Ultima™ 7 The Complete Edition

This game achieved a deeper, more interactive and fully realized world than any other RPG I have ever played. I love many games on GOG, but this is my favorite, without question. Only in recent years have any other games even come close to achieving what this game did in 1991.

I still remember reading the review in PC Format worrying about how I was going to clear the HD space for this massive game!

The most amazing thing about Ultima VII isn't the open-world gameplay. It's the fact that despite combat being a complete mess, inventory management a nightmare, and spell-casting being opaque and cumbersome, the sheer level of immersion and quality of the world makes this a viable contender for greatest CRPG of all time.

Note that I haven't bought this off GOG, because I still own the original. So if there are any compatibility issues with GOG's version, I'm not aware of them. It's almost impossible to overstate how jaw-droppingly amazing this game was when it came out. The sheer depth of the simplest things - dialog, the paperdoll, crafting - defies description for a game from 1992. But at the same time the world is small and detailed enough that all of the characters matter. Combat is a weak point but frankly it hardly matters. Eventually you'll just treat combat as a little chore to continue exploration.

If you haven't played Ultima 7: The Black Gate, you are missing out on what I believe is the very best RPG in video game history. It features a massive open world like Skyrim, a conversational narrative akin to Mass Effect 1 and 2, and a living, breathing world where every NPC has a life of their own. The sprite-based graphics are colorful and still wonderful, even 22 years later. The music is subtle, almost ambient at times, and fits the emotion and character of each moment, each town, and each environment perfectly. The combat is simple: employing auto-attacks and a handful of AI selections to customize your party's strategy in real time, ultimately keeping the flow of the journey going without turning combat into a chore. And lastly, the story is one of the most memorable in the genre. Both a murder mystery and a discovery of a threatening evil, no other game has such a focused, linear story existing in a completely open, non-linear world. Add to it the massive amounts of side quests and characters in every town that further pull you into a world that you will never want to leave. I can say, without a doubt, that my love for this game is not mere nostalgia. This is a genuine masterpiece of the craft, and I encourage every RPG fan, young or old, to discover the world that is Ultima 7.