Ultima™ 7 The Complete Edition

For being called "Role Playing Games", they're awfully restrictive sometimes, don't you think? Don't you wish you could just wander around and do what you wanted? That's pretty much how Ultima VII rolls. You want to steal everything that's not nailed down and make your hideout in the woods? Go for it. Want to buy every ship deed in the game and sail the seas? Go for it. Want to steal a cannon and burglarize the Royal Mint? You're free to. Modern RPGs could learn a thing or two from the freedom of Ultima VII.

U7 has a lot going for it. It delivers a full screen mouse-only UI, has a story involving a Liche terrorizing a dead island, and stranded pirates planning to sell an innocent maiden to pay their gambling debts, you find lore books that explain why there are only doors facing south and west, and U7 offers an early attempt of visually crafting a sword. However, I dislike the larger figures, the obscuring isometric view, the simplistic world map with sparse and scattered monster groups having uninteresting loot, shallow (hardly any) dungeon design, power creep and cheat-like loot that makes monster fights far too easy and eliminates the importance of merchants, very avatar centric gameplay with uninteresting companions who constantly complain about food, OP methods of travel, puzzles that depend on invisible stairs, and a, on paper, complex and deep storyline that, instead of depending on exploration, feels like a long sequence of goto and fetch quests. The inventory system is simply broken. The worst ever designed. The AI is broken to the point where combat becomes frustrating. Companions stumble into swamps and burn to death by standing in campfires. Large parties cannot keep formation, and break up at doors that only react to the nearness of the avatar. Ship travel and landing a flying carpet is a mess. Casting spells can be done with a spellbook put away in a backpack. And to be honest, spells have no clear use, except for unlocking magical doors and cheat-like fast travel. The economic system is utterly broken, and the world is filled with inert artefacts and shrines from previous Ultimas. U7 is not bad, as it uses many game elements that were built over the Ultima series. It even enhances representation and gameplay on many ways. However, it suffers from many broken elements, and I prefer a steel halberd bought at a merchant with hard fought gold, over flipping a hidden switch to find the Scythe of Death and use it to kill an invisible dragon in two strokes.

First I want to say that I am a newcomer to this game. the fondest memories I have of this game are finally getting it to work about five hours ago. I bought this game being prepared to accept the fact that i wasted six bucks. After the initially lame intro, in which a butterfly lands on the words "Ultima VII"-which was displayed in front of a lush, green forest, things got pretty interesting. I was instantly propelled into a fantastic world where you; the Avatar; are the people's only hope. You will meet a cast of interesting characters and investigate a mysterious crime scene. And, as stated in other reviews, this game isn't just for nostalgia. It isn't worth buying just for the interest of seeing the development of CRPGs. This is actually an awesome game, and will even be enjoyed by fans of games like Elder Scrolls or Guild Wars. So do the world a favor and buy this awesome RPG right now

Exult is a lovingly crafted shell over all these games. It has all sorts of bug fixes and extra settings. It's been years in development and it shows: http://exult.sourceforge.net/

A few years back, I decided, after having wanted to get into Ultima for years, that I would sit down and play through both parts of Ultima VII. For about two months, the game basically took over my life; I ate, slept, and breathed Ultima VII. It was the only thing I talked about. Indeed, it is easy to see why: Ultima VII is one of the best and biggest RPGs of all time. The world is massive (as RPS put it, if the game were made today, it would require enough gigabytes to crush Ireland), and the game is incredibly ambitious. Ultima VII creates an absolutely massive world with wonderful characters and fantastic lore. While the overall plot isn't necessarily anything special, all the small stories you experience along the way are brilliant. Serpent Isle is even better, with a larger, more mysterious world to explore and an improved story, and is definitely the pinnacle of the Ultima series. It is massive, intriguing, and filled with emotional moments. The only issue I can think of is that the combat can sometimes be flat and uninteresting, but there's so much else to the game that this issue is minor. Ultima VII is truly one of the greatest games of all time, and probably the greatest CRPG ever made. It is most definitely the pinnacle of the Ultima franchise (the series, unfortunately, went downhill after VII with the alright VIII and simply average IX), and any fan of RPGs owes it to themselves to have this game in their catalog. At only $5.99, this game is a steal, considering how massive it is and the fact that you're getting both parts AND the add-ons.