Art, man.

  • peteman

    So Spoony, EA’s going to be rereleasing Ultima IV. So… should we expect a new BETRAAAYAL!!! ?

    • J.G. te Molder

      Ultima Forever… with Lady British… BEEETRAAAAYAAALLLL FUUUUCKKKK!!

  • Jonesy89CFPD

    My dad used to play PC games with me back when I was a kid, stuff like Raptor (or rather, the demo that we very rarely beat), the 7th Guest (which I still vivdly remember as the only game he bought since I drew his attention to it by going on about the box art), the Commanche series, but most of my memories come from us playing first person shooters together. Sometimes we would just watch one another, sometimes one would be on standby at the number keypad to hit the button for the weapon the one playing needed, but it was always fun to share games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Hell, even Ken’s Labyrinth of all things, with someone else, especially a parent.

    He’s still alive and kicking, but I also regret that I can’t seem to recapture those days anymore. He kind of stopped playing games at some point, I guess due to the demands of his job, but even in the spare time he had, he never seemed to consider it that much. There were little flickers of interest now and then, including a time where he started playing Commanche 4 for a bit before leaving it unfinished. Then when Doom 3 started getting hyped, he showed some interest, and I thought that we would be able to relive some of those old memories together. Sadly, the game was… incompatible with him. Turns out when it came to games, he was still at the point where he wanted instant gratification, and the half-life style beginning was boring him somewhat. When shit started going down and the gunplay started, he couldn’t grasp the concept of an aiming reticule despite my suggestion he pit that circle thing in the center of the screen over what he wanted to shoot at, and he just kept trying to place the tip of the gun model over the target and sending lead flying off into a wall while a zombie went to town on him. That was the last time he tried playing the game.

    He’d still watch me play every now and then, but it wasn’t the same; we’d never really interact with each other while I played (well, minus that one time he intentionally scared me while I was fending off spider skull demons in the dark and guffawed at the way I jumped and hit the desk with my knees). I kept trying to get him to play, but my attempts were met with limited success. I tried getting him into classic Doom multiplayer, something that we couldn’t manage to get working back in the day, but after I killed him and managed to escape death by the skin of my teeth a couple of times, he quit out of the game. I thought something might be wrong, so I went downstairs to where the desktop was, only to find that there was no connection error but that he had gotten sore about being off to a bad start, and the word “hacking” got brought up in what I still hope was meant to be a joke. I thought that starting him on something simpler and working up from there might do the trick, as well as something to show him how games had evolved as a storytelling medium, so I booted up Indigo Prophecy with my assurances he would find it interesting. One opening ritualistic murder later, and he was turned off of the whole thing, even after I spent a couple of minutes demonstrating the core mechanics and going on about how he also got to control people who had other goals, namely hunting the protagonist.

    I don’t know what it is, whether gaming has passed him by and left him behind in a 90s mindset where games need simple controls and a limited plot, whether his time away from gaming just took the interest out of it, or whether he thinks that the skills he had are insufficient for him to take up gaming nowadays. All I know is that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get those moments back now that I have moved away from home and am at law school. Sometimes I miss it so much it hurts.

    • CheshireBat

      Well, plenty of 90′s games had good, detailed plots, but it looks like he always opted out of those alternatives. That’s just his preferences.
      It should be possible to find something to suit him. Semi-casual, I guess.

      Here’s hoping you get another chance with it.

      • Jonesy89CFPD

        I honestly think it’s hopeless at this point. Setting aside issues he has had with the games I’ve tried him out on, he just seems to have no interest anymore. Hell, I just finished moving my stuff into my place, and in the boxes were the old games we used to play back in the day. Some part of me is holding onto the slimmest hope that I can sell him on Serious Sam or something, but I dunno.

  • http://twitter.com/SarahSt69529777 Sarah Stewart

    I love games dearly but not as much as the first video games i played witch were Silent Hill and Spyro I was about five when i played both of the games and I loved them. (Even though Silent Hill scared the shit out of me then). What happened to those games i played Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4 likeing them all the way then what happened I saw the movie and then Silent Hill: Origins. What about Spyro well liked most of the classic games exsept the rair few and i notced something as the games came out they became darker and more story baced i though that was cool that the games grew with me. Then Legend of Spyro games came out and I loved them (even if some people saw the as bad games for not beeing like the old ones) . Then after that their was supost to be Spyro’s Kingdom what happened to that I don’t know maybe Skylanders Fuck That Game! well ya so it just goes to show that some people just wanna make a quick buck on your childhood.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Martin/1596700226 Stephen Martin

    You know, when we came to the part where the Avatar tells the spirit stealing is wrong all I could think was “That’s not true. You’re children don’t need to eat.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Garrett-Ricksecker/100001617903955 Garrett Ricksecker

    Don’t worry spoony! I’m not going to abandon you any time soon like the “Guardian” says we have! I’ve always enjoyed your movies. Sure, rape jokes aren’t exactly the best, but people make mistakes. Saw some guy on the Olympics make a comment on how Brazil (not sure what country it was) that they were now cheering for a guy named Mohammad for their country. THAT is a bigger screwup in my book. I’ll miss you from TGWTG’s, as when I saw you joined them was a big hype for me. But I’ve been following since your “The Thing” review. I was finally glad that somebody besides me saw the awful crappy game that it really was.
    Your touch on reviews are different. You’re not only reviewing a game or movie, but also reviewing nostalgia, contradictions to past creations of classic movies or games, showing the inconsistencies of the constant garbage people are now putting out. You aren’t fooled by “cool” effects. That story you told? It’s proof that this is more to you than just a job. You grew up on this, and your anger is not fake like most “angry” reviewers. It’s anger on a personal level. And THAT is a real review. Keep going man. Sure, being mad all the time is unhealthy, but there is no problem with being angry for a justified reason. You’ve also made positive, hilarious reviews! You aren’t always angry. You say the good is good, the bad is bad.
    Course, you don’t need me telling you how you do this. I’m just rambling now. Just letting you know that you got people backing you up. Your site is one of the rare ones that I let web adds assault my computer. You deserve at least that much.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gordon-Mitchell/100000087966250 Gordon Mitchell

    Spooney, yours and the stories of everyone who had great times with friends and families touched me. I wished I had those moments.
    Great reviews Noah, and also, not to sound rude or insulting or anything, but what’s with your face in this one? It’s all red, you getting sick on us, or was that just makeup to illustrate your point that this “game” really pissed you off not once, but again just to review it?

  • http://www.facebook.com/dagger.eye.5 Dagger Eye

    I thought they tried to make the game accessible to new players that’s why there’s the “what’s a paladin?” and all those other stupid questions that the avatar asks, by doing this they pushed away they’re hardcore players, they also failed at making a good game.

    And was he wearing makeup or has he not slept in 2 weeks?

    • J.G. te Molder

      I don’t think the original games ever let you ask “What’s a Paladin?” You learned what a Paladin was by seeing them do their stuff, by learning the rules and code they live by; and maybe find a book somewhere.

      You know: SHOW, not tell.

  • J Scott Knell

    The thing that makes Spoony such an amazing internet celebrity (because I think the term “reviewer” is too limiting) is that he doesn’t just review or bash games, he takes the time to show us why we should care as much as he does. He could have just done a 10-minute video saying why this game sucks and it probably would have been entertaining, but he took the effort to show the evolution of Ultima, and then spent even more time explaining point-by-point why this game is such a betrayal to the fans (and, frankly, a horrible game on its own that can’t even be consistent with its own lore). The speech about his brother was inspired and the paladin call-back was far more of an F Yeah moment than any movie explosion could ever hope to be.

    If we as his fans suffer from impatience (which I admit I do), it’s only because the level of writing, execution, and quality his videos is so high that it’s an event when a new one is released. Spoony was the first internet show I followed, and I will continue to check the site even if I’m positive nothing new is coming out on the off chance that I’m wrong and I’ll be treated to a new Experiment. Apologies for gushing, but it’s hard to watch the finale and not get fired up about how great the show is. Thanks Spoony.

  • http://www.facebook.com/TimMalear Tim Malear

    Dude. That was amazing.

    Like, I have trouble finding anything WRONG with that review. I’m pretty sure it’s completely good. And that’s the bottom of the barrel.

    The speech about your brother, your progressive corrupted look, the just-subtle-enough ME3 reference, the line “That’s a paladin.” It’s all great work. Can’t wait to find out who that Kai Leng-looking motherfucker is.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Samantha-Temple/581763084 Samantha Temple

      I thought it was Sephiroth?

      • http://www.facebook.com/TimMalear Tim Malear

        No, the shadowed guy in the chair after the credits.

  • George Mattingly

    Spoony, I really hope you read this if you have the time. The betrayal thing was exactly the kick in the pants the developers of that exploitative faux-xcom sequel needed. I’m tired of online reviewers giving softball interviews and for once someone didn’t bullshit them. The fact that the people who do those nonsense softball interviews resent you for it, while I understand it can be emotionally taxing, should be a source of pride. You actually represented the community instead of feeding in to the manufactured crap that much of art unfortunately is.

    Furthermore, what makes you special as a content producer is that your feelings are heartfelt. While other reviewers rant because their careers are contingent upon it, your positions, both angry and sentimental, are genuine and meaningful.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Patricium-Thomam-Kiessling/73500598 Patricium Thomam Kiessling

      fuck yes! i definitely agree with this, soooo much of gaming journalism is kissing ass and people wonder why games are becoming less and less for gamers and being streamlined constantly, fuck yeah spoony! you spoke for all of us, and I have never even played xcom!

  • http://twitter.com/Kafei88ale Kafei

    As usual worth the wait! Sempre in gamba!

  • Erebus_Locke

    So this month, Spoony has produced:

    1 Main video (An excellent one in addtion!)
    2 Vlogs

    Thats actually awesome and exactly the right amount (Not too scarce, but not too much either otherweise the quality suffers – See Nostalgia Critic with his “1 video each week crap”). And of course a huuuge improvement over the past two years, when content was pretty much down around here.

    Is he finally back on track? Has all the drama around his girlfriend, rape jokes, lordkat, etc. finally ended? His health more or less in check? Are we returning to the “golden age” of 2007 – 2010?

    • antiquarius

      Was thinking the same thing…And yeah, 1 review / lets play + 1 or 2 vlogs each month is perfect.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Johan-Eriksson/1373557107 Johan Eriksson

      Ignoring the “nostalgia critic is crap” section I agree with this comment. I think 1 main video per month and a few v-logs is a great pace for Spoony to hold.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000662805099 Michael Rainey

    Dude I can feel you for the story on your brother. Before my grandfather died we used to play the N64 for hours, probably games he didn’t even like just to please his little grandson. Some of my fondest memories of him are playing Doom 64 and Dark Rift with him, and Hexen with my grandmother. They got me into gaming and have helped steer my love for the art to the point that I hope to someday take a place in the industry. But besides that you bring up a lot of good points about new games today. One of the most glaring for me comes from Mass Effect, and no I don’t mean the ending. My problem was the fact that they threw away the weapon’s cooldown system. Now I know it is a little complaint but I loved that feature, it gave the game a sense of other-worldliness and let the weapons feel futuristic. Then along came two and the macguffined in some BS about the clip system being a revolutionary upgrade, and the science behind why is barely even explained. God I could go on a rant about this but I don’t wanna fill up your message board any more than I already have. Suffice to say that I feel your pain, and by the way best final line in a video :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Lisa-Fisk/1066089255 Lisa Fisk

    I completely understand where Spoony is coming from. I thought I had my life sorted out years ago. I had a good paying job that I loved and was good at. I had my own apartment and was helping my brother and his new wife through college. Then, it all fell apart. I lost my job, the company nearly went under, I lost my apartment, lost my health for a while and have only within the last year found a job that pays less than a third of what I used to make. I have also had to move back in with my parents. And it’s humiliating when you’re over 30 and have to do that. I understand what it feels like to have your whole world come crashing down around your ears.

    Spoony’s story about his older brother teaching him how to play Ultima 3 was touching. It reminded me a little of my childhood as computers were just becoming small enough to have in homes. I remember playing Pong on the Atari 2600 with my little brother and feeling like we were on the cutting edge of the future. I remember the D&D sessions in high school and Magic in college, staying up till 3am drinking Dr. Pepper and keeping the local IHOP in business. I hear Spoony recounting his memories and it stirs my own.

    Thank you, Spoony, for making me remember the good times.

    The end made me smile and reinforces the small crush I’ve had on him for a while. Just a little one. I admire him, and I hope I can face my problems with as much grace, piss and vinegar as he does.

    Well done.

  • S B

    Yeah, I know that I’m baiting angry mobs when I say this, but I really did see some of myself in Spoony when he realised how his lifelong fandom of the Ultima games was a complete waste of time if they were all leading up to this. It sums up my reaction to Homestuck pretty well.

    I know, I know, I may be the only one who feels this way, but I honestly feel that Hussie threw away a perfectly good, creative, and funny comic in favour of nothing but nonsensical plot twists and shock value to get a rise out of the readers. Or shall I say…BETRAYED ME!

  • spectervonbaren

    You know, someone should make a video just made up of clips of the Avatar asking stupid questions.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Lisa-Fisk/1066089255 Lisa Fisk

    Addendum: Coincidentally, that should have been one of the choices at the end of ME3. Telling the Avatar to go fuck himself. And the use of that music, genius.

  • http://twitter.com/chazesiwile Zach Lewis

    Most badass ending to a video game review ever.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jesse-Ornelas/100001342383339 Jesse Ornelas

    You’ll ALWAYS have us Spoony!:D Also, are you feeling OK? Your eyes and cheeks look awful.

    My older cousin used to do thing like that with me too. He got me hooked on Power Rangers and I watched far too much lol.

    Good times and makes Linkara’s HOPR videos even better.

    Sh*t is going to get real soon:D

    • PeaTearGryfin

      First off, fist bump for a fellow Power Rangers fan. Second, he’s fine. The eyes and cheeks were just make up. Back when I did theater, I got first hand experience in making people look like shit.

  • Agrippa911

    Spoony, this was a great episode – I thought your story about your brother really touching and explained why you hated this game so truly (as opposed to the comic rage usually expressed by reviewers). That look on your face when you held all your Ultima materials expressed all the rage and anger for gamers everywhere when one of our childhood icons got shit upon by a later cash-grab.

    I was worried about your health for a bit as I thought “god, look at Spoony’s eyes, he looks terrible”. Then I realized it’s part of the video. Looking forward to the next chapter…

  • Adam DeYoung

    Just when I think this site has gone to complete hell, to forever be filled with D&D stories that I stopped caring about a year ago, and footage of you drinking beer that I could care less about, you drop this. Please, for the love of God, Spoony, keep up this level of work and creativity. There was a time, not long ago actually, whereI would visit this site every day to see the new content. For the last year this place has just been an afterthought of mine. I would visit periodically to watch some of my favorite videos from what was once my favorite review site. This video proves that you still have it in you. You are still the best site on the entirety of the internet for hilarious and thought provoking reviews. Please keep up the good work. The internet needs you.

