Ultima VII: The Serpent Isle

Game: Ultima VII Part 2: The Serpent Isle
Platform: PC (MS-DOS)
Release Year: 1993
Stephen's Rank: 10/10 

Basic Plot

Following the events of The Black Gate,  the Avatar travels to a world called "The Serpent Isle" in search of Batlin. The story is very epic and hard to summarise but involves pursuing Batlin, recovering your belongings, and investigating the strange storms which are ravaging the land. It involves delving into ancient ruins and the history of the Ophidian people who used to inhabit The Serpent Isle.

 World Map

Gameplay

The game uses a slightly improved version of the Black Gate engine and is similar in most ways except for the inventory, and character potraits. For the first time you could choose to be female, and of different ethnic backgrounds.

The party: The Avatar, Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre.

You are looking down on your party. The gameplay involves fighting enemies to obtain experience, using that experience to train up and become stronger, obtaining new and powerful items and spells (including recovering the items you arrived with), speaking to the people of The Serpent Isle and uncovering what is really going on.

Positives

A lot of philosophy and complexity is involved with the game world. There is a powerful sense of history, mystery, of a place which is ancient and broken. The story itself weaves these pieces together into something beautiful. I would consider the story of The Serpent Isle the most powerful I've come across in a game, ever.

As with The Black Gate, the game engine was ahead of its time. It was a pleasure to play and the detail was ahead of anything else I was playing.

The music is again incredible. It adds the perfect feeling to the story being told. Whether it be the powerful bass tunes of the Ophidian ruins, the sad theme song played with Dupre sacrifices himself, or the jestful tune of the Gwani encampment.

There are at least two potential sex scenes in the game. Hilarious.

Negatives

Comparatively to Black Gate, the story and gameplay is very linear. There are very few optional or side quests, and the story marches forward as dictated by the game. In comparison, in Black Gate you could often complete major tasks in any order or through alternative methods. The calibre of the story offsets this considerably but it is worth noting.

Until much more recently and the creation of Exult, The Serpent Isle was even harder to get running than The Black Gate. It required special boot disks and understanding your computer's conventional, expanded, and extended memory. This was primarily the result of Origin choosing the Voodoo memory manager which never took off.

Memorable Moments

Dupre!!! Why did you do it! I know why you did, but still... I still shed a tear when I hear the music that plays when he jumps in the furnace...

 The Wall of Lights near the end of the game.

Batlin failing at the Wall of Lights.

Using my Black Sword to wreak havoc on all evil to cross my path.