Ultima VII is pretty cool for what it is I guess. It looks really good compared to Ultima IV and has an interesting engine for interacting with the world, where you can just move shit around without even being near it. However, poetically, despite the game looking much better, I had the same basic problem I encountered with Ultima IV. There, I couldn’t figure out what to say to Lord British to make him further the main plot; here, I couldn’t find a person I had to find to tell them about my murder investigation, got frustrated, and wandered around until a) I got to see the amazing day/night cycle play out and b) my character started to starve to death.
I guess I’m what’s wrong with gaming, being the type of person whose needs resulted in games being dumbed down. But more than anything I hate roleplaying against an unfeeling computer that doesn’t understand my special communication needs. I always have a lot of trouble when systems start to grind up against each other in a video game.
Also, I hope I can fully acknowledge that the graphics are a huge jump for the time while also communicating that I just don’t really like how this game looks. It’s not the technological level, either. I don’t like the character designs, I don’t like the weird angle that you see the action from, I don’t like the art style in general other than the dark, heavy lines that I really appreciate. It takes me right out of it.
And the writing is… fine. It’s okay. It’s not great. It doesn’t grab me at all, either in terms of characters or of world. It all seems pretty generic. The meat of the game, the computerized role-playing, isn’t egregious but it’s also nothing to write home about. It’s basically one of those “fans of the genre rejoice” situations. I need something special, and Ultima VII is not that to me. It’s just another probably good game that I actively dislike.
The most fun I had in Ultima VII was finding out that there’s a special area you can go to in the first town where you can get awesome weapons and armor by stacking a bunch of crates to get on top of a building and walking behind the chimney. I got to put on a bunch of magic armor and equip something referred to as the Death Scythe. Then I wandered to the back of the secret cave and accidentally stepped onto a teleport pad and ended up in the throne room of the game’s Big Bad. He wasn’t around but I couldn’t get out of the small room with the giant throne. Then I quit. Whatever. Fuck this game. Two stars.