  • Jradgex

    Huh… I think I learned something today, but in two ways. First, I learned how very personal people can be about themselves. I don’t have to tell you how that ending story was something special for everybody who watched it. It’s truly rare how a guy can be so open as to share his life with people he probably will never get a chance to meet.
    I can even relate to your story, because I learned how to read from Paper Mario. It was what made me love video games so much and the reason I defend them.
    However, I won’t spend my whole comment on how touching the story was, because Holly Smith really did summed it up best.
    What I will say is the second thing I learned about this video, which is what to never become as an Internet critic. Now first of all, I’ll admit I’m not anything important on the Internet and I’m not saying I planned to be. However, I learned from this review how to make a video go from funny to suicidal.
    Yes, I am referring to Noah’s later comment and whether he was being serious or not is frankly irrelevant, at least to me.
    I’ve learned that nothing is worth stabbing the hopes and joys of the audience like that and I’m not going to exaggerate or lie when I say that it stuck with me far more than the happy story. Because it’s what happens when a person becomes too serious and no longer realizes what they are fighting for. I remember Noah from the first videos he made and he never delved into the psychological torment of people, nor did he act with such horrific words.
    I remember the fun Noah had with his reviews, like Rebuary and Phantasmagoria 2. People remember those reviews and Let’s Plays because they were fun. Not because of underlined messages about life.
    Life isn’t supposed to be found in an Internet video, life is what we make for ourselves. So today I learned something about Noah, about TGWTG, about video games, about being a film-maker, about what it means to have fun, about love (believe it or not), about people, and about myself.
    Now, I’m not saying that Noah made a mistake, because it’s his video and even if he reads this, it’s not like he’ll stop. Because nobody commands his life, so what makes me so different?
    I’m just a man, whether I’m a fan or an asshole or and asshole of a fan, Noah is a person that I can’t change and I don’t want to change.
    But I can’t say that I’ll be following Noah’s Final Fantasy story anymore, which is kind of sad. But I can’t see him anymore without that moment when I felt nothing inside me from hearing a man of my childhood telling me that the video games that taught you how to read will soon be the reason you die.
    Am I being too serious…? Well that’s just what I’m talking about.
    A figure of both hilarity and knowledge, who uses the power of comedy to entertain and teach people while living a life of struggle and joy. That’s a Comedian.
    And when I first saw Noah I actually said to my brother, “Now THAT’S a Comedian!”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Leonard-Norwood-Jr/100001685317322 Leonard Norwood Jr.

    As far as I know it, Spoony is doing his thing, I know he does have to make sure to drop an episode once in a while, let’s not all forget that he’s got his stuff to go through too. Why is it that every human being has to forget that such entertainers in our generation and future gen has a life to live, and when things happen in their life that keeps them from getting things done with their webshows and etc., we start to jump on them like we hold a grudge, that’s just pathetic.

    A video or two will be there when it can, and we have all the time in their world to look at other things, heck do our own lives. There’s no reason to hate, unless you perceive in your own minds to think of some nonsensical reason to do so.
    Spoony does his thing with his life and his webshow because he loves it, and he had a passion to share his experience with games and movies with others and had fun with it. I know that when something goes down that delays such experiences, I understand that he might got stuff to do, so I don’t got a problem with that. So let’s keep it in mind that for some reason some people have some problems still and if for some reason they don’t like Spoony’s stuff, then they should go look at someone else who they like, or better yet make their own show, see how well they can handle it.
    Anyway Spoony, thank you for the whole retrospective of the Ultima series, it pains me to see such a good series take a huge spiral down right into the recycle bin due to Ultima number 9, but I’m glad you got through it, and you shared your own past experience with your bro, it’s really cool to share an experience that we all felt as kids. I’m glad my past experience was a blast, even if I was a troublesome one to my parents and relatives, I don’t regret it. At least I had tons of games and people to play with to keep it going till I grown up to the man I am today.

  • RightousMan

    I’ve enjoyed all of your Ultima reviews. In fact I rather enjoy all of
    your reviews for the most part. I’ve gotten so toked up when i watch
    them and laughed so hard. But.. Today when i watched this and i was
    having my usual laughter at your raging about this old game and then,
    everything changed. The music stops, i honestly thought the video froze
    and just as my mouse moved to check, you pop back on and go into this
    speech about some very personal childhood things, things this game has
    stirred up in you. Very rarely have I ever had a reviewer make me stop
    and think beyond ‘ yeah that game does suck’ but you’ve done it before
    and in this video you do it again. Man when you talked about how this
    game got you into reading and how it taught you to read, it
    really got me. The whole entire thing was extremely moving and dramatic.
    I never had a older brother, my cousin filled that role somewhat in my
    life and i have some very nice childhood memories about us trying to
    beat the original Gauntlet and other Nintendo games. Games that caused
    me to think about right and wrong and was a lesser evil truly ok came
    later, In fact Tactics Ogre was one of the first to do this for me, when
    I was asked to slaughter a entire village, i had just saved from
    destruction. I stopped, put down my controller and stared at the screen.
    The main character staring up at this ‘Patriot’, this general who
    commands the men who fought with my party to save these people. Rain
    pouring down on the both of us as the game waits for my choice, this is
    the moment in that really really good book your reading where your
    understanding of the story narrative is thrown to the wolves, where a
    character you thought you understood transforms or betrays you… Doing
    this horrible thing will save the Kingdom rather than allow it to slowly
    be consumed in the wars of its neighbors, as it is being now. The first
    time i got there i couldn’t make my mind up and literally turned the
    game off. A week later i made my choice and went on with the game. So, I
    really do understand having a very vivid and important childhood memory
    based around a video game and it is something truly amazing to have
    because often times real life doesn’t offer such profound choices and
    when it does, Real life has a way of making you think they are less than
    pivotal to your life. And when you threw your boxes and guides i felt
    all the rage for all the games i had played that were ruined as well.
    Spoony, you are amazing man, Please keep up the good work.

  • http://www.facebook.com/stephinw Stephin Williams

    My parents divorced when I was seven. I didn’t see a whole lot of my dad before (because he was in the military) or after (because he moved away). But I’d get to see him now and again on weekends.
    When I was about ten or twelve years old, my dad bought a Compaq computer for work, but he had a couple of games for it as well. One weekend I went over and he had a new one. On the cover was a tiny island, with trees and a clock tower and a big gear and a sailing ship docked at the harbor. Above it in big letters was the word MYST.
    I don’t know how many of you have played MYST. It’s a point-and-click adventure, which was a very new thing to both of us. You mean there’s nothing to shoot? No enemies to fight? You just explore this wondrous new world, and when you touch pictures in these books they transport you to NEW worlds? Dad and I were hooked. We’d play it for hours, working together, figuring out the clues and solving the puzzles. Much later in life, I recognized that the “linking books” in the game had formed a central core to my idea of creativity as a whole. The very concept that there were these books that could actually transport you into them, into an entirely new world, as long as you described them hard enough, is to this day a mind-blowing idea to me. What an incredible thing. What a perfect symbol for someone who aspires to one day be a writer.
    I played the next two sequels and loved them. I missed the Uru boat but knew people who played it, and I stayed in touch with that world that way, and the characters within that I knew so well and represented something so fundamental to me. I bought the novels at used bookstores and off of Amazon; the physically-detailed hardcover ones that were made to resemble handsome leather-bound volumes with aged, “discolored” pages.
    And then, a few months ago, with money I had gotten for my birthday, I purchased and played the fifth game.
    It was terrible. Absolutely wretched.
    Aside from some admittedly impressive visuals, the characters and concepts represented within completely unmade the entire MYST universe as I understood it. The plot of the story was force-fed to you by meandering speeches delivered by force by a new character, or by random pages containing an unhinged woman’s ramblings. There was no artfully weaving it through the game, not this time. The linking books were rudely shoved aside for a completely new plot device, one that acted almost exactly the same in many regards, removing most of the impact that they might have had in a blaze of unnecessity. And at the very end, it is revealed that the death of a very major character they told me about in the intro movie never actually happened, and that he’s fine, and that none of this had to happen at all.
    To say that I was “disappointed” would be a significant understatement. I fell into a depressive state. And while a small part of me felt silly for getting so worked up over a video game, I realized over the following days and weeks that I had done so because the MYST universe had become so much more to me than that. I felt that everything that I enjoyed about fiction and reading and writing had suddenly vanished, leaving behind this… filth. This vile impersonation. I felt like what I wanted to do with my life had been a waste of time, and that I had been completely and utterly betrayed.
    Eventually I had an epiphany. When explaining this to some friends (at my birthday party, no less), I likened the experience to what had happened with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. “But that’s not as bad,” I said, “because I mostly just ignore tho-”
    I stopped, thunderstruck. There, THERE was my solution!
    The people described in the games and books have a concept which they refer to as the “tree of possibility.” Without going into too much detail, it’s a concept used to describe what happens when one makes a change to a book one has written in. It’s similar to chaos theory – when Writing, every decision that the writer makes is like a branch on a tree. Each decision leads to another, and another. If one were to then strike those decisions out from the text, erasing the decision, you are going back up the branch, and taking another path. And that is exactly what I decided to do.
    MYST is, to me, all about possibility. And so I simply chose to ignore MYST V, I pretended that I had never played it, that it didn’t exist, that it had no impact on the rest of the story that I had enjoyed and that had given me so much over the years. I erased it from my mind as I deleted it from my computer forever.
    I realize that this is not a perfect solution, and that it may not be feasible for someone in a similar situation. But at the end of the day, I feel that it is within my power to choose. I CHOOSE to ignore the piece of this thing that undoes the universe in which is supposedly exists. I CHOOSE to focus instead on the years of joy and memories it has given me. I CHOOSE to continue to see it as a positive influence.
    And I hope that anyone out there that finds themselves in like circumstances can do the same. There is always hope. There is always a way. These are stories and works of fiction, yes, but they make up a part of our lives, a part of who we are and what we do and how we think. No one can undo that. No one, no matter how crappy a sequel they make, no matter how poor the rewrite they pen, no matter how unspeakably stupid the retocn they implement, can truly ever take away all of those years, all of that enjoyment, all of those memories. No one can ever destroy that. MYST V was a horrible mess. But I can still look back on the earlier games, and enjoy them for what they were. And every once and a while, I’ll still load one up, turn down the lights, turn up the volume, and grab a pen and some paper to take notes with, and I will lose myself in that world, and remember what it’s like to come back out and see in the real world for all the wondrous things it can contain.
    Now if you’ll excuse me – I have some red and blue pages to find.

  • http://twitter.com/RocMegamanX RocMegamanX

    Geez, I was just looking at the red around your eyes. You don’t look so good.

  • http://www.facebook.com/pmastrippolito1 Philip Mastrippolito

    Spoony, you’re the best. I don’t always agree with your opinions on most things (like your bashing on Prometheus), but I still respect your reviews and the joy they’ve brought me throughout the past year I’ve started watching them. Even as a casual gamer I loved watching your game reviews (especially Ultima), and your obscure movie reviews that were so much fun. Every one of them have opened up new worlds to me. Unlike Nostalgia Critic who churns out a review every week like it’s a product, you put your heart and soul into your reviews no matter how long it’s been since the last one. You’ve inspired me to try reviewing my own obsession, which is heavy metal.

    This review was not only sad seeing how haggard you look, but touching that you’ve had such a personal history with this series of games that I may never play. Just your magic touch of reviewing these games are an experience, and that’s something Nostalgia Critic and any other TGWTG reviewer can’t deliver.
    This was a wonderful conclusion to the Ultima Retrospective, and I hope you continue making reviews of whatever the hell you deem worthy of a bashing. Good health to you!

  • Sean Weglarz

    Oh holy shit, I guessed 100 gold and I have no idea how much that is or anything. But I DID guess EXACTLY what you get–when you gave the second opportunity right before the reveal. (First I guessed nothing.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=602188314 Tomas Krystinik

    Absolutely loved it. A fitting third act and a fitting conclusion to the madness of Ultima 9. I think we all have our own personal ultima 9 equivalent, or at least a lot of us. You’re actually a good actor when you give it your all, Spoony. This vid shows that. Great job on all the Ultima vids, I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

  • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

    This…struck a chord with me. In a lot of ways…I’ve been sitting here, staring at the comment box. Trying to think of…I dunno…something to write, some way of putting words to feelings. Something I’m normally…well, I pride myself on being really good at it, but…this had me thinking much deeper than I’ve had to think about myself.

    I used to be a really nice person, if I say so myself. People use you when you’re overly nice, when you do things without expectation of reciprocation. Not all of them, of course. The really nice ones won’t take your charity…they’ll expect to give something back. It’s the ones who are truly fucking sick shits at heart who’ll see your kindness and compassion and either actively or subconsciously decide to use it for their own gain. I kept getting hammered at by the worst kinds of people. Finally I became what I am now. Bitter. Jaded. Cynical. Detached and uncaring, snide and sarcastic. But, somewhere, deep down, despite all of that…I still try to find the ones who are genuinely good. I still try to help them. I still give to those who need to be given to. Despite everything I still try, even though my manner, my personality, has changed for the worst.

    These videos, the ones on this…just…abomination of a game, I can see as a reflection of recent events and what has happened to you lately. More than that, especially with the ending, I can see it as you stating that despite all the shit that has happened, you’re refusing to let it get to you, that you’re still going to try to be who you are, and to not let it change you. I hope you succeed in that, Noah. I really do.

    Also. Your story about playing the earliest of these games, and the memories you have, followed by your throwing-aside of the game case…I understand that extremely well. You and me share a common enemy in that. Electronic Arts. The ultimate fuckups. My games…they weren’t the Ultima games, of course, I wasn’t around when they started coming out, but…all my childhood games…the companies that made them…ALL OF THEM…they’re gone. Destroyed. There’s only one that wasn’t caused by EA.

    Westwood Studios. Bullfrog. The STRIKE series. DiCE. Bioware. Maxis…especially Maxis…

    They’re all either gone, or being ruined by EA.

    Westwood: They made Command & Conquer. They were my introduction to RTS games. I remember playing the first one…remember Kane, the GDI, the Brotherhood of Nod. Tiberium, the Mammoth Tank, the Obelisk of Light, the Ion Cannon, all of that. Red Alert, Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2… And then EA dissolved them. Tore them apart. C&C 3 was the last game where the original developers worked on a C&C game before they eventually almost all left EA entirely to found their own companies. Red Alert 3…what a fucking abomination…bright glitzy colors, the cheese level was through the fucking roof, any interest the original two games had given me was torn away and replaced with this stupid fucking pandering bullshit complete with a ridiculous amount of stupid anime-esque cliches and overblown attempts to try to use Fallout’s style of mid-20th-century cultural references and tongue-in-cheek sardonic humor. And C&C 4…how did they end the Tiberium series with THAT?? So many fucking questions…completely ignored…terminated. So many fucking plot holes…so many god-damn betrayals…

    Bullfrog. They made Theme Park and Theme Park World, along with Theme Hospital [randomly], Magic Carpet…Magic Carpet was one of the first games I EVER played. EA bought them. Dissolved them. Never did a thing more with any of their stuff. That was it. They were gone. I must’ve spent weeks, months, building my little theme parks, and treating illnesses like Bloated Head and Jellyitis…

    The STRIKE series: I remember playing that shit ALL the time. Desert, Jungle, Urban, soviet, and Nuclear strike. Future Strike never happened. EA terminated it and made Future Cop LA instead which was the biggest sack of dog-shit I’ve ever played in the Shoot-em-up genre.

    DiCE: Makers of Battlefield. Still going strong except for 2142, a great concept except for EA cutting budgets and development staff all over the fucking place thus leading to the game being, again, a steaming sack of dog-shit. They’ve consistently cut budgets on their most recent games; the Bad Company ‘spinoffs’ and Battlefield 3. BF3 was supposed to be even more advanced but EA forced them to release four months earlier, thus cutting a bunch of stuff. Now they’re doing this bullshit with microtransactions, where gamers who pay more money basically will have an edge over people who can’t pay more money…sometimes regardless of amount of time played. With $20 a guy who just picked up the game can outmatch someone who has been playing the game for 100+ hours.

    Bioware: FUCK YOU, EA, FUCK YOU. Dragon Age 2?! WHAT THE FUCK!!! More god-damn budget constraints and time constraints and rushing release dates fucking ruined DA2, and I’m not even going to TRY explaining why. ME3? The fucking multiplayer is a god-damn Gears of War ripoff with half the flexibility and fluidness and ten times the repetition and money-whoring. The multiplayer is fucking next to impossible to enjoy if you don’t gush dollars at a time onto EA’s titanic ruinous cock.

