Ultima™ 7 The Complete Edition

I'm just going to come right out and say it: this is the best computer role-playing game ever. I grew up as a Mac/Apple ][gs kid sneering at PCs --- although with ever less hauteur as DOS/Intel machines became ever more capable. I knew a platform change was knocking on my door after seeing Wing Commander, but it was Ultima 7 that blew the door right off the hinges. I bought my first DOS/Intel PC clone just to play this game - a FastMicro 486DX @ 33 Mhz with a 211 MB HDD and Genoa VL-BUS video card. This was 1992. I paid $1999. Yes. I paid two thousand dollars to play Ultima 7. A bargain. :)

I jsut noticed the download size... 28 megabytes...good lord my joystick driver is 3 times that size and the nvidia driver is about 5 times that size...Game programmers today could learn a lesson form this... Huge game sizes and 180p graphics do not a good game make.

First off, I want to clarify up front that I am reviewing this from the perspective of whether I think the game is enjoyable/recommendable by today's standards, rather than based on nostalgia or historical relevance. I tried it for the first time recently and didn't play it 'back in the day'. I like the graphics and I think they hold up well. I really appreciate the large, open world, the exploration and the great interactivity with the environment, that allows you to interact with almost any object you can see on the screen. The roleplaying and interaction with NPCs seems to be well done. The UI seems a little clunky, but manageable. I do of course appreciate the huge historical influence this game has had on CRPGs and it puts many modern titles to shame with the openness and interactivity of its world. However, for me the combat is a dealbreaker. It is simply one of the worst combat systems I have experienced in an RPG. It is effectively real-time without pause and as unmanageable as that sounds. Like playing Diablo with 4 characters simultaneously. You can probably imagine that sort of system will be heavily reliant on the AI; however, unfortunately the combat AI is also very bad and I found that combination to be quite unpleasant. Others have mentioned about problems like PCs walking into fires and standing there, burning to death. The combat feels quite disconnected from the player and I wasn't able to enjoy it. I've seen people saying that the combat isn't the point of the game. However, imo it is a big enough part of the game that I simply can't justify spending 80+ hours on a long RPG that has such poor combat. Again, I do appreciate the historical significance and will give it 3 stars because of that, but I didn't find the game enjoyable, compared to alternative options we have today. If there was a mod or more modern remake with improved combat/AI, I would probably be all over it. However, based on this combat, I would honestly rather play Ultima IV.

You'll see a lot of reviews claiming this is the best RPG ever made, and all that. While it's certainly a contender, that title is harder for me to blindly attach to a game. That being said, this game IS a contender. It is simply huge, you can pretty much do things in the order you want, and your choices affect what happens around you. It took 5 years for a game to come out that did anything like this (I'm looking at you, Fallout). The story is amazing, the world works on it's own, you can do pretty much anything you want and still finish the game, though sometimes your party won't like watching you murder innocents and will leave until you redeem yourself. It's also a huge improvement on the other Ultima games. They went completely mouse driven on this one, added drag and drop to item management, and made combat real time. There's something like 2 or 3 hundred hours of game play of the course of both titles and their expansions. They also added dialogue trees, rather than going with the keyword driven dialogue from previous games. All in all, this is an amazing game that acted as a starting point for games like the Fallout series, The Elder Scrolls series, and even the Baldur's Gate series, to some extent. The story is amazing, it was technically a huge improvement at the time, which now translates into being playable despite it's age, and you're not going to see a bigger game for the money for a long time. If you like rpgs, or fun, then this is a must buy for you. Is it the best game ever? Maybe. It's competition is very, very close if it isn't.

Ultima 7: The Black Gate and its followup, Serpent Isle: Two games with a truely open world, ready for you to explore. Gorgeous VGA when it got released, and I still think it looks great. But I am very fond of large colourful pixels so I might be biased. You can interact with almost all of the world's items. Bake bread and make clothes for a living. Own a ship and sail across the world (in the first part at least) and find secrets, loads of secrets. Find old friends from previous Ultima games and have them join you to make your life easier. Get lost in the wrong cave or on the wrong island and you'll die if your level is too low. And even if your level is high you'll have to make sure to finish that trainer to get your stats up! Get caught stealing and the town guard will be all over you. Not to mention your party members, who will start complaining the more you steal. Kill someone for fun and you could potentially get stuck if this person was an important quest giver. There are no 'essential' game characters in the world of Ultima 7 like in Oblivion and Skyrim. (And no map pointers either by the way.) In Ultima 7 you'll get your share of hints which will tell you what to do or where to go, but if you're not into reading then you'll surely get lost, wondering what to do. There is no quest log. Nothing. Make mental notes or write anything important down on a piece of paper. And take great care when going into caves at early levels. You might not get out. I first played these games back in 1992 and was 13 at that time. The amount of games I've played is ridiculously high, yet no other game has ever come near Ultima 7. Sure, the combat might be boring, but the beautiful graphics, awesome plot and the gigantic immersive world littered with secrets make up for that in threefold. If you're interested in playing these games, a tip: - Avoid spoiler faqs. Allow yourself to explore instead of going from point A to point B because a walkthrough told you so. Nowadays games are very casual and dumbed down. Ultima 7 is not. All the more proud you'll feel after finishing them without reading any faqs. You'll be among the ranks of few gamers who had the patience and perseverence to make it to the ending credits. :)