I remember when Ultima 1, 2, 3 came out people suggested I skip it.

People are pretty excited about ultima 7.

Can anyone explain what makes this game good? how does it hold up to the top RPG's on thos site like baldurs gate and planescape.

Also do I need to play the others to follow this one?

Short answer: get it now

Many of the older Ultimas are very dated and, despite many great qualities, difficult to get into if you didn't play them when they were new. Ultima VII is the first in the series to exclusively use a graphical, mouse based interface, and it is still a highly playable, (mostly) intuitive game.

It is also an incredibly deep RPG with a rich, colorful world where you can walk into an empty house while the inhabitant is at his scheduled job, make dough, knead it, bake it into bread, spin wool into thread, sew handkerchiefs, cut them into bandages, steal the silverware and candlesticks, and throw the fork at someone as you leave, as long as you don't let your nobler party members witness what you are doing.

The conversations are intricate, the cities are large, the puzzles are challenging, and there are a wealth of secrets to find if you look carefully.It's everything you could want in an RPG.

While the story builds on earlier games in the series, it is the beginning of a new trilogy, and it mostly stands alone. Read through the documentation or a wiki entry to get the general gist of the past games, especially to learn about your party members, if you can. Some of the optional quests really build on older stories, but the main game works well even if you don't know much about the series.

I highly recommend using Exult to play the game. It can be found at
http://exult.sourceforge.net/
I would assume that GOG's version runs on dosbox. Exult uses the original assets and recreates the game from them with a substantial number of enhancements. You can also get high quality .ogg files sampled from the intended sound cards of the day as well as a few mods that add content that was cut and smooth the gameplay further.

I disagree with using Exult yet. While it looks great, it has some gamebreaking bugs that aren't fixed yet. The team doesn't currently have the time or resources to solve the issues. More info is on the page linked in the above post.

As for comparing to Baldur's Gate and Planescape, this game has a weaker combat system IMO, but has a fantastic setting and really sucks you into the world.

I think it's more accurate to say that there is one game breaking bug: disappearing items. afaik they know the approximate cause of the bug (broken caching routine) and marzo is working on an experimental fix.

Not to say everything is roses, but there does seem to be some hope of waiting it out and using exult; which notably also fixes game breaking bugs in the original dos version.

Ultima7 is the best open world sandbox rpg out there. (Even better then skyrim harhar)

The Goods:
- It has astonishing grafics
- a fine easy gameplay and is not so stat ridden as other rpgs.
- Its not a hardcore rpg here, it focusses more on the adventurous side of roleplaying games. like solving puzzles, discovering secret areas and hm roleplaying !
- It has a nonstereotype storyline about an evil kult that developes through the history of the game. It has a badass evil master mind as contagonist.
-Most important thing for me is that the world of u7 feels alive. All npc in the world have a job and a to do list they try to accomplish per day.
- All objects in the game are interactive, besides trees and bushes. There is a rudimental crafting system.
- Content. With all expansion packs this U7 Collection is massive, worth of min 100 hours of gameplay.

Bad:
- Combat System is very simple.
- Some annoying enemies with very low to hit stats like bees or flies. I just hate those annoying buggers. Without area of effect spells you can easily waste 100 turns on killing one fly ;).
- not turn based but realtime combat system with pause mode.
- You can not control all of your party members directly. Only one at a time.

In direct comparison to Planescape Torment or Baldurs Gate 2 i would say U7 is slightly worse, but only at a small margin. It misses the tactical combat of Baldurs Gate 2 and the fantastic story of Planescape Torment. But its huge open world and interactivity and whole atmosphere puts PT, BG2 to shame. For this low price of 6 dollars its a fantastic deal, when you did not play this game before. I would say it is a must have for every gamer out there. Not only for rpgfans( because it is only a light actionrpg by conventional means).

Have a nice day

Ultima VII is probably the world's first true "sandbox" CRPG. The actual storyline of the game is relatively brief and the main quest can be completed, in theory, in about 10-15 hours. But there are so many sidequests and self-contained story arcs within the game that you could literally spend months trying to see them all. What's more, Ultima VII gives you the freedom to tackle most of them at any time you wish, in any order you wish. And that's not even touching all the Easter eggs, hidden item caches, and secret goodies strewn throughout Britannia. (Be sure you visit Serpent's Hold; you'll find its residents... shall we say, somewhat reminiscent of a certain famous troupe of spacefarers.) In essence, if you can imagine doing something, chances are the game will let you do it; you don't even necessarily have to keep to the Virtues if you don't want to (though you shouldn't expect your companions to always approve of your "unvirtuous" actions!). Put another way: If GTA were done over as a medieval-themed RPG, it would probably end up looking remarkably like Ultima VII.

Serpent Isle is rather more linear, with fewer opportunities to sequence-break and do things out of order, but it makes up for it by having arguably the most compelling plot of the entire series, one that calls into question the very nature of Avatarhood itself and why there should always be Chaos to act as a counterbalance to Order. Also, this is where familiarity with the earlier games in the series comes in handy, as you'll definitely get more out of your Serpent Isle experience if you've played Ultima I and thus recognize certain locations and geographic features; the continent itself is essentially one giant homage/callback to Ultima's earliest days. In terms of gameplay, Serpent Isle also includes several enhancements to the core Ultima VII engine, including a true "paper doll" inventory screen and improved character portraits.

Bottom line, if you have the six bucks to spare, by all means get this package! Even if you've never played an Ultima before, you won't be sorry at all.

Thank goodness we finally got an EA game with its expansions (unless one of them had its expansions that I'm not aware of). Let's hope we get the expansions to previous releases soon.

Ok thanks guys, I will buy this game ASAP :D

No sound so useless.