    And Maxis. The first game. FIRST GAME. I ever played…was Simcity. The original one. I played so many Sim games that I lost track of them all. And then EA bought them. Expansion packs for the Sims used to be $40 but you got a ton of shit. Now they’re $30 but you get fucking nothing from them. Single items for purchase can cost up to six fucking dollars. Sims 3? Not even made by fucking Maxis. Maxis used to put out a new game every year. Now? They only just got enough funding to make a new Simcity game AFTER SEVEN FUCKING YEARS, and before that Spore was the most recent after seven years of making nothing but Sims expansions.

    EA fucking ruins every god-damn thing it touches. Noah, if you ever decide to say fuck it and decide to firebomb EA’s corporate offices, send me a message on facebook first so I can fucking join in. My childhood memories have been raped just as hard as yours by these fucking cunts. Not in such a singular way, mind you, but collectively, across so many games and developers I used to love who are now gutted, ruined, or EA’s bitches being forced to cut and modify shit according to EA’s bullshit.

    Also…it’s good to have a brother who was that awesome, right? Mine, too. We were homeless and he was only eight and I was only three and living on the streets he still somehow took care of me. Here’s to awesome brothers; may we always remember what they have done for us.

    Props, man.

    • doresh

      Jeesus… It’s maddening to see just how many developers where squashed under EA’s mighty foot Oo

      And thank god I don’t care about the Post-Infinity-Engine (plus the first Kotor) Bioware. The ME3 ending pissed off more than enough fans, but that’s just a warm-up for EA, the destroyer of franchises.

      • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

        So while I’m all for EA bashing — except NHL 94 on Genesis, the only sports game I enjoy — let’s not blame them for BioWare’s ME3 ending. Let’s also not call said ending the worst thing to happen to gaming, on account of it being not that. At all.

        • doresh

          People are actually calling that the worst thing ever Oo ?

          • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

            ‘Tis true. It’s tough to balance that out with giving players the option to pick near the end. Granstream SaGa is the most blatant offender here: only one storyline choice, right before the final boss. To be fair, it was a choice with teeth; someone had to die, and there was no third option.

            Anywho, what was I talking about? Bah, I don’t remember. NHL 94.

          • doresh

            Guess they wanted to narrow down the possible endings of the ME trilogy because it’s only a matter of time before ME4 comes out.

        • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

          ME3′s original ending wasn’t THE worst thing in ALL of gaming but it was ONE of the worst. EA had a huge hand in a lot of the fuckups involving ME3, including diverting development time away from the game to develop that horrid, absolutely TERRIBLE excuse for multiplayer, which was designed just to cashcow the game out for EA. Let’s face it: Dragon Age 2, ME3…these are steep drops in the quality of Bioware’s games, and, lo and behold, they come AFTER EA buys them. Coincidence? Hell fucking no.

          • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

            It actually might have been coincidence; it’s a little silly to up and claim that just because there are less than desirable features in a BioWare game after EA acquired them, it was EA.

            I remember BioWare games being hugely flawed for a long time, pre-EA. ME1 game freezing bugs. Sonic Chronicles’, um, almost everything. Etc. BioWare bugginess isn’t new.

            And neither is BioWare mediocrity. Just sayin’.

      • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

        I only named a few, too. Just the ones I had an emotional, invested stake in. There’s MANY more that were committed to the EA-Graveyard that I didn’t list.

        • doresh

          It’s almost like EA needs the souls of other companies to survive Oo

    • Fata_Morgana_Pseudonym

      “You and me share a common enemy in that. Electronic Arts. The
      ultimate fuckups. My games…they weren’t the Ultima games, of course, I
      wasn’t around when they started coming out, but…all my childhood
      games…the companies that made them…ALL OF THEM…they’re gone.
      Destroyed. There’s only one that wasn’t caused by EA.

      Westwood Studios. Bullfrog. The STRIKE series. DiCE. Bioware. Maxis…especially Maxis…

      They’re all either gone, or being ruined by EA.”

      This.

      A trillion times this.

      EA is a malignant tumor in the anus of the video game industry.

      • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

        A malignant tumor in the anus, colon, gastrointestinal tract, testicles, phallus, and heart; agreed.

        • http://twitter.com/TwitHatman TwitHatman

          Not to be anal about this (ha!) especially since I just got to this now but technically, a malignant tumor does spread around. Maybe it started off in deep in the recesses of EA’s colon but now, it’s poison is pretty much everywhere at EA.

    • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

      So while I appreciate feeling real anger at what once beloved game companies have become — I feel that way about Square-Enix, Capcom, Sega, id Software, and Nintendo amongst others — this whole “people made me bitter” angle sounds a hell of a lot like playing the blame game and making sweeping generalizations based on a very small sample size. Just sayin’.

      • Fata_Morgana_Pseudonym

        There is a difference between the companies you listed and the ones that Elegy Mills listed. Westwood, Maxis, Origin, Bullfrog and the rest were smaller companies making beloved games and they all had bright futures ahead of them… until they got bought by EA. After that, the destruction and downfall of those companies was relatively swift and sudden. As for Square-Enix, Capcom, Sega, id, etc. on the other hand… with the possible exception of id, these are all much, much larger companies that have had decades to screw themselves over with their own idiocy. They’ve brought it on themselves, just from years of bloat. Their idiocy wasn’t forced on them by an outside source (i.e. EA) so I have less sympathy for them. In fact, they are, themselves, more akin to EA than they are to Westwood, Maxis, etc. It’s sad, true, but it’s their own damn fault. And, really, what has become of S-E, Capcom, Sega, etc. isn’t even remotely near as bad as what happened to the likes of Westwood (no longer exists), Bullfrog (no longer exists), Origin (no longer exists except as the name of a shitty, sub-par Steam-wannabe), Maxis (exists in name only as a shambling zombie-like corpse of what it used to be, being compelled to do terrible things like put shitty online-only DRM in the new SimCity game by their EA necromancer overlords, for example).

        In the case of BioWare, however, one could argue that they did bring it on themselves as well, precisely because they had around 20 years of precedent to look at and know exactly what would be happening to them as soon as EA got their grubby hands on them, based on what happened to Westwood, Maxis, Origin, and the rest before them, and yet they still allowed themselves to be bought up by EA anyway. And, lo and behold, the exact same thing *is* happening to BioWare as what happened to all the rest. They’re getting slowly buttfucked into irrelevance by EA and the quality of their games has been going straight down the shitter ever since the buyout. For reference, Dragon Age: Origins was pre-EA buyout, for the most part. All of the DLC and Dragon Age II and such, however, were post-EA buyout. There’s also the fact that EA is whoring out the BioWare name to all of these other shitty EA studios for horrible shit like the new Command and Conquer Generals game or that Ultima Forever bullshit.

        I stand by my previous statement that EA is a turgid cancer in the rectum of the video game industry, even when compared to the likes of the companies you mentioned.

        • Fata_Morgana_Pseudonym

          The only other company that comes even remotely close to EA in terms of pure vileness is Vivendi. Who is Vivendi? Vivendi owns Activision-Blizzard. I would like to say “enough said” on that count, given that Activision-Blizzard has clearly been in direct competition with EA for the “worst video game publisher in history” crown for several years now.

          However, that’s not “enough said.” You know who else Vivendi->Activision-Blizzard owns? Sierra motherfucking On-Line (now called Sierra Entertainment). Admittedly, what happened to Sierra (and Blizzard, for that matter) isn’t *entirely* Vivendi’s fault since they were both bought out by/merged with CUC/Cendant prior to Vivendi getting their hands on them (and what happened to them in the hands of CUC/Cendant is a tearjerker of a story to rival anything that happened to any of EA’s victims, in and of itself) and Vivendi just got whatever sloppy seconds were left when CUC/Cendant were finished raping them, but Vivendi certainly hasn’t done any of them (Activision, Blizzard, or especially Sierra) much good since then, that’s for damn sure.

          • http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

            I have no idea why you posted all this. Granted, maybe you didn’t know that I already knew all of it, but I wonder what exactly it’s a reply to. My post had nothing to do with comparing these companies; it was about blasting the whole “I used to be nice but other people made me a bad person” nonsense.

    • http://www.facebook.com/John.Kennington.4 Ryan Van Camp

      Calm the fuck down sperglord

      • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

        “Sperglord?” Protip: Smashing your hand down on your keyboard to generate a title to somebody is poorly advised when you’re trying to be a troll. It just makes you look like a retard.

  • http://twitter.com/plastikloeffel El K

    wait wait wait.
    Isn’t this Spoony a clone of the black lantern Spoony???
    Could it possibly be that Sephiroth….nah, I am probably just imagining things.

    • Dan Schuett

      If I’m not mistaken the Spoony Clone and Black Lantern Spoony were merged as one at the end of Final Fantasy X by Linkara’s transporter. I think.

      • http://twitter.com/plastikloeffel El K

        ah!
        Yeah, you are right, totally forgot about that!

  • http://www.facebook.com/devinicus.dunbar Devinicus Dunbar

    oh my god,ive never played the games but after watching the entire retrospective and learning about how Dupre sacrificed himself and his very soul to save all of existence….only to see him say “im alive and my sacrifice means nothing now” made me feel a small amount of the pain that spoony and all other die hard fans of ultima must feel

  • http://twitter.com/dunebat dunebat

    Please tell me the experiment isn’t ending! :(

  • ThomasMink

    I haven’t commented on a video here with any sort of feedback in quite awhile, which is a shame.

    But… Jesus Christ, man. This finale is quite possibly one of, if not the, greatest thing you’ve ever produced. The final punchline at the end (“That’s a paladin!”) was so incredibly awesome, that I can’t really describe it in words.. ..but I mean, you’ve been torturing us with the avatar asking what a paladin was through the entire trilogy that it was awesome to end on a slight twist to it.

    The eye makeup was also quite well done. It caught my attention right near the start and had me wondering.. then I saw it get worse as the video progressed, which eased my mind in that regard.

    Also.. nice touch with the ‘anti-magic gun’. :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Samantha-Temple/581763084 Samantha Temple

    I’ve been coming to this website since 2008. I admit haven’t
    watched everything, and I don’t often visit the forums, but this is my
    go-to place on the internet. This is where I feel connected, where I can let myself be a gamer and a freak and whatever
    else.

    I sat in silence after watching this review. I just…

    I am an older sister, my brother is 5 years younger than me. I remember
    teaching him how to play games like Kirby and Super Smash bros, and when
    he got his first Gameboy we got Pokemon together so we could fight and
    trade. He turned 18 last week, and even now he will sometimes come over
    to play Skyrim so we can talk, and still occasionally ask me for help.

    These games, these stories, they mean so much more than people who
    aren’t gamers can understand. My mother often makes fun of my love for
    Star Wars by screaming “it’s only a movie!” But its not, it’s not just a
    movie, and these aren’t just games. They are stories, worlds, and
    characters we care about. This is our childhood, where we’ve made friends and found love and something to look forward to at the end of the day.

    Spoony, you have it rough. You’ve not only been betrayed at seeing the stories you care about ruined, but you’ve dedicated a good portion of your live to focusing on and reviewing the very games and movies that destroyed them. I don’t know if you plan to permanently end the Experiment, but I’m wondering if you might be happier for it. We will miss you, but we don’t want you to go crazy just to get us our entertainment for the day either. Take care of yourself.

  • http://twitter.com/MikePrentice5 Mike Prentice

    spoony looks kinda tired in this review

  • http://www.facebook.com/CrouchingTigress Jessica Elliott

    I hate to start this
    off negatively, but Spoony were you supposed to look drunk and like you didn’t
    sleep for three weeks? You need to relax more cause bad movies and games shouldn’t kill you.
    That aside I greatly enjoyed your retrospect
    as you showed your passion for the series and made me wish that I could have
    tried it even after all the betrayals. Of everything in your video I think Dupree’s resurrection and your reaction were so moving that viewers could feel your pain as if it were your own.
    Please keep up the great work spoony and take care ^__^

  • Renaissance_nerd

    for fucks sake people IT’S MAKEUP!!!!!!!!

    • http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

      You mean he’s NOT really turning into Beetlejuice?

      Awwww.

    • Amanda Pallkvist

      Nooooo?! REALLY? :O

      • Renaissance_nerd

        well when people make comments like “omg Spoony you look like shit, take a nap”

        I feel i have to state the obvious.

  • John Doe

    So let me get this straight…your childhood emotions dictate your emotions for the rest of your life? You’re NOT supposed to grow and develop out of that crap and instead remain as a child inside your whole life? Am I correct?

    • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.myers.5851 Andrew Myers

      Of course you are suppose to grow up and move on. But certain things stick with us. The death of a loved one, the lose of an old friend, and yes sometimes even the horrible memory of a stupid game. If you don’t understand the fact that some things stick with you no matter how long ago they were then I think you are the one that needs to grow up.

  • John Doe

    It seems quite a few of you never actually grew up. What a shame.

  • Dragon-64

    100 gold, guessed it!

    Excellent review, the ending was awesome. :D

    • notyoursavior78

      I guessed 500 gold to be honest LOL how could that reward be so insignificant?

  • John Doe

    Yes, continue to downvote me because I’m right.

    • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

      No. Actually. We’re downvoting you because you’re a dickhead.

      • John Doe

        A dickhead for saying the truth? Right.

        • Patrick Coyle

          You’re a dickhead when you’re more interested in being right than in being sensitive or respectful – especially for a point as trivial as yours was.

          If you’re going to pompously crusade for truth, do it for a cause that deserves it, like ethnic cleansing, or sex slavery. The wounded feelings of gamers are not something that needs to be called out and revealed to the world at all costs. Dickhead.

    • PeaTearGryfin

      Protip: If you want people to stop downvoting you, stop being a dick to everybody. Seriously, you can’t tell me that at no point in your life have you felt nostalgic about something from your past.

      • John Doe

        Of course I have.

  • http://www.facebook.com/MissOsakaisL Thomas Osaka Hoare

    HYDRA BOB
    HAIL HYDRA
    Seriously though, love ya man, and this is by far the best Ultima Retrospective that you have ever made.

  • antiquarius

    Is Spoony back? Because it looks like Spoony is back!

  • beeohthree

    I know I’m a little late to this party, and I’m probably going to repeat much of what others have said, but wow this was some incredible stuff.

    I could see the pain you’ve experienced before with the previous Ultima 9 videos and was anticipating your usual scathing rage at a game you hate. But when you stopped and broke character into that story with your brother and you bonding over the Ultima series it really got to me. Memories came back to me bonding with my own brother over the Zelda and Castlevania games when I was very young. It really showed a powerful and true emotional side to your story.

    Keep up the good work, Noah. Been watching since you first tore down Final Fantasy VIII and can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do to XIII.

    Oh and “THAT’S A PALADIN!” *bang* into Stabbing Westward was epic!!

  • illidan4ever

    If the Codex mentions the Guardian how could this possibly be the Avatar’s fault? Was the Codex created when he became the Avatar and it is all knowing like tapestry?

  • illidan4ever

    It’s sad and too bad because had this somehow of been incorporated as an option and done more maturely (as in, assuming the player DID do that and knows things, even if the Avatar did lose memory) it would of been interesting, good, and ahead of it’s time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1546098202 Arkayen Ether Lunarcry

    Dude Spoony, you look….terrible man

  • Ondrej Simcik

    Well, i’m not the one to post comments too much…

    I’m following this awesome guy for about 5 years, watching every single video he shares with us here and i have to say… Out of all reviewers and all reviews i’ve seen, spoony and his Ultima Retrospective is by far the best. This finale was simply epic.

    Spoony, no matter what ppl say when you release videos abit later, or when it isn’t what they expect. Because your videos are well worth waiting even twice as long, especialy ones that are made with such care and genuine feelings, both positive and negative.

    You might never know how much your videos helped me or others, to remember our own little stories, our loved ones, get through hard times or even just get a few laughs. But it did and i for one am grateful for all those moments.

