Ultima VII - Complete Edition on GOG

GOG has released a "Complete Edition" of Ultima VII, with Ultima 7: The Black Gate, Ultima 7: Forge of Virtue, Ultima 7 Part Two: Serpent Isle, Ultima 7 Part Two: The Silver Seed bundled for $5.99.
Thanks, Charles!
More information.

That's one impressive bundle. My favorite Ultima without the obnoxious Voodoo memory manager! I don't think I played The Silver Seed, as by the time I got a machine strong enough to run the game, the expansion couldn't be found in store.

From the GOG forums, looks like it has a DosBox wrapper. I had some trouble getting it to play correctly through DosBox myself, so if they have really optimized it, that's a welcome addition. Especially given the state of Exult.

I haven't pulled the trigger quite yet, but if they run one of those promos like they did in the D&D games, I'm pretty sure I'll end up buying their whole Origin catalog!

Originally Posted by Angelspit
That's one impressive bundle.

That was the first word out of my mouth as well - impressive! I think I may pick this up later tonight.

This is a definite buy for me. I want to see how it compares to Exult.

$5.99 what a steal! Everyone should buy that!

Yesss!!!1!

Originally Posted by blatantninja
Especially given the state of Exult.

What's so bad about the state of Exult? I seem to recall it working pretty fine when I last gave it a spin about a year or so ago, playing c. half-way through Black Gate/Forge of Virtue without any problems.

Originally Posted by Lurking Grue
Yesss!!!1!

What's so bad about the state of Exult? I seem to recall it working pretty fine when I last gave it a spin about a year or so ago, playing c. half-way through Black Gate/Forge of Virtue without any problems.

We've been here before
Some stuff that's been missing/unfinished for ages (NPC schedules, to name but one) is finally done/improved, but…

From the Exult homepage:
"What we've been up to since the rc1 release and why there is no final version yet.

Let's start off with the the bad news:
We have a bug that causes random objects in the games to disappear forever. When this happens Exult tends to crash badly. Unfortunately this bug is unpredictable and we have no sure way of reproducing and thus fixing it. We have some ideas of what is happening but no fix yet. This is a real show stopper and unless we fix it we can't release another release candidate or a final version. If you encounter this bug (disappearing objects, random crashes, especially in combat) best you can do is revert to an earlier savegame."

That was back in February.

Yeah, while it wasn't perfect before, the game worked. It may not have had every little 'extra' in the original game, but you could play through the game without a problem. And a lot of the enhancements (key ring mod, paperdolls, better resolutions) made the trade off worth it. But what ever they did after 1.2 seems to have completely destabilized it, and it doesn't look like they have any of the old versions still hosted. I still have 1.2 at home though.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
$5.99 what a steal! Everyone should buy that!

I obey!!!!

You may want to second guess that command. The gameplay can be annoying and tedious, but so can any game after too many hours.

After nearly a decade of playing Ultima VII with Exult there is no way I could replay the vanilla version of U7/SI personally.

And people seems to forget how BUGGY the original games are - with Exult I can play SI without fear of suffering the infamouse sacrifice bugs. So the tradeoff is well worth it - never mind the improved graphics and sound and such.

The dissapering item bug really isn't that much of an issue as long as you save regularly - I had it once on Ultima VI and jsut reverted to an earlier save. No biggy.

-Sergorn

Yeah, Exult was pretty much flawless for me. The only thing I noticed was that combat formations didn't seem to be properly implemented.

Just in time for the 20th anniversary…

Picked it up immediately; can't resist that price.

My Ultima Collection still works just fine. I've got every Ultima from Akebleth to U8 on it and it's not that hard to use with dosbox or whatever program I want. I think I'll pass on this one especially since I didn't care too much for the game.

I have 2 or 3 copies of it here already, the original floppies and collection on CD. I guess I am one of the few that was lukewarm on Ultima VII. The real turnoff for me was the lack of interaction in combat. I was used to controlling everyone in the party and it seemed to me to be on autopilot since I couldn't really control anyone but the Avatar. The RPG elements and story were great, but the combat is what kept it from being my favorite - Ultima IV would have that distinction.

I don't see much in the way of RPG elements in U7.

- Hardly any character customization
- No choices with consequences (except thieving)

Then I guess you don't see what many others do, but I don't think this is the thread to debate that stuff.

I should amend my earlier statement. I grew to like U7 and loved Serpent Isle, but I will always prefer the second trilogy opposed to the last trilogy. It changed too much of what Ultima meant to me.

As for the RPG comment from Thrasher, JDR ignore it. It's too obvious. He knows as well as you and I know that games back then didn't have those kind of elements in them. Well not that many in any case. U4, imo, is one of the best RPGs ever made and yet it doesn't have many RPG elements, but who cares?

U7 felt like a living breathing world. It felt like you were in this world. I'll hand it to Garriot for doing that. My problem was with the combat.

Comparing today's standards to games back then is silly.