My heart says 4, but my game designer mind and the test of time (30th anniversary this summer) look at 4 and say "great start, wonderful start, but you ain't seen nuthin yet!" The thing about 4 is, at the time my main understanding of a video game was in the arcades or the Atari. You might as well contrast Chessmaster 4000 and King's Quest 4. So I walked into U4 with no understanding of a CRPG. I have never been so blown away by a video game in my life. But when it come to fun to play to this day, it's always Ultima V for me. That'll always stay soldered into my brain as the apex of Ultima. Sure, Ultima VII might be a better game overall, but there's just nothing quite like the boundless sense of adventure in Ultima V. Some say there is an ultima V remake in the works, one with a new, independent engine, due out March, 2018. Badger @SaltyRatSoft on the twitter can tell you more. As for U6, never played it. If it'd been ported to Mac at the time, I would've but... maybe someday. Never liked gargoyles..
This is my future rating. If I'd had to rate it when I got it on my Pentium 3 in 1999, I would have given it 1 star. Once I got it on a computer that could halfway run it, I started enjoying it. It reminded me of an abstract of Britannia. Didn't feel part of the Ultima series, but in sort of a parallel universe that actually kinda creeped me out. But by then the music for this game (except the combat music) became the best video game music I've ever heard. I still listen to it, albeit uncommonly. But the game still had dull characters in a dull story (to me). But there was so much in it that was just groundbreaking, so at that point (2005), I would have given it 3 stars. Have started playing it again, am appreciating it in ways I never did before, and would give it 4 stars. At this rate, it'll be a 5 star game to me within 3 years. You can bank it.