    All i can say now is: Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  • suol

    This was definitely a timely review. With all the delays and setbacks that
    caused this one to take so long, I think it was actually a good thing to
    have happened. Why?

    Mass Effect 3.

    For a lot of people, this game marks one of the biggest
    disappointments EVER in video games. Maybe THE biggest if you’re too
    young to have played the Ultima series or see Final Fantasy go down the
    drain. And most people couldn’t understand WHY. They were so caught up
    in the total betrayal of lore, logic and consistency that they couldn’t
    really see what happened.

    Now that the dust has settled and Bioware has decreed there will be
    no further additions to the endings, people can turn here and see that
    it was not the first time EA has totally ruined a beloved franchise for
    the sake of sales and deadlines. They can see how there was actually
    something far WORSE than what happened with Mass Effect.

    So thank you, Spoony, for taking so long to finish this review. No
    sarcasm, no feints with this comment. I truly believe it was meant to
    be.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jesse.payne.9843 Jesse Payne

    It was like Garriott said, “you know this is going to suck and all so spread your cheecks and I’ll ease it in gently” so you turn around and do so unnawares to him pulling his pants back up and grabbing a baseball bat with nails through it and ramming it straight up to your throat.

  • smek2

    “I have a great fondness for Electronic Arts – I still think they’re one of the best, most powerful and competent sales and marketing and distribution companies in the business.”
    – Richard Garriott (in 2011)

    • http://www.facebook.com/CreedOfHeresy Elegy Mills

      Ahhh…the smoking gun…

    • http://www.facebook.com/chris.letz Chris Letz

      Fucking Garriott is such a whore… I really wish somebody would just beat the shit out of him and film it so I can watch it a billion times. Ultima 4 on the NES was my first rpg EVER, and to see one of my favorite series tarnished in such a disasterous fashion made me want to eviscerate the bastard with a rusty scalpel. EA REALLY fucked up when they screwed Ultima. Fuck Mass Effect and all that new shit, that’s all a minor disappointment in my eyes. Ultima’s death was the nail in the coffin and I have NEVER bought anything from them since, save Ultima Online. I may have played the Mass Effect games, but I borrowed them from people who already beat them so that I didn’t have to give those fucks any of my money.
      Ultima Online was definitely a crowning achievement, however. I played the everloving fuck out of that game back in the early 2000′s. It’s easy to recognize the talent of Origin Studios’ staff throughout that MMO. It’s a shame they didn’t finish the single-player series before they went fucking around with UO.

    • PeaTearGryfin

      Something about this quote just reeks of contractual obligation. Seriously, could he have come up with a more generic statement if he tried.

      • smek2

        I think he’s trying to get Ultima Online 2 going and seeing how EA still got the rights…

    • http://twitter.com/TwitHatman TwitHatman

      Notice how he never said they were good at MAKING games.

  • http://www.facebook.com/colby.duda Colby Duda

    i feel for ya spoony i have seen quite a few of the childhood game series i played back in the day ruined beyond belief but ultima 9….. it was by far the biggest destroyer of any game series i ever seen and it saddened me to see such a travesty

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Collier/100000597249968 Michael Collier

    I seldom admit to showing tears, least of all from a video, but your story has truly moved me. What ever happens from here on, I shall always admire the way you saw this through.

  • Baschy

    Very nice review! Also Mass Effect 3 score at the end. ^^

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Martel/763629495 Alex Martel

    Dat speech.

  • http://www.facebook.com/l.andrew.spencer Leonard Andrew Spencer

    Around 19:10 I was expecting to see Dr Evil.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001074160110 Kailyn Alise Fazzino

    This was incredible. Honestly, going on my favorites list. It was entertaining and fun as well as solemn and retrospective, a very different approach to your videos that this game definitely deserved. I wouldn’t tell you to do this all the time, hell no, but as the finale, and what you’ve been working towards for a long time now, it was perfect. When you started telling the story of your brother, it was one of those ‘Oh shit, he’s fucking serious’ moments. For anyone who thinks you’re all about the nerd rage and jumping on the angry reviewer bandwagon, you only need to show them this. Beautiful.

  • CronoT

    Wow, and I thought FFXII and FFXIII were the greatest betrayals of all time.

    Also, wearing the Red Lantern Ring shirt at the end, pure brilliance.
    Someone needs to grab Doug Walker and tell him, THIS is how you do a series/season finale.
    Bravo, Spoony!!!

  • tool6984

    great video. i dont post anything and ive been watching since you first came on and i appreciate your work

  • tool6984

    Great video. i dont ever post but video was great. i was watching your videos since AD&D for nes and havent stopped watching since. Keep up the great work.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Wojciech-Gal/100000600485225 Wojciech Gal

    I also didn’t post any comments earlier, but it’s a good time to start.

    Thank You Noah for whole Ultima series reviews. Your work with SpoonyExperiment is inspiring.

    I live in Poland. To be honest- in my childhood there where no one to support me and help me develop inner-gamer. People around me where mostly anti-gaming or they didn’t care at all.

    Right now I’m in the middle of creating pen & paper RPG system, which is settled in steampunk-like universe. I hope to publish it in one major fantasy books publishing house in Poland. They are looking forward for it.

    All of that because of Your work and Your dedication.

    Again- Thank You!

  • David_Dennings

    The last time I commented was rather mean-spirited and I take it back. This was some pretty fucking good stuff, man.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ricardo.wareverson Ricardo Wareverson

    I’m so Happy for you leaving TGWG that I unistaled addblock

  • chief_bam

    I don’t know what to say. I’m not going to say much, as words will only do a disservice to how I feel.

    I sit in awe, amazement, at every piece of this epic journey. Keep fighting, The Spoony One.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=697970925 Nicholas Vidal

    I’m not Spooney’s biggest fan but I am definitely a fan. My brother taught me everything about video games and hearing that story definitely was something worth listening to. That was an excellent finish to a long and amazing review. I look forward to your next review and many of your other works like counter monkey. Peace.

  • http://twitter.com/Ratchet1332 Ryan Preston

    As with everyone else, I found the speech very touching. You bared your soul, and I really hope you read these because this’ll be a long one. With all that you’ve struggled through and all the recent events, you have persevered. Your depression: I sympathize, I know exactly how you feel. And I hope that when you take your anger and depression out on other people you soon realize the mistake that you made. It’s difficult to deal with and you always end up looking for a reason, people usually being the scapegoat, and often the actual problem. The toughest part is admitting that while they may be the cause, often they do not mean it. I understand that close company, be it a loved one, pet, or family, will help with that dearly. The only time that I never had sever depression was when one or more of those things were fulfilled. I’m not going to be the one to say that you have full right to lash out at people due to it, but I’m not going to bash you for it, I’ve done the same and the only reason people didn’t yell at me is because I’m not an icon to many people, just the average joe. So continue to persevere. Your heart: I haven’t dealt with these things but I can understand that when a heart problem arises it causes severe damage or pain to the person that has it. Just keep getting help if it keeps up and hopefully this too shall pass.. The end of this video is not just a description of the Ultima series or anything that shallow. Your entire life has been filed with terrible things, u-turns, and other such pains. But you aren’t alone, all people have dealt with such things and would be willing to suffer through it with you because of what you do for us, the fans. You may have flaws, but we cannot cast the first stone in this situation; we all are messed up in whatever way we are. But we love you, you bring joy to our lives and struggle through your own problems for our entertainment. You aren’t a superperson. You’re human, just like the rest of us. You’ve seen many things you love destroyed, more-so than most of us here can say. And your personal problems and such have not helped cope with that. So please, don’t let this job destroy you, the fans destroy you. We want entertainment, but we want you to stay around for a long time. We all are here for you, we all would be a shoulder to cry on, a voice to talk with. So if ever your depression gets out of hand remember this: all of us here, whether you know us or not, whether we speak English or not, whether we hold the same ideas or not, we are here for you. It may be difficult so see this through the haze of depression when it wreaks havoc, but try. No matter what, we shall remain here, eagerly awaiting the next video and giving support when possible. So go on your journey, you Spoony bard, and keep on going through this cruel game of life.

  • Brandon Steber

    Spoony has give those who watched FEELS LIKE THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN FEELS
    BEFORE. Listening to you describe the relationship you had with your
    brother revolving around ultima, That was touching. makes me regret
    never putting in as much time with my brother (although he has grown
    into a less desirable ass)

  • http://www.facebook.com/Dr.Fisto Kevyn Galli

    I really loved this one Spoony, and the whole Ultima Retrospective to be honest.
    Now i’m kinda sad it’s over, but it was really a fan journey back :D

    Oh and btw, the “That’s a Paladin.” bit at the end would be a really friggin’ cool shirt, just sayin’.

  • Sean Tharpe

    By the way Noah talks about his older brother, it sounds like he passed away… It seemed he was about to be in tears at the end of his speech… And if that IS that case that his older brother is not with us anymore, then this brings the emotional level WAY up… Reminds me growing up with my brother playing Dungeons of Kroz, PC-Pool, Morrowind, and much more… :) I want you to hang in there Noah. You feel like family to me and I’ve never even met you, but I’ve been watching you since your beginnings. Take care of yourself, and always keep being you.

    • doresh

      Don’t worry, his brother is fine. You can see him in some of his VLogs.

      • http://twitter.com/Seanobi Sean Tharpe

        I thought that was his younger brother? Maybe he has/had two brothers and a sister? Either way, if you check out the sunlight after his speech, the time of day becomes way later. I’m sure he was quite upset. Those were real emotions, I could tell.

        • doresh

          Doesn’t he only have one brother? And Miles clearly looks older, doesn’t he?

          Anyways, wouldn’t surprise me if those emotions were real. Having a beloved game series with which you grew up and that followed you throughout a good chunk of your life, ony to have it all end like THIS >.< ?!

          • PeaTearGryfin

            I seem to remember Noah saying in one of his live stream vids that he has another brother who lives in Indiana. I think that was the brother he was referring to

          • doresh

            Possible. Unfortunately, I don’t those streams very often -.-

  • http://www.facebook.com/seongkeun.yoo.5 Seongkeun Yoo

    I’ll skip with the comment regarding how awsome, and heartfelt the review was.
    It was indeed one of his best. and I know other fans would agree.
    One thing I DO want to state is…. God Damn spoony I think you need a vacation.
    You look SOO bad in this video . Worse than the time when you were hospitalized.
    I mean, I knew a 80 year old man with heart issues who look better than you.
    Maybe it’s partially because of the make up? idunno.. but with all the tim burton-type of damped eyes and skim.. and all that..
    God, I’m seriously worried if i’ll see in the news ‘ Internet star dies of stress’.
    I’ve been watching your videos from the very beginning.
    And although with all the hate going on I bet all the loyal fans would agree that we’ll stay with you in any circumstances. Your videos, helped me through tough times, And as much as I could use more of your show , I don’t want it to be from the cost of your health.
    Man.. dunno how to end this.. Rock on brotha-

    • theshamster

      I know where Spoony could go. I was in Brisbane in the Eastern States of Ausralia a few years ago. I went to Movie World, It’s a great theme park.
      Just don’t come to Perth City, Spoony; this is where I live, and it’s dead boring. there is nothing here….well, except for brothels (which are legal here in Australia)…my favourite one is Langtrees in Burswood, where you can get a nice……………..Hey!

  • Fiddlewheel

    How the story could have worked better as I see it:
    It would have started with the ending of Ultima 8, where the guardian and you are locked in a battle where you both throw spells at each other, and the intro would end up with the wyrmguard and the guardian overwhelming you and having the guradian drain your magic, but you were able to escape thanks to the appearance to lord british grabbing you and teleporting away, but at the cost of harming him.
    The sigils would still be in the story, the avatar would have to do more than just say the mantra’s because the shrines are too corrupted, so he has to make the sigils with the help of others who are the truest in each virtue spread all over the world.
    Lord blackthorne would be one of those, representing the virtue of humility, and he would be nearly untouched by the guardian since he would be on serpent isle.
    The place with the paladins would be completely overrun and controlled by the wyrm-guard, so none would dare help you and in fact would tell the wyrmguard that you are there. Dupre would not be mentioned at all, since he were a helper of the avatar, and therefore was aligned with the enemy.
    Completing the sigil of honor and cleansing the shrine of honor, would trigger a faded figure, which would be Dupre telling you that he is watching over you as a part of the snakes keeping the balance, just to fade away after giving you a cryptic clue as to how the guardian would be beaten.
    The tapestry would I also have used, but rather in this manner instead, that it would still tell you how it ends, but it would be tragic, for it says that you give in to the guardian.
    Throughout the game, the idea of the guardian being your dark half would still manifest itself, but in a more proper way, like vengeful warriors who have lost all hope condemning you for even bringing this monster here, even though you are not responsible.
    At the end you would become the “Fully powered up” avatar when you finally face the Guardian, only to have you both be nearly evenly matched. It is here that the whole idea of the guardian and you being the opposites of the same coin would come into play, as you realize that the only way that he can be defeated, is to become him, and the ending would be with you merging with him, and because of this you would become the avatar of balance, ascending to a higher plane of existence taking a place next to the three serpents.
    I don’t address everything, sure, but that would have taken me a long time, and this is me just throwing my thoughts out there.

    • theshamster

      That actually sounds more logical and sadly, EA would reply “Nah! We wanna to a Joel Schumacher and make it all flash and neony, with ass shots and butt shots, have stupid, STUPID oneliners, pointless plots and useless characters and insult the fanbase….yeah, that’s a fantastic idea!

      Your idea of the Guardian being a entity of evil that it the opposite of the Avatar (without actually being his ‘evil twin’, and is more like the Ying-Yang symbol) actually works well.

      It’s just a shame we’ll never get to see this idea, or indeed any better idea played out. EA ruined it, and yeah, it may have been a decade ago, but ‘it still happened’, they still stuffed it up with their own petty arrogant ‘look what we can do, wee hee hee!’ ideas.

      Please excuse me, I want to relas, pour a nice glass of apple cider and play some Mass Effect and………awww bugger!

  • Carl Greder

    Long time watcher, first time writer. Bravo. What a finale. Your Ultima retrospective was splendid all throughout and some of your best work to date. In the first two parts it kinda felt like you were only nitpicking for the sake of it.
    Yeah, yeah; “What’s a paladin?”, “Your knowledge of the land shall be great.” popped up all the time and for me, never having played the series, it almost became a bit tedious. Don’t get me wrong, it was still funny. But not really the epic shit stain of a game you’d promised. But then you go and do the monologue. That speech was so sincere and really showed how much this really meant to you, all the talk about betrayal wasn’t just empty words.
    I salute you for taking that risk and I congratulate you for still being the best at what you do.
    Take your time with the next video, we’ll still be here.
    /Sincerely
    A swedish fan

  • Lumpchunker

    Spoony, you are absolutely my hero. Your recollections about you and your brother gaming in the good ol’ days brought a nostalgic tear to my eye and a lump to my throat. I’d give anything to game with my older brother the way I used to. That story, coupled with the song “All Is Well” still floating in my mind from the “Bubba Ho-Tep” clip you used earlier hit home in a way that nothing has for me in a very, very long time.

    And that ending? My God…

    You, sir, are fucking brilliant!

  • http://twitter.com/Mustakrakh1sh Mustakhrakhish

    Hello there!
    I’ve been a watcher and a follower of your videos for some years now. Yet this will be the first time I’m posting.

    I don’t have a slightest idea about the fallout that happened between you and the TGWTG, and I’m really sorry to hear about it.

    I really love your videos. Your site has been the source of countless hours of enjoyment and entertainment. Hell, with your V-logs in the background I’ve gotten through some of the most tedious jobs I’v ever had to do. This review has really shed light on the entire Ultima Retrospective for me. Now I have a much better understanding why were you so pissed off at the game, and I’ll leave it at that.

    I am aware this won’t help much, but I really appreciate all the work you did here, and I really wish you all the best.

