Hello, I'm new with playing Ultima 7 (I had an older version on the NES, it may have been ultima 4).
My question is, can this game be played through with only using 3 or 4 characters?
Is it possible to not recruit any more characters then 3 or 4?
I have been watching a Let's Play on youtube by Kikoskia and it seems very cumbersome to control the eight characters that he is playing with.

Thank you,
Jon

I don't think any of the companions are required to complete the game. Though a safe option is to just allow the standard companions to join (Iolo, Shamino, Dupre).

Some party members can be quite humourous along the way, but I think I found them most useful for carrying stuff around.

Thank you for your suggestions. I think I'll just try and play with 4 characters, and if that doesn't work I'll recruit 1 or 2 more.
(Edit) I tried to mark both of your posts as "Solution" but forum only let me mark one.

Thank you,
Jon

It is worth noting that Ultima 4 actually *does* require you to recruit all the companions to beat the game, which is obnoxious because recruiting companions greatly slows down the pace of the game. Otherwise, you can go through the final dungeon, but you will be ejected from the dungeon at the very end. Note that this also means that you need to max out the main character's level.

The NES version of Ultima 4 doesn't have this requirement; in fact, you have to go through (an easy version of) the abyss solo in that version.

Fortunately, Ultima 4 is the *only* Ultima game with this requirement (not counting the Ultima games where you only have one character).