Full Disclosure: I haven't played any of old-school RPGs. No Final Fantasy, Wasteland, or Fallout 1 & 2 for me. SO, I may not be the best judge of Ultima VII. That being said, GOG user reviews and history seems to have declared Ultima VII to be the best RPG ever, and so I thought, "if any game's gonna sell me on old-school RPGs, it'll be this." So I purchased Ultima 4, 5, 6, and 7 for about $8. So, the good: The score seems to be pretty great. I like that transitional period between bleeps and realistic sound. From the outset, I could tell that this was going to be a big, epic game, which had me excited. The graphics have aged well. I like old graphics (not so much modern games that harken to those days, but I digress), and this game is a good example of what could be achieved. the colors are rich and the environments surprisingly detailed. The writing is great. So, why did I give this 3 stars? Well, you may have noticed that I was speaking in the future-tense for some of those pros. There's a reason for that: this game has an Achille's Heel that prevented me from playing for more than 45 minutes: THE CONTROLS! Oh, Lord, the controls! First off, every single action I do seems to have a 1 second delay between input and response. Secondly, everything is jerky and imprecise. But those can be dealt with. What really blows is the movement system. You can move two ways: WASD, and by holding the right mouse button. WASD is extremely jerky and unresponsive. The mouse works a bit, but everything moves way to fast, and it's just incredibly awkward. The worst part is that avoiding this movement problem was simple: just allow me to click on where I want to go and have the character move there automatically. Fix the responsiveness on top of this and the controls would've been fine. Maybe the story and writing and score and scale will be enough for you. But for me, I don't like having to fight the controls, and ULTIMA VII's controls are MMA champs.