    I hope I see more of your videos in the future. Hopefully, the TSE will live on for many years, and we get to enjoy more content that’s got the most of us in.

  • http://twitter.com/nnecron Necro

    Man, I did not expect him to turn this episode into such serious tone! It’s very well done too, and I can relate your story about your older bro and Ultima games.

    Even though I don’t have a brother, when I was a kid my dad used to always sit beside me and play all kinds of PC games with me to teach me how to read English. It may sound like a strange choice of educational tool but gaming helped me build strong base for learning English literature. Before I could comprehend a middle school reading material and above, I wasn’t much of a story based RPG player so I had less devotion towards gaming in general. But after I realized how games can have great stories and immersion, gaming turned into something different for me. Most gamers think that games are just for fun, and it is true enough. But some people like me take them personally and kind of become part of yourself, as if by experiencing these games they turn into your social status.

    I may have exaggerated that part but it explains how some people react so furiously towards reviewers. I’m not implying that Spoony is like that, but if he really made all these Ultima reviews just to convey his hatred towards this game, he may be a victim of what I call “curse of nerds”. The curse is also a blessing because you can feel such awe inspiring joy out of works of fiction, but it is also a curse because you can get conflicted over unimportant things such as games and movies. Since they are obsessed enough to take in vast amount of inspirations from these medias, they try to mimic their creations or do something based on those ideas. For instance I became good at drawing illustrations and other art works because I started drawing stuffs out of games such as Diablo since I was 8. In Spoony’s case he wanted to use his nerdy knowledge to make people laugh, and his style of reviews is inspired by the Mystery Science Theater. This is often times a sign of genius because you feel something others don’t, but not many have conquered the downside of the curse, so I guess that is why there aren’t that many people with such talent. My skills and love towards creative activity is beginning to wane because there are certain thing that I can’t get over yet, but I won’t speak of it now.

    This comment may sounds a bit pointless and even sounds like words from a madman, but if you are a hardcore nerd you won’t spend much time socializing with people and starts to think something like this. If you think you know what I’m talking about, and found anything that resembles a point, you may be able to explain it better. If you do know, then I would like to discuss with any of you guys about it.

  • Maieutic22
  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1673310152 Julian Andreassen

    Holy shit dude. That speech at the end was touching. Almost made me teary, and it actually reminds me of when i was younger. I remember me and my big brother playing videogames when we were children, and i watched him, he taught me how to play and so on. I wish i could go back to those days.

    Also, is it just me, or does the ending resemble the Mass Effect 3 ending. Music from ME3 can be heard in the background, we see the different choises and the consequences of them that resembles the red ending, the green ending, the blue ending and the hidden ending. Pretty cool.

  • http://twitter.com/nnecron Necro

    Man, I did not expect him to turn this episode into such serious tone! It’s
    very well done too, and I can relate your story about your older bro and Ultima
    games.

    Even though I don’t have a
    brother, when I was a kid my dad used to always sit beside me and play all
    kinds of PC games with me to teach me how to read English. It may sound like a
    strange choice of educational tool but gaming helped me build strong base for
    learning English literature. Before I could comprehend a middle school reading
    material and above, I wasn’t much of a story based RPG player so I had less
    devotion towards gaming in general. But after I realized how games can have
    great stories and immersion, gaming turned into something different for me.
    Most gamers think that games are just for fun, and it is true enough. But some
    people like me take them personally and kind of become part of yourself, as if
    by experiencing these games they turn into your social status.

    I may have exaggerated that part
    but it explains how some people react so furiously towards reviewers. I’m not
    implying that Spoony is like that, but if he really made all these Ultima
    reviews just to convey his hatred towards this game, he may be a victim of what
    I call “curse of nerds”. The curse is also a blessing because you can
    feel such awe inspiring joy out of works of fiction, but it is also a curse
    because you can get conflicted over unimportant things such as games and
    movies. Since they are obsessed enough to take in vast amount of inspirations
    from these medias, they try to mimic their creations or do something based on
    those ideas. For instance I became good at drawing illustrations and other art
    works because I started drawing stuffs out of games such as Diablo since I was
    8. In Spoony’s case he wanted to use his nerdy knowledge to make people laugh,
    and his style of reviews is inspired by the Mystery Science Theater. This is
    often times a sign of genius because you feel something others don’t, but not
    many have conquered the downside of the curse, so I guess that is why there
    aren’t that many people with such talent. My skills and love towards creative
    activity is beginning to wane because there are certain things that I can’t get
    over yet, but I won’t speak of it now.

    This comment may
    sounds a bit pointless and even sounds like words from a madman, but if you are
    a hardcore nerd you won’t spend much time socializing with people and starts to
    think something like this. If you think you know what I’m talking about, and
    found anything that resembles a point, you may be able to explain it better. If
    you do know, then I would like to discuss with any of you guys about it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sam-Lewis/100000578718296 Sam Lewis

    This was probably the most touching, most intense video of yours I’ve seen in a long time. It may be odd to say, but having watched your videos for more than 2 years now, I’ve grown to view you almost like a friend, someone who I come home and listen too about bad videogames. The story about your brother really got to me, made me want to be there and help you out, heck, give you a hug. You will always be my favorite online personality, and I look forward to everything to come.

  • http://www.facebook.com/zac.finley Zac Finley

    It’s fucking beautiful.

  • Patrick Coyle

    The end of Star Trek II, the entirety of Grave of the Fireflies, and now, unbelievably, the finale of an Ultima series review. If I could have chosen the third thing I’ve watched in my memory that actually made me teary-eyed, I would never have guessed this.

    Bravo, sir.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Contreras/1219435856 Ian Contreras

    Can you do Final Fantasy XII next? :3

    • doresh

      I think he’s skipping that one and goes straight to FFXIII.

      FFXII isn’t really good riffing material. The “I AM BASCH FON RONSENBERG!”-scene is hilariously stupid, but other than that, the plot is monotone and boring – not to mention that you’re constantly forgetting what’s going on because of the huge amount of time between story segments wasted on travelling, grinding and side-questing.

  • Casey Hoversten

    Oh wow. Bravo! Bravo! You still have it Spoony! After I regretfully doubted you, you’ve not only shown lasting talent but remarkable creativity, saucy wit and jeweled caprice! I’ve just played through the part in FF2 where Tellah calls Edward a spoony bard, so I had to come pay my dues. Nothing but joy and prosperity to you, Spoony. -Casey

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Edward-Graham-Peeler-Jr/1602215514 Edward Graham Peeler Jr.

    Noah, myself and many other people have given you a lot of crap of late. I’m not going to apologize for the things I have said. My comments come from a place of criticism for your work and concern for your well being. That said…

    This video, frankly, was brilliant. Given all that has happened it was a little difficult to watch, but it is undeniable that you did a great job with it. I don’t think I have ever seen a video like this before online done well. It was not a video game review; it was a work of art. You bared your very soul for all of us to see. You took the controversial decision to take what has been going on in your life recently and poured it all into the this work. It was dark but it was powerful, and I certainly hope it was theraputic for you.

    It works well as a review and a show as well. I expressed concern over part 2 stating that you didn’t really convince me in by that video that Ultima 9 was a bad game. I feel you did a much better job expressing what is fundamentally wrong in the game in this video. Your examination of the game was very analytical, which I appreciate. I feel that is much more interesting and much more effective than say screaming something sucks constantly and/or nit picking it to death which I feel you and your currently and former colleagues have been guilty of. The jokes were really good. The cutaways to other movies and games were very well used. And the story line was great. It actually made me really want to see the Final Fantasy 13 review. I felt a couple of the running gags were a little over used, but overall it was very good. I think you really made the paladin joke work in the end. And I thought I was the only person who knew “I Won’t Become The Thing I Hate” from Duke Nukem Time To Kill for the PS1.

    All that said, as I fan, I am still greatly concerned about your well being. It’s fair to say that the last couple years have been a tumultuous time for you to say the least. I felt that all came pouring out in the video especially. I just want to say that, I really love you man. Your a good person, your sense of humor and wonderful geeky website has never failed to put a smile on my face and has helped me through some dark times of my own. I just want you to know that you are not alone. I love you, you’ve got tons of fans here that love you, your family, your friends, your former co-workers, and probably a ton of people that your mad at right, understandably so, all of us care about you. All I’m trying to say is you have a lot of love out their for you. I think the most important thing to us is that you are ok. So take care of yourself, keep fighting, get yourself healthy, mentally and physically. Do that first. I am the first person to bitch about late videos. But get yourself healthy. Take care of you. And then make awesome videos.

    God bless you Spoony. Take care of yourself and rock on.

    • Erebus_Locke

      No one has “given him crap”. We only critizised is abyssmal release schedule, and pointed out that we miss his old videos. And these points were all true. The last two years have been veeeery slow on this site.

      And now? He has ranked up to three videos a month, and his latest may be one of his best ever. All our points of critizism have been nullified (if it wasnt only a single surge).

      Spoony is indeed back!

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Edward-Graham-Peeler-Jr/1602215514 Edward Graham Peeler Jr.

        Well I feel like I’ve given him crap.

  • theshamster

    I think that one of the next games Spoony should play/review is “A Fork in the Tale” that stars Rob Schneider as the main character.

    It’s one of those “Full motion video” style games of the 1990′s, and is similar to the “Borg” game he reviewed. I never played it, yet I wanted to get it just to see what it was like (and deliberately kill the main character in a variety of sadistic ways…Bwahahaha)

    For those who’ve never heard of this game, here is a playthrough I found on youtube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fra9KxmUBo

    I would love to see this game reviewed by Spoony; the amount of snarky sarcastic comments he can make would be great, plus it would be a breather from the insult that Ultima 9 inflicted.
    Spoony needs a laugh, we all need a laugh, so (if he has it) who else thinks Spoony could show us “A fork in the Tale”? by AnyRiver Entertainment?

  • adamfox

    best ending to an online review ever. it was like art.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kuba.komorowski.3 Kuba Komorowski

    Ha, I guessed the exact reward for the lighthouses quest :D

  • http://www.facebook.com/keipa.inko Keipa Inko

    The part about story of you and your older brother playing ultima games was very touching. It was geniune, but also it made me remember my own childhood when my 6 years older brother was coming to my house to play some damn video games with 5 years old me, eventhough we played NES and Genesis games only at the time. I kind of remember that feeling of cool older brother hanging out with silly younger one, about which he shouldn’t really care and stuff. It was awesome time, he introduced me to so many games, since he always bring some new cartridges to play. And not only that, we were really close through games, and hanging out. Nothing like this ever happened again. Life was simple, lol..

    It’s great to feel relatable to you on this level. I’ve been watching you for 3 or 4 years, and only now i finally decided to put my appreciation and gratitude to everything you do here. I enjoyed gamemovie reviews, i enjoyed vlogs, you made me care about Ultima series, eventhough i never played single game. So, i just want to thank you Spoony, for all admirable work you do, and ultimately, for giving me unexpected trip to my past times, and feeling related, and.. I don’t know, i’m not a great speaker, so just thank you once again.

    • theshamster

      You should get the Ultima collection and Underworld 1 and 2. You’ll need Dosbox or some program to run them, but they are lots of fun.
      Don’t worry, Ultima 9 isn’t in the collection. Yes, Ultima 8 is there, but you don’t really have to play it; but if you do, it is patched so you won’t mess up all the jumping.
      My favourite ones are the underworld games. They are what got me into the series. I also really liked Ultima 5 for some reason.
      Once you play these games, you’ll understand Spoony’s fury at ultima 9; the entire series was like a world of it’s own. It had rich history, 3 dimentional characters, cultures, religions and politics that emulate real life, a variety of races, each with their own reason for existing, and basically, it was just like Tolkiens Lord of the Rings.
      ……and then E.A comes along and ruins it. So yes, I understand exactally why Spoony is so angry. it’s an insult to your very soul, you could say.
      It’s hard to explain, so why not get the games yourself, play them in order and realise how much fun they are.
      The order of the games is “Akalabeth, U1, u2, u3, u4, U5, u6, Uu1, u7-1, Uu2, U7-2, U8.
      I wish somehow Richard Garriot could get the rights to Ultima back and refresh the series. By this, I mean, remake all of the games up to 7 part 2 in up-to-date graphics and sound (not altering a single plot thing) and for Ultima 8 and 9, design them in his own way…no more “Dupre returns” or “Guardian is your ‘evil twin’” type nonsense, and this will revive the series popularity and then we can see U10.
      Geez, I feel depressed for some reason. Please excuse me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ondrej.trajer.3 Ondřej Trajer

    Spoony rulezzz, king is back

  • doresh

    This whole “The Avatar and the Guardian are two sides of the same coin”-revelation could’ve worked quite decently if it was handled better. This might’ve even been planned from the beginning.

    Think about it: The Guardian has an odd habit of telling the Avatar his next plan (even though NOT telling him anything would’ve resulted in him winning ages ago), and he never tries to directly kill him (even though he can kill pretty much anyone at any time).
    I wouldn’t call this Fridge Brilliance, but this behavior could make sense if the Guardian is the Avatar’s other half.

  • http://twitter.com/T9SayWha Jerry R. Sosa

    Sweet ending to a fun review. Good work, Spoony.

  • http://twitter.com/Trikucian Noel Jeffery

    I don’t have much to say, other than, well, you hit me really hard with the speech about your brother. I’m 10 years older than my sister and she, my brother, and I, have spent many days playing games together. The majority of which being Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2, which started when she was 5, but I get it, I totally get it. The ending to the Ultima series, especially since it was being built up to for so long, was absolutely heart breaking. And then, to finish it off, you add the Mass Effect ending music … and now I’m crying at work.

  • http://twitter.com/Squeejee Squeejee

    Not going to comment on TGWTG because I stopped checking that website a LONG time ago, and only know that something happened at all because the comments down here got flooded with it.

    This episode was the first in a long while that really had me engaged. I’ve always loved this show, whether it’s you tearing apart a piece of crap Sega CD game that I never played or going back to one that I have and laughing as you harp on exactly what I would have, but this episode really had me hooked on a deeper level than “yeah, that Spoony guy is really funny.”

    Obviously, there’s the story you shared about you and your brother – it was very well told, and makes me wish I had a similar story (I just sorta stopped playing Halo and started playing D&D, nothing too interesting). Then there was the ending, which had me accidentally shout and wake up my roommate (I see you watching me type, bro. I’m sorry, seriously!).

    Anyway, I hope you can always find something you can review (or a Pathfinder game to run, or a Smack Down! to commentate, whatever), because with this level of quality to look forward to I intend to keep putting up with and clicking your ads as long as you do, and I’m certainly not alone.

  • angelcarnivore

    Spoony… I’ve been a fan of yours since, what, 2009? I’ve watched and rewatched your reviews many times, and then when they were familiar, they became the thing I’d go to for something to listen to while I was working.

    That said: I love how you ended this. The dark story line, the emotional honest sharing of anecdote- of why you *care* about this game series… you’ve always been funny, but the maturity and ballsiness in your writing for these.. Just wow, man.

    Just wow.

  • C-Low

    And so you are reborn.

    Thank you. Thank you for taking all your anger, rage, fear, uncertainty, passion, and heart to make this. Blending your professional and personal experiences over these years into a commentary on this series paralleling your own journey of growth, regression, isolation, and finally acceptance.

    This truly is your greatest work.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=639630956 Marlon Meloney

    Holy shit i guessed that it would be a 100 Gold pieces. I totally didnt think i would be right.

    • PMvstheWorld

      In my head I said gold but not a specific amount. That’s crazy

  • castchaos

    NOW I fully understand the rage of those who played U9 AFTER establishing a deeply rooted Ultima fandom.
    However, this is still my 2nd favourite game (beaten by U7-2), because the series plot destroyer events don’t usually harm the game on its own right and the internal plot holes just contribute for a certain good cartoony feeling (probably because it’s explained that the columns make everything go broke), up until the end of the Abyss, from where it’s indeed utter nonsense even for a first player.
    It’s still so much of a miracle that I like it after this many inconcistencies… So strange! And it feels… so strange!

