>>2733636>>Truly baffling why they would abandon the Ultima 7 engine>Back then the "industry" wasn't oriented towards reusing game engines that much and they were trying to do something new frequently.>At the time when Ultima 7 came out even the concept of game genres was a relatively new idea and most games dabbled with all manner of concepts that might or might not work and mixed and matched various shit.I'm an oldfag and played all the Ultima games ever released, at the time of their release or shortly thereafter, on the original systems. Richard Garriott wrote a book and I read it years ago. In it he explained that every Ultima (up until Ultima 7) was written with a brand-new engine from the ground up, with all new graphics and sound and everything. Every game was to be the cutting edge of what was possible at the time. This is why Serpent Isle is "U7 Part II" - because it didn't use an entirely new engine. It's Garriott's autism alone that caused the naming scheme to be as it was.
Ultime 4 was very impressive when it came out. Ultima 5 ever moreso, but Ultima 6 was amazing at the time and it's still pretty fun today. There were the Worlds of Ultima games which used the same engine but slightly souped-up too.
Ultima 7 is a fucking benchmark game that has aged extremely gracefully. Yes there are niggles to be made about the game even today, of course, but the story, world, interactivity, and overall excellent craftsmanship make it stand out today. Any gamer should play this game and try the turn-based combat mode too. Exult is damn near perfect at this point so whatever platform you have is fine. And no, Ultima was not about mixing and matching and dabbling and stuff, it was the first game that really approached a Grand Theft Auto level of interactivity. Shit it's better than any GTA in many respects just comparing them as two open world games.