  • Gergely Orban

    I just want to say thank you for having the nerves of steel to finish this retrospective. I played Ultima 9 as a standalone game (got it from my brother) and I guess it was made for newcomers for some weird reason because it did explain some stuff to me to get the story but seeing the abismal continuity errors they made I’m sorry it ruined Ultima for you. Also thank you for that cool childhood memory.

  • http://www.facebook.com/eric.hall.54 Eric Hall

    I get why the Guardian is able to instantly kill others and I’m kind of surprised you didn’t mention this since a lot of your fans have said that the Guardian seems to have instantly kill those who serve him or were serving him and THAT would make sense as to why he can kill them. Maybe he had them write a contract or something Of course until Ultima 9 shows that he wipes out an entire city that doesn’t serve him but also resisted his columns so yeah apparently he can kill anyone he wants now. It would have made a lot more sense if it said that he can only instantly kill others who serve him or did serve him and he can only kill everyone else if he enters the world psychically like through the Black Gate. Also I wonder when he dropped you off in Pagan why DIDN’T he just kill you. He had you in the palm of his hand. I figured maybe he couldn’t kill the Avatar actually because if he died, maybe the Guardian would die too since that’s supposed to be his dark half created when the Stranger became the Avatar so maybe that’s why he doesn’t kill you? It almost kinda reminds me of Dragon Ball Z when the Nameless Namek splits into 2, one was Kami, pure good, and the other was King Piccolo, pure evil. And if one died the other would die too so I speculated the same would have applied to the Guardian. Also how DID the Guardian enter Britannia in Ultima 8 anyway? Doesn’t he need a Black Gate to enter? Did he ask someone else to create it for him? That might have been a very climactic battle for Ultima 9 if the Avatar The titan of Ether vs. the Guardian but no EA had to ruin it again. Why did Richard Garriot approve of this? Did he have ANY control is this project or could he only observe it?

    I know you mention Star Wars and Indiana Jones being a betrayal but I don’t necessarily think so in my opinion anyway. I’m probably in the minority on this but I thought Phantom Menace was just meh, as was Crystal Skull. I never thought of them as “betrayals” Maybe it’s because I wasn’t as big of a fan of them like many are. I’m a big fan now but when I saw those movies I was not only not a big fan of it but I wasn’t hyped about it. When one gets hyped up about it they get really disappointed afterwards which is probably why Phantom got bashed so much because of the insane amount of hype. I figured SOMETHING in Phantom Menace would disappoint because well Lucas made 3 great Star Wars movies and that’s rare to make a trilogy where ALL 3 movies were great so I figured this would be the time where things are starting to go downhill and I was right. Same goes for Crystal Skull, Now Highlander, THAT was a betrayal. Give Star Wars and Indianan Jones credit, they had least had some things right and were at least a little entertaining and had great soundtracks. Star Wars and Indiana Jones didn’t have NEARLY as many plot holes and the Highlander series did. That’s what I think of when I think of “Betrayal.” The Final Fantasy series has gone downhill with bad stories but fortuneteller they have to worry about consistency this every Final Fantasy game is a new story with areas, heroes and villains. But even so the storytelling had gone downhill so I agree with you there. Comic books in general have also gone downhill. One More Day might have been one of the most powerful comics out there if they didn’t mess it up. The better idea would have to let Aunt May die. I know she’s a supporting character, but Spider-Man should have known better for crying out loud. And Mephisto wanting their “marriage” He’s never wanted anyone’s marriage before so why now? Does it give him more power than taking someone’s soul? Well I think One More Day should have had Mephisto wanting Peter or Mary Jane’s Soul or something like that so he can help Aunt May but Peter Should have turned it down, because he knows Mephisto has screwed over the likes of Ghost Rider and any other that’s made a deal with Mehpisto, and so he refuses let’s Aunt May die, but Aunt May is glad that Peter didn’t stoop to such a low and he would be one of the few that refused Mephisto’s offer because most accepted his offer only to regret it, like Ghost Rider. That would have been a powerful interesting comic. But Marvel nowadays likes to destroy everything made comics great.

    It’s like some vengeful bastard got employed jealous that he could make great games like Ultima so he did everything in his power to completely and utterly destroy everything that made Ultima great. I don’t think it’s because they didn’t do their homework, I think they knew exactly what they were doing.

  • http://twitter.com/MichaelWard1973 Michael Ward

    My first memory is my father taking me to see Star Wars. That’s a pretty good first memory to have, but in the end that saga turned out as badly as Ultima. Ultima III was also the first Ultima game I played and one of the first desk top computer games I played. I remember how awsome it was. My best friend had the game too, we and play the game together at each other’s houses. I remember how cool I thought it was when the floor attacked. Two of my fondest memories: Star Wars and Ultima III.

  • http://twitter.com/Bashurverse Team Bashurverse

    I have a YouTube with about 80,000+ subscribers and I’ve been watching you for quite a few years now. I have to say, this finale has completely changed me, and the direction of my channel. I’ve recently finished one of my first reviews ever, and I have to admit I just quickly rushed it out and made tailored it to be consumed by the masses. Not really tailored to who I am, or my personal experiences.

    After watching this you’ve inspired me. I was at E3, and I really wish we could have met, maybe next year. You’re a huge inspiration to me, keep up the amazing work. I could say more, but I’ll save it for when/if we ever get to hang out and share some stories.

    Bravo.

    http://www.youtube.com/bashurverse

  • Amdor

    By everything good I guessed 100 GP xD

  • http://www.facebook.com/terec.andrei.5 Terec Andrei

    Funny stuff ! Good job!
    Don’t mind the trolls who don’t like your stuff. Half the people in TV hate each other and the other half are dumb.
    Working on TSE might not get you a million dollars contract but it does get you friends who care about you.

  • Amdor

    Ahh this music at the end reminded me of terrible feeling after me ending :/ DO NOT EVEEER play this thing again…

  • http://twitter.com/TerraRanger _____

    The entirety of gaming is beyond reflexes and good stories, they can mirror ourselves. That is why many of you have remembered the good and the bad things that have happend to us thanks to gaming but the only problem is that we are stuck remembering the old days. I had a friend, my best friends, every memory of gaming I can have is somehow link to him and me. Street Fighter, Final fantasy, Duke nukem, Sonic, Mario, Solid Snake… But one day we drifted apart, not slowly but in one final betrayal. Each of us taking our side and turning on each other. All those games, all those memories gone forever never to return… it was sad as hell it made me feel horrible and it probably will forever… but, some time after that happen my brother, whom I really had little in common with got Resident Evil 5, one of the few that has local co-op, he was having a hard time playing it and invited me over to help him. For weeks I visited him and played the game, we grew closer, when i eventually got my own ps3 we started buying the same games together and playing online. Those games then I started playing with my wife, and lots of new memories started to flourish. I’ve recently started to help my brother with his emotional problems, and I dont think I could have done that just 2 years ago.
    What I’m getting at with this is simple, gaming helped you get close to those people you now miss, but remember one thing now that they are gone. The world is still full of people out there that want to be a part of your life through gaming, yeah most people are jerks that only play to win, but hey in its heart the true nature of gaming is having fun, and that is the best way to bring people together, to build wonderful memories, to remember always those we played with and to eventually find new friends and new memories.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=515209390 James William Jake Frizell

    What’s a salad shooter?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ares-Lancaster/1290777953 Ares Lancaster

    I would’ve at LEAST given him the Black Sword… anyway, most of that looked like genuine exasperation. I don’t know if that’s good acting or real… Either way, well played.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002255363856 Leo Meier

    was that mass effect music twords the end??

  • Patrick Coyle

    The only other internet review that’s ever made me feel anything like this was a Voyager episode over at SFDebris, where the Doctor tries out a family life via holodeck, but his “daughter” gets fatally injured and is slowly dying. The Doctor wants to end the simulation, but the crew encourages him to play through it as a learning experience. The reviewer flips his shit at this, talking about what it was like having two premature twin sons, with a 51% chance that at least one of them would have died in infancy, and absolutely rages at the notion that the suffering and death of a child is a necessary experience.

    With all the comedy we get out of watching reviewers spew bile and venom – and with some of us thinking that they somehow owe it to us, even getting upset if they aren’t angry enough – it’s good to let us see sometimes that the anger is quite real, and not at all funny. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that these are real people trying to entertain us, not just jesters that live only to serve our whims.

    God knows there are too many “real fans” out there who don’t know the difference anymore.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vaughan-MacDonald/100000473507885 Vaughan MacDonald

    During that speech, I can tell you and your bother were close, Noah. I don’t claim to know any personal details about you, but I can tell something happened to him. And all I can say is that I’m sorry shit got so fucked up, with everything.

    I think anyone can agree with me when I say this, we’re with you 100%, Spoony. Everyone of your fans respect you greatly, and we’re with you every step of the way. Long live the Spoony One.

  • Saku Rantanen

    I really, really hate to break the mood here, but is the Magic Gun that Spoony has a .223 pistol from Fallout?

    • Patrick Coyle

      Fallout borrowed it from Blade Runner, but yes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Benjamin-Wiederaenders/100001508003093 Benjamin Wiederaenders

    Wow Spoony, that was… fucking amazing. I never played the
    Ultima series, I was more of an RTS guy on the PC, but I know how important
    these stories can be to the people that walk through them. The depth that this
    game sinks to is utterly deplorable. Though perhaps not as widespread a
    betrayal as Ultima IX was to its fans, another betrayal hit me as close to home
    as yours did.

    That senseless raping of a series goes by the name Metroid:
    Other M. When I heard that Team Ninja was going to make a Metroid game, my
    heart leapt from its chest. TEAM MOTHERFUCKING NINJA was going to make METROID.
    This could be nothing but pure crystallized awesome, surely! Time went on and
    the press dropped nuggets of knowledge from on high. We would finally see
    Samus’ past. We would learn more about her connections to the Marines and the
    Space Pirates. We would HEAR SAMUS SPEAK. I had a boner for three days straight
    after that last one.

    Samus had never truly spoken in her games, except for the
    dialogue in Fusion, which revealed the character of Alex, the stalwart
    companion who sacrificed himself years ago to save Samus’ life. A noble,
    honorable man, to be sure. Even in Metroid Prime 3, a game in which there is
    much dialogue directed at her, Samus never says a word. To hear her story, from
    her mouth made me tremble. Like most early gaming protagonists, she was a
    heroic mime. Yet certain things could be inferred from her actions.

    She hated the Space Pirates and their winged master, Ridley.

    She cared about the plight of innocents.

    She was a bounty hunter.

    She was tough.

    She was smart.

    She was badass.

    She didn’t let anybody fuck around with her.

    She used every tool available to her.

    She got the job done no matter how may giant monsters/robots
    stood in her path.

    Metroid: Other M stands as a testament to how you can have
    all the right ingredients for a chocolate cake and still end up with a shit
    brick. Taken purely on its gameplay elements, the game is fairly above average.
    Where it fails, in a spectacularly horrific way, is the story. They took Samus,
    the badass bounty hunter, the rightful Queen of Videogames, and turned her into
    a PRINCESS FUCKING PEACH. Suddenly, she is afraid of her longtime mortal enemy
    Ridley, LITERALLY TURNING INTO A TERRIFIED CHILD BEFORE HIM. She follows around
    her former leader, Alex, (the same Alex we learned about in Fusion) like a love-struck
    puppy, obeying his command to turn off all of her weapons and armor
    modifications until he authorizes their use. (This acts as the game’s “bag of
    spilling”. While other games in the series have her suit being damaged, we have
    this idiotic mechanic.)

    She goes on and on about how much she loves it when he
    orders her around and denigrates her with sexist nicknames, how great it is to
    have a man around to hold the reigns. We see flashbacks of her time in the
    military, and how much she idolized this man. The flashbacks make it clear that
    he doesn’t see her as a soldier, but as a woman, undeserving of a place in his clubhouse.
    He orders her to make a death run through an ACTIVE VOLCANO with no heat
    shielding whatsoever. It is only in the Boss room that he “allows” this privilege.
    Does Samus call him out on this, or turn on her heat shielding despite his
    orders? No, of fucking course not. She romps merrily through the volcano, slowly
    dying from the extreme heat.

    Later in the game, Samus is about to enter a chamber
    infested with Metroids, a foe she has shown considerable aptitude at owning in
    battle. Alex, big strong man that he is, decides that this is too dangerous for
    poor little Samus and SHOOTS HER IN THE BACK. He then goes off to make the “heroic
    sacrifice” that we heard about in Fusion. In short, he walks into the chamber
    and blows it up. In Fusion we learn that Alex’s mind has somehow been
    downloaded into a computer, specifically the computer of Samus’ personal ship.
    At the end of Fusion I thought that this was a great end, two warriors
    continuing the fight against evil despite, you know, death and shit. Looking
    back at it from this perspective, if this is the Alex who now resides in Samus’
    ship; if this is the “hero” that saved her life, I cannot imagine a worse fate
    for our heroine. This man who somehow dominates her mind is now effectively
    immortal, a ghost in the machine come back to haunt her from the mists of the
    past. This has turned a slightly bitter, but otherwise happy ending into a
    tankful of nightmare fuel that will last me for years.

    It seems to me that Team Ninja didn’t play any of the games
    or get to know the story behind Metroid, instead opting for the cliff notes.
    Samus is a strong character, and she could have been written as a man, and it
    would be the same person with different genitals. Her gender, and all the other
    little bits surrounding her, add to the fully developed whole. To write a
    generic JRPG/anime female and slap Samus Aran into that mold is blasphemy of
    the highest order. Nobody bothered to tell Team Ninja that Samus is a character
    who happens to be a woman, and not a woman who happens to be a character. That
    is a betrayal to all the people who love Metroid and who love Samus, not
    because she is a woman, but because she is fucking awesome.

  • http://www.facebook.com/marius.prinz Marius Prinz

    Great Review, I haven’t played the Ultima games, but what was true up until Ultima 9, at least they way you told it: There was never a plothole. You see, I like RPGs, I mostly don’t care about the systems that are used, but more about the story, thats why i want to finish a game. It hurts me as a Gamer that this really awesome story (well expect for the point where you have to buy a spaceship in Ultima 1(I think it was)) got crushed.

    I don’t know why I’m even writing that, but the story of your brother and you made me remember how I was playing games when I was younger. My brother and I got in touch with video games at the same point of time and it was one of the first games ever create, if memory serves right: Pacman on a floppy disk. We would always argue about who gets to play, somehow it was awesome.

    By the way, if you are not feeling well you should stop making reviews for some time. I’m not sure if you have put on some makeup and it runs down your face, but look at your eyes and cheeks when you tell the story about your brother, this doesn’t look normal. You don’t need to pressure yourself with making reviews.

  • http://twitter.com/Anarnee Anarnee

    Wow. You know, I’ll be honest. I knew absolutely NOTHING about Ultima
    before watching your retrospective… I’m pretty sure I’ve come in
    contact with it before… I remember seeing the opening scene with the
    pillars as a kid and I think my dad might have had it… but over all I knew nothing about it.

    I have gained a fondness for it learning about via each part and the
    just before you explained how you use to play with your bro, I had
    gotten teary eyed, and then that story didn’t help.

    I wonder if most gamers have a story like that. My big brother would
    rarely play games with me and my little brother, but I would always try
    to watch him play… I would just sit outside his room listening to him
    play FFVII and Resident Evil, and then when me and my little bro were
    older we would all play together. My mom never really understood it, and
    she was the only other girl in the house but I never really cared to do
    “girl things” I always wanted to hang out with the boys, playing games.
    The stories meant a lot to me, from RPG to games with little story like
    Fighters…

    So I feel your pain… As a matter of fact, the line about how
    everything we love will be turned to shit really got to me. There are so
    many series that I’ve watched fall apart… but you keep playing cause
    you hope that in some way it will be redeemed.

    Thanks for doing this series and sharing this with us. Perfect ending for this series.

    That’s a Paladin~!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000520943957 Noah Goodman

    Everything that has happened within the Ultima IX review alone has been the greatest thing you ever have put out. I thought the plot to your FF X review was big and awesome and now this. You have a specific connection to everything you do that I think most reviewers don’t have. And that is why you are probably my favorite. The story with your brother was so sincere and bringing that in after such a judgmental rampage against the abomination that is Ultima IX and than going back to such hatred once the memories had passed was an amazing touch. The raw emotion was something that even most filmmakers fail at in the biggest block buster films with the death of a main character. I don’t know how you do it but you are creating what seems to be the biggest and greatest over-arching story within a review show EVER! While I could go on and on about how great this has been to watch I merely sit in my chair awaiting the next chapter in the story.Two questions remain
    1: How will this end?
    2: What will it be like once it’s over?

    Both questions that I hope to have a great answer to yet also hope the answer never comes as the mystery is so great. As many fans have said: keep doing your thing because it truly is amazing.

  • History Geek

    Wow so most of you can’t praise spoony without insulting TGWTG. Grow up and accept that the situation was complicated and that rape and mental illness are serious issues. Also, you are allowed to like both sites. Spoony isn’t going to ban you from his site because you like people at TGWTG.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Timothy-Callahan/100000086211927 Timothy Callahan

    Fuckin’ people get WAY too serious with their comments on Spoony’s vids…

  • http://www.facebook.com/larslt Lars Lau Thygesen

    YES!!! DO IT!!! YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT!!! ;-)

    Press link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_9_ascension

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jean-Francois-Glaude/665595468 Jean-Francois Glaude

    Ultima 9 now on Gog.com guys !!!!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N8xBMbiCP4&feature=youtu.be

    Here’s where to get it : http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_9_ascension/

    Im ordering this right away !!! WHATS A PALADIN?

  • http://twitter.com/JefferyKrit Jeffery Krit

    This is now on sale on GOG.com. Experience the betrayal for yourself! (Also, it may not crash as much. Maybe.)

    http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_9_ascension

  • http://www.facebook.com/flynwik.goldsmith Flynwik Goldsmith

    Noah…you are amazing. Please…please never think that we will abandon you. Because we can’t. I have watched this 4 times already (all your other videos as well) and I have literally laughed and cried every single time. I don’t care if you take 20 years till you make your next video…but always remember that we are not only fanboys…we are the result of what you love doing…we will always love what you are doing…I don’t have a touching story to share about gaming because my gaming life was quite ordinary. I do have fond memories of playing Contra and Ice Climbers with my sister back when I was about 5. And I remember my dad bragging about finishing every game we had before we did. But I can say that my memories are about you…from the times you made the Final Fantasy VIII videos I was watching your videos…you are probably the main reason why I am in the gaming business anyway. I love you and I love your work…I speak for all of us when I say: Bravo…you are the man.
    P.S: Never played Ultima 9 so seriously thanks for the heads up.

  • Radosław Hołdys

    This is your Magnum Opus Spoony. And I feel comfortable saying that you are only going to get better from here <3!

  • Onyeka Agwuegbo

    Well everyone is leaving their own little speeches here so I guess I will too. Spoony. You’re great. Probably the only internet reviewer I actually give a shit about as a person.

    Any previous standing mistakes or controversy, I don’t even care. You are great and I love your work. That’s all I know. You have the most well thought out reviews I’ve ever seen.

    My brother also played video games with me as a child, it was always something rated M. God of War, Devil May Cry, GTA: San Andres. And I felt so cool playing it with him. Even to this day, despite the fact that he has kids now, we can always find time to sit down and play video games.

    Keep doing what you do best Spoony. No matter what happens, you have my undying support.

  • http://www.youtube.com/kidmagnum Andy Torres

    Well…that escalated quickly…

    …Weirdest…ending…ever…

  • Thatguywithswords

    Thanks Noah and to Tandem The Spoony One. Nuff said.

    P.S. You need a shirt with Whats a paladin? on the front and the back should have a picture of Lancelot from Excalibur now that was a paladin,

  • Vortemeer

    I see a lot of heartfelt stories here, so I thought I’d put in my two cents.

    Up to about the age of 5, I was in and out of the hospital with a variety of health issues. Through it all, my parents would spend the hours waiting by playing Legend of Zelda. My dad would play and my mom would offer tips out of the strategy guide.

    When I was about 6 I inherited that NES and I would play Legend of Zelda with my parents. They knew the game inside and out by that point. From then on, every weekend my dad would set a day aside to play video games with me.

    It started with vs. mode in Street Fighter 2 Turbo, then on to taking turns at Super Star Wars (stupid unbeatable glitch at the end), then Rebel Assault 1 and 2 (fuck that TIE fighter in the canyon).

    My favorite by far was Mechwarrior 2 when I was about 10 years old. We’d spend hours on that kicking Jade Falcon ass. My mom was almost as excited as I was that Mechwarrior Online was coming out.

    I guess the point of all this is that I understand that sometimes its more than a game. Its an experience that sets the mood of your life at the time. The game soundtracks become your soundtracks. You imagine yourself in the cockpit of a mech or making a run down the Death Star trench. You look forward to that moment when you hear your parents fire up the computer and the sound of missiles flying off to a target fill the house.

    Gaming is something that has kept me sane on a number of occasions. I’m rambling at this point but I’ll end by saying yes, Spoony, I understand. I really do.

  • william Gibson

    ULTIMA ONLINE

    DO

  • http://www.facebook.com/CPuff8D Liezl Bohnen

    For whatever it’s worth from some random person on the internet, but I’ve been watching your show since 2009 and I still love your vids Spoony. When you go wacky as well as when you share personal things with dregs like us on the net you don’t know. :) Even when you’ve got your own crap in your life going on and even when things slow down you always come back swinging, and any-one who leaves hate because you have, you know, a life to deal with or that you’re ‘not as good any more’ or whatever else complaint they may have can stick it.

    I love your content and your insights, even when I don’t agree with them. Dude, you’re the reason I don’t bother owning a TV any more.

    Halfway through this vid when your make-up became more apparent I was actually really worried because I thought it was real XD; because I’m a dunce.

    Anyway, Thanks for sharing your interests with us, something that can be hard when other people tend to tell you you’re dumb for liking something. As a fellow geek-culture type person I’m sure you’ve had experiences like that too. Thanks for telling us personal stories and giving us entertainment. You’re great and don’t let any-one let you think otherwise.

    I have one tiny request though… although you don’t have to listen to it at all XD
    but… in the future… please don’t use Mass Effect music in your vids…. because for me it still hurts too much ;____; *cried like an infant at the end of ME3*

    I see we’re all sharing our first game experiences XD so here’s mine;
    Living in South Africa we never got the NES or the SEGA systems. We barely got computers. My first introduction was a “game” on an old computer I don’t even remember what it was (t’s screen was black and orange) and when you pressed a keyoard button a different 8-bit song would play.

    After that I got myself a chinese knock-off system and some of those 99-in-1 game things. I wasn’t a very good gamer but I played the first levels over and over again.

    Sadly, my country missed out on all consoles until the PSone came out, which at the time was incredibly expensive. the first proper console I owned was the PS2 and the first game I properly played on it was Ratchet and Clank. That game shaped my life and it’s actually the reason I became an animator and why I’ve devoted my life to drawing and art. Because I realised some-one somewhere got paid for making these characters.

    It’s a deep in-grain fear of mine that one day, the Ratchet and Clank series will betray me, maybe to this level and it’s a terrifying thought. It really is. But for now, I love it as hard as I can.

    Anyway there’s my gamer story.

    You are awesome Spoony! And this comment was mindless fangirl gushing!

  • banishier1

    I guessed 100 gold…

  • http://twitter.com/VredaJo Vanessa Johnson

    You know… I’ve never even played Ultima. In fact, I suck at video games. I love them, though – I love the stories behind them, the imagery, and the passion that they inspire. The only game I could ever play was some Mario and some Zelda and later Final Fantasy X. With the new XBox and all that I feel completely lost trying to hold these giant controllers with ten millions buttons and functions – yes, I’m retarded, whatever. That doesn’t matter, though – I use video games to connect to my brother, my husband, my brother-in-law and people all over the internet – even to Spoony, whom I have never met and with whom I’ve never gamed nor have I played or watched hardly any of the games he’s played.

    I really loved this review – I loved this review from the first part! I love all of Spoony’s reviews because, as someone mentioned on here, they all have a personal touch with some great acting and interesting characters! Near the end I was scared for Spoony (talking about how life basically is horrible to you), but I think part of the finale for the Ultima review was trying to show that he’s coming back, better than ever, and that he’s not going to take the easy way out to deal with his problems. That he’s going to keep doing what he’s good at, whether or not people wanna be pissed at him for it, and I salute him full-heartedly!

    Keep yourself safe, Spoony – take care of yourself. Ignore the assholes. Do what you love and rise above all the shit. I’m sorry Ultima 9 was the ultimate betrayal, but I’m glad you shared it with all of us. Also, I’m glad you could teach me about paladins. :)

  • Kaden Frontae

    Okay, so I seriously just registered for the sole purpose of leaving a comment here, because…my fucking god…this is…art. I’m not afraid i’m over-exaggerating here; I don’t feel as if I’m just tossing around words. This is, to me, in multiple aspects, art.

    …Where the fuck do I even begin?

    Okay, well first off, this entire thing has just been so well done. the explanations were great, the commentary was well done, and humor was where humor belonged.

    But…really, what…makes me so…awestruck with all of this is just…the genuine emotion that comes from this. Because at one point, none of it felt like it was fake, none of it felt like it was just ham; it was literally like watching an actor play a part he was born to play.

    I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this series could stretch this long. Like, I thought it’d get to maybe the fourth game and start to lose steam and not be entertaining anymore. and even if it was, I didn’t think you could hold my interest in a game I never played and had no way to relate.

    But I was wrong. Oooh, was I wrong.

    Not only has this series been my favorite of yours so far, but you made me care. You really did. at Ultima 8, I could feel slight annoyance with each betrayal and with this, I legitimately felt infuriated with what they were doing with the series. I know I never played it, but for a bit, I felt like I did and it was just being shat upon all over.

    And…that speech you gave around the end…was just…it was…

    Ya know, my second favorite reviewer is Linkara on Atop The Fourth Wall. I like him because he’s so intelligent and funny and seems like a really great guy to talk to. My absolute favorite moment from him was during this one review he did…I think it was Cry For Justice…when they just killed a little girl for shock value. And I remember when he basically fumed and yelled over how utterly disgusting and wretched it was that…I genuinely felt afraid. I felt as if he was actually yelling at me,and it made me scared. I knew he wasn’t in actuality, but the reason it hit me so hard was because the feeling was genuine. It wasn’t faked or force; it wasn’t put on for some sort of gag. it was a moment where he let the viewer into what he was really feeling and expressed it in the rawest way that he could…

    And that’s how that speech felt. It felt real. It felt so fucking real. I felt as if you weren’t trying to act or you weren’t trying to force some story out to prove a point. I felt like I was right in front of you as you talked to me about how heart-broken and crushed you were that your favorite series was just… destroyed like that. I felt so sad and empathetic and pained by it all, I just wanted to do everything in my power to just…make it better. I honestly didn’t know if it was real or if it was acting. I just didn’t and when you threw the box across the room, I had to step away from my computer for five minutes because I literally was…frightened by how good it all was. how while being an act, it was also as real as it could possibly be, and I have seem that kind of legitimacy, at most, three times on my life, this one included. It was just…so good…I cant even speak about it anymore, because I feel like all I’ll do is sully how amazing it was with my poor word choice.

    I Just…thank you, Spoony. Thank you for giving me that moment. Thank you for giving such a real and awesome moment that makes me shake every time I see it. And thank you for making such a wonderful series. It way have driven you crazy along the way, but know that it payed off. It payed off very nicely.

  • http://www.facebook.com/burntfuzz Connor Wojtowicz

    Are those little plushie Imps from Yahtzee’s Zero Punctioation?

  • Andres0082
  • Driscol

    I was all pumped up after seeing part 1-5 of “to boldly flee” and decided to shoot over here, hungry for just ANYTHING to hold me over and I have to say, I don’t see how it has any chance of ending in a way that will measure up to the pure awesomeness that this video ended on.

    The set up to that last line (not counting the after credits teaser) and the payoff was beautiful. That entire video was far beyond anything in the realm of “internet critics” and I could really feel how real and personal this was.

    Even the cheesy guardian thing was brilliant in it’s own right. I know it’s more about your personal issues and how you have been overcoming them recently, but I could see a lot of myself in that. That one line, something like “We are one, the only difference is you are weaker because you care.” is something I have heard that voice in my head taunt me with for years. Maybe it’s “from something” and my subconscious picked up on it without realizing it, but it was pretty mind blowing to see it here all the same.

    And It’s hard not to discuss the obvious thing. All I can say about this whole situation is I can relate to feelings of intense depression and physically or socially destructive actions fueled by a sense of desperation and betrayal (no joke intended) but I don’t know specifically what you have and are going through so all I can say is I wish you the best and that you have really been kind of a hero to me. I’m not some “fan” putting myself below you to make myself feel like “part of something” I just see a lot of myself in you and it’s kind of amazing to see someone with very similar issues doing what they love to do and creating this amazing thing.

    Maybe I’m over thinking everything and it wasn’t meant to be as deep as I saw it, but that’s the nature of my particular “abnormality”, at least one of many. I see patterns and meanings in movies or stories in general that others and the creators themselves claim are not there. I can care less about that because it’s really helped me out and that video, although just about a “video game” for some, has really made me feel just a bit more confident in the struggle for my own life.

    I’ve personally done some regrettable things to chase off every last friend I have (pathetic considering they were all online friends) and my own family treats me like some kind of freak. What I am left with is my own mind and the voices which seem to work against me most of the time. I still have trouble finding any reason to continue living or to continue restraining myself when everyone already things I have no restraint and no morals, but something about this has inspired me to hang on.

    I am rambling because I can’t quite put it into words. Something about that devotion to living and fighting the evil that can’t be described or explained. All in the face of Armageddon, the end of an age most of us secretly suspect is near, somehow I know this still matters even though I know this feeling is completely illogical. Something about this video has really inspired me to embrace that illogical idea and strive to be something better and create real positive change in this world.

    Maybe you will laugh at this, I really couldn’t blame you. I know it seems I’m making too much of entertainment but I do see these patterns and connections and I don’t think it’s the product of a sick mind, as some have suggested. I think these connections are real and that unknowing to the artist, all art (including this) has a real message for those that can feel it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/joe.warhost Joe Warhost

    His eyes went from normal to bloodshot, with red rings around his eyes… and then they went to weird red streaks down his face. Spoony, take some ambien, get some sleep.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gareth-Evans/715825352 Gareth Evans

    Normally if someone were to say things like how a certain game ruined their childhood or destroyed this that or the other I would call them melodramatic. After hearing your beautiful, obviously heartfelt trip down memory lane I finally see what such people mean. This video was worth watching for that alone. ( I don’t mean the rest was bad I just mean that even if that was the whole video I would have been glad to watch it)

  • http://www.facebook.com/justin.ebert.1238 Justin Henry Ebert

    At the end, the first sentences from the wikipedia article on paladins. ;)

  • http://twitter.com/TwitHatman TwitHatman

    I’m not a fan of video review people. All of them. My friends keep telling me I should follow this person, that person but no reviewer/vlogger ever really interested me. Until now.

    When they talked about how Spoony was doing an Ultima retrospective I suddenly became interested. There were three things I remembered about Ultima : 1) Man, Ultima 4 was fucking awesome. 2) Man, I didn’t understand shit about RPGs back then. 3) Man, did Ultima 8 blow goats. So I casually followed the retrospective, secretly wishing for the day he’d visit Pagan and rip that game a new asshole (of course, I had heard about the horror that Ultima 9 is but I didn’t have a personal investment in that game so I was mildly interested at best.)

    When the first part of the Ultima 9 review came up, I didn’t even finish it. Between the “BETRAYALS” happening way too often (which got on my nerves) and the fact that most of the idiotic betrayal questions were just the game’s atrocious way of catering to possible new players who wouldn’t know most of the canon (of course they could have handled it… I won’t say a million times better because they DIDN’T handle it at all and 1,000,000 x 0 = 0).

    I told this to my friend and he told me : “You should slog through it. It’s annoying but it’s REALLY worth it.” Now, he’s not a sentimental man. If he tells me this, lolz will be had, not sads. So today, I decided to really get through it and so I did. At Ultima 1, Spoony mentions that we need to get through this so we can better understand. He was definitely right. I never played Ultima 1-3 and barely touched 6-7 with 8 being a really annoying pimple on the series so that was left to rot.

    When it came to the story about his brother… I kind of lost it. I don’t outwardly cry (over sadness but -15 celsius with wind blowing in my face will have my eyes watering, dumb shit, I know) but I do feel and this tugged at my heart strings extremely hard. That moment crystallized why all the rage, the anger, the raw hate towards this game… well, was and it couldn’t have been delivered more spectacularly.

    Then, I went to the comments. Someone mentioned they used to game with their mother. Lots of people then mentioned their own story about how they share good memories about gaming with family members… and that’s when I really wanted to cry.

    I used to game with my mother. She loved seeing me so passionate about something and when she had time and the game didn’t require much twitch reflexes, would often join me for a 2 player game. As I grew older, time became shorter and shorter, her interest in the medium kind of fading. Still, these memories remained of those times where she helped me understand how fun wasDr. Mario, Tetris… hell, name any puzzle game on the NES! I owe that to her.

    Of course, this story doesn’t end well. It technically hasn’t ended but our family dynamic is extremely tense and I doubt it will soften until one of us dies. You know how it is : You make your way through life. You go to school. You meet people. Sometimes you even go out with them. Sometimes you feel so much joy that you want to share it with your family… A joy they will never want to share with you, a fact that they state loud and clear. Now, I feel completely estranged from my mom, from the rest of my family and that even if I wanted to, I could never build these kinds of memories, even with the younger generation of my family (nephews and nieces, etc.)

    Enough about that though – Congratulations, Spoony, Noah, however you wish to be called. I think you may have crafted the archetype for any future retrospectives right here and I wish you well in your future endeavors because I’ll be watching.

  • http://twitter.com/OskarKaarle Oskar Kaarle

    I’m not ashamed to admit it: I cried like a little child. The poster below me, Holly Smith, said it better than me, but you truly are a great man Spoony.

  • Zanya Resident

    Hey Spoony! You probably heard this already, but gog.com is having a sale all this week on their D&D PC games. Maybe a review of Baldurs Gate and Planescape Torment will cleanse your pallet after the never-ending stream of shit sandwiches you’ve been force-feeding yourself lately on our behalf.

  • http://twitter.com/FunkyM_FM217 Simon Broome

    I hate to say it, but I’m lucky in one respect. The things that were my childhood, they mostly managed to escape this fate.

    When I was younger, I had a Commodore Plus/4. I played games like Icicle Works, Number Builder and Video Meanies. As if I could, I was maybe eight, with all the joystick skill of a 4-year-old. That was why they bought me a computer in the first place, a therapist prescribed it to improve my Hand-eye co-ordination! Crazy, no?

    Anyways, the one game that meant the most to me was Turrican. Can you guess what happened? Two words, folks: Universal Soldier. Luckily, it never reached platforms like the Commodore 64, or the Amiga. Lucky again. Still, it’s not all good news, Turrican 3 wasn’t all that great.

    I just hope against hope that this dark night comes before a brilliant new dawn. Know that you have my sword.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

    Hey, remember when Spoony is whipping up some poison bread for Lord British?

    See the “Ultima 7, part 2: Serpent Isle” and skip to 2:38. Just do that, it will all make sense later. :D

  • fizzel mizzel

    awesome review, nice twist at the end, thx mate!

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.henshaw.547 David Henshaw

    Was spoony acting when he looked upset ( i know it was makeup) and threw his games across the rooms was it all an act ?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-Low/100000931121608 Amanda Low

      Bit of both I think. Like he knew he had to be upset for the part, but considering how he was acting on twitter when he was playing the game for the review…. I think it’s genuine to a point.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dennis.c.crosby Dennis Cory Crosby

    I was with ya on that story til you threw the books, and it became a tantrum. Sorry, guy. You did your best.

  • http://twitter.com/IanHaverkamp Ian Haverkamp

    My earliest memories as a gamer, where from when i was like… 4-5 years old when i would play on the gameboy Super Mario Land 3. I loved the game back then and i still do now, not only because of the game, but because of the memories. But the person that really got me in to gaming was my then and still closed friend ”Rick”. i came across him on accident one day and we started talking and our connection was in Pokémon, which he learned me to play and that again are just memories you will always remember.(to bad the franchise has gone to sh*t with the 5th generation)
    and i am still making such beautiful memories with him and i hope childishly enough that that will be forever. but of course you can’t, eventually people will leave each other whenever it be by own will or death. and while reading those story’s i realize that i (or at least feel) am a lucky person, to be still able to create those memories.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ellengrini.1 Ellen Grini

    This is a great and incredably honest reveiw. Let me first say that I’m NOT a gamer, but I still love watching the Vlogs and reveiws that Noah makes. It is something I look forward to and enjoy.

    Noah, if you see this, let me say that I think you are incerdably talented and do an amazing job with you’re work. You do something that many people can’t do. You make people laugh. And now you also made me cry. I think this particular reveiw is beyond the “normal standard” you see on most websites, because you made it personal, showed us that the game is important to you and most important: why. I think everyone who have siblings understand this and can relate to it in some way. Thank you for sharing it.

    (sorry about the bad english. I’m norwegian)

  • http://twitter.com/TheZaius DrZaius

    That’s a Blow Pop!

    *pops bubble gum*

  • Brent Hyde

    you look strained this video game had to have took a lot out of you and Personally I think you need a vacation to recover

  • http://twitter.com/TheNoNameCritic Caleb Buckner

    That ending was worthy of the CSI: Miami “YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

  • http://twitter.com/thecraftyknit thecraftyknitter

    I’ve been thinking, and well… I can make the ‘stupid’ avatar work into the story. Oh yeah, all you need to do, is add in various bits of dialogue how the “avatar” feels empty. How he feels like all his insides were scooped out or something to that extent. He can’t remember much of his life though he ‘knows’ who is he and all that junk. But it is hazy and he needs his memory to be jogged of it. And at times he feels like all his memories are gone completely. Not only that, but Britannia changes because of this. Various places have changed, or just gone missing all together.

    Now why do I say this? The Avatar is still a god, but he is only a part of himself. He still has that power, but he doesn’t exactly know that he has it. I’ll get more onto this a bit later, but because of all that power it changes the world he is on. So things change, you can at one point try to do a short mini game type thing of concentration and bring back portions of the world.

    Let me get more to the point before I ramble to death… okay so, what happened was that after Pagan, the Avatar saw that the Guardian destroyed Britannia. What he did since he was a god, was use time travel to try to go back in time and stop the Guardian before he even existed. Only the only time travel spell only allows your spirit to go back, so that you don’t royally screw up world. And because you absorbed a DEMON, this ruins your soul. (Plus killing children, and all that crap that happens in pagan going against the virtues) You BECOME the Guardian. And because you are now corrupted as all heck, you go back to pagan take it over and do all the crap the Guardian does. The reason you never felt this connection before is technically he is not you, at least not yet.

    Yes this is all bullshit, yes I am desperately trying to make this shit-biscuit game slightly better, but, I’ve thought about it and it can be used to great effect with the correct team. The whole ending of the last game would you realizing that you and the Guardian need to become one being again, regardless of all the evil he did. So the ending would be you and the Guardian crashing together and becoming a GOD. A god of evil and good, kinda like… Two Face. Because without evil there can be no good, and without good evil can not exist. This would maybe be a good way to end it to say that…ummm

    That while you can make the virtues the law, and all that but that is no better then being utterly evil and wanting nothing but destruction. What needs to be, what you really must do is follow the grey. To not enforce the good or evil, but to just have good there, along with evil. But to be able to not be damned for stealing gold to feed your family, or enforcing the doctrine of goodness and sunshine by murdering everyone. What you need to do is be in the grey area, be able to do good, and some bad things for good, but not be evil. Or something… gods I really can’t explain this well.

    I’m shutting up now.

  • Stephen Ellis

    You know what the saddest thing about this is? They could have left in the Avatar not knowing about anything, lord British’s old age, Blackthorn working for the Guardian, and the game beginning on earth and MAKE IT WORK. How you may ask. Like this;

    Give the Avatar amnesia. Normally amnesia is a lazy plot device. But here it could be used to make him forget about Britannia, his fight with the Guardian right at the end of Ultima 8 (which would explain why Britannia looks nothing like it did in 8, he already kicked him out of the place), and his godly powers. Make a good portion of the game about the Avatar getting back his memories and his powers along with them.

    Then there’s lord British. My idea is for the Guardian to have stolen his youth to weaken him (which would also explain the “I’m not entirely sure” line; he’s getting senile)

    Finally we have Blackthorn. I doubt mind control or corrupting his mind are ideas too out there to work. Not only that, but after you free him near the end, he joins you (along with a now restored British) to take out the Guardian. With your godly powers restored and your two companions wielding a piece of the power each, you take out the Guardian once and for all.

    So what do you think? Sound better then what they really did?

  • Lie Maid

    After seeing BioWare completely ruin Mass Effect last year (the EA effect in full force again) I feel the full weight of betrayal. The only differences are that Mass Effect was a much shorter series than Ultima, and I wasn’t a child while playing them, so it was probably worse for you.

    Anyone know where the ‘Thank You Very Much’ clip is from?

  • Hugito Espo

    Thats a paladin; Most badass line I’ve ever heard. Im serious.

  • http://twitter.com/maealoril Mae Aloril

    I’ve probably watched every single one of your videos at least 5 times. Probably more. And yet, I can honestly say that this is the only one that still affects me as strongly as it did the first time I watched it. The desolation in your speech when you pause the review is palatable, you can really get the huge crushing feelings that inspired it, and that last line still, still gives me a little thrill that tingles every time. This review is probably going to be on your top 5 for a good good long time. :)

  • David Mason

    I guessed 30 gold! I was kinda close..

  • http://www.facebook.com/alex.torrence.90 Alex Torrence

    i love the end

  • http://www.facebook.com/Jack.Beauvais.Jr John Beauvais

    I was about to go to bed, but I saw a reference to this video and knew I had to watch it. The speech you made about you and your brother really touched me because of how it reminded me of my memories of playing video games with my brother.

    My story is a little different–my brother is 18 months younger than me, but he was always a truly transcendent gamer, even from an early age. I’ve always loved video games of all types, but something about them just clicked with him: he ways always just that much faster on the uptake. It didn’t matter if it was an rpg or a platformer, a FPS, or WoW, he’s just of that mindset and skill that combine method and talent to make a person the ideal gamer.

    Still, despite how much it hurt my ego to have my little brother be that much better than me at it, my favorite memories of my childhood were of sitting side by side by him, rooting him on as he destroyed level after level. We didn’t have the best family life, but those games always provided some of my most cherished memories.

    The first thing either of us ever bought was Megaman 5. We each had an allowance of a dollar a week, but we saved up for 6 months to buy that game. Years later, I remember when we had Megaman X and Streetfighter 2 Turbo for our PC. Both games literally took so long to load that we would go play one-on-one basketball games knowing that no matter how long they dragged, we’d still have time to spare.

    It’s been 20 years since we bought our first NES game together, but even now, despite some great differences which really strain our relationships, it’s video games and those memories which help us find common ground upon which we can still make each other smile.

  • http://twitter.com/canucktim Tim Ford

    Spoony, I think this is some of your best work. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s compelled me to comment, which I’ve never done before.

    Your personal story about your brother in particular struck a chord with me. See, as it happens I also have an older brother, and he also introduced me to Ultima by way of buying the complete collection. I played them all (not Akalabeth) up until 8…and I stopped right there. We had the copy of the game that DIDN’T COME WITH THE PATCH – yeah, those were curse-filled days – and we also didn’t have internet access at the time. Rapidly realizing what a fantastic pile of shit that game was, I gave up there. Fact is, Ultima 9 couldn’t run on our computer. Looking at this now…it was for the best.

    I’ll never experience the horror firsthand, so I’ll treasure those memories, and if people so much as mention the word “ascension” around me, even out of context, I’ll just plug my ears and go LALALALALA.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cheryl-ann-Berlin/717598338 Cheryl-ann Berlin

    I remember I bought this, came in nice packaging… couldn’t get it to run right. Didn’t know for years that it would never run right, for anyone, ever. Heard someone reworked the game with a story patch, but it still doesn’t work easily. UO was a big introduction to gaming for me.. I had about the same reaction as you did watching this, only without knowing all the backhistory. EA is on par with Fox (for cancelling Firefly), Weren’t they also responsible for destroying SimCity and releasing the half-made KOTOR-2?

    • Hitokiri Akins

      No for KOTOR 2; that was Lucasarts. KOTOR 2 was made by Obsidian. Besides, KOTOR 1 was released before EA bought Bioware. LONG before. 7 or 8 years before.

  • John Waite

    I cried. Oh yeah. Cried.

  • JBsianime

    Holy shit, you look exhausted here.

  • Paul Marshall

    It’s been nearly a year since this video came out, but I’ve been thinking about how IX caused your disillusionment with and the retroactive ruination of the Ultima series. And with the recent announcement of a last fetid shower of sneeringly pointless DLC like a cockslap to the face, something catalyzed within me: Mass Effect 3 is my Ultima IX, and Bioware is my Origin Systems.

    I realise it isn’t really the same, but whatever. What I’m saying is, I can sympathise.

    • http://mara999.deviantart.com/ MaraBackman

      It’s the same for me with the Warcraft-franchise and Blizzard in general. :/

      • TheDapperChangeling

        Yeah, me to.

        And like a lot of people below said, between the stellar acting, the amazing make-up, and the astounding amount of heart in this review was really touching. For a short amount of time, I was honestly worried for you…

  • Sajeh

    Spoony became so angry that the Earth’s spin gained momentum for a short while. That is the Avatar right there!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Lysander-Darkholme-Price/100002252740861 Lysander Darkholme Price

    I think the Ultima Retrospective is by far one of your best over arching review arch, it spans the entire time you’ve been reviewing and is really well incorporated into your spoony continuity, i just finished watching the three portions of #9 for the second time, epic.

    and yeah, this game just took a cheese grater to the collective balls of ultima fans everywhere, what a heaping cart of horse shit, fuck you EA you killed ultima.
    Your speech at the end was very moving…and the whole review series, its about the death of childhood dreams, expectations and all that we knew and loved when we realize as adults we’ve been lied to this whole time, a realization that does some times destroy people…well captured, keep up the amazing work as always. much love, a loyal fan.

  • http://www.facebook.com/tyler.frantsvog Tyler Frantsvog

    What’s the music at the end with sephiroth?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Lauderdale/100000047693553 Chris Lauderdale

      A remix of one winged angel. Not sure the title, but a Google of One Winged Angel Remix should find it.

  • Ikaru Sentinal-K’Valshar

    Just have to say….I guessed 100 gold pieces….I was…not expecting to be correct. O_O

  • http://www.facebook.com/dtilson1 Daniel Tilson

    What’s a paladin?

    I love the rants about this game…

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