Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle

The Good
First of all, I'd have to say that I liked this game far more than The Black Gate, part one of Ultima 7. The paper doll inventory was different and interesting, but I'd have to say that that was nothing new--Event Horizon/Dreamforge have been using that method for years. I liked the new setting of the game, with its different monsters and characters. Although this explains where the other towns went--except for Vesper, I don't think they've been in any Ultima game since Ultima 3. The graphics were the same for Ultima 7. The exception here is that you could sell more items for cash in this game, until you got the spell False Coin. Jewelry and certain leather and antique armor items could be sold, as well as reagents--I preferred this to only being able to get gems and gold bars and nuggets in Ultima 7. While some spells were the same, others were different. The add-on for this game was no cakewalk, though, but well worth it--not only did you get the highest stats, you also ended up with some really useful items, like the Ring of Reagents--you never had to buy reagents again! Music was exactly the same as Ultima 7, part one. The ending was really great--the animation at the end was spectacular. And NO BUGS--yippee!!

The Bad
The fact that almost everyone in the towns died at the end of the game--what the heck was up with that?! The fact that Dupre killed himself--ok, so it was to save the Avatar, but WHY?! even have this in there!!

The Bottom Line
Very, very similar to Ultima 7. I think most hardcore Ultima gamers didn't really like the change in setting, but I really liked it.

The Good
The box looked good. It had an interesting manual with a bit of cryptography in it. Some very humorous explanations of weapons and armor ("Many experts consider the helmet a vital piece of armor").

The interface was OK. Basic paper-doll inventory, and point and click for just about everything else.

It had some OK background music.

The Bad
Pretty much everything - even the things I liked had negatives to them.

To start, the installation sucked. If you have a CD-ROM, you must put a CD in before the game will install. The game comes on diskettes and will abort the installation (with no error message) if it can't find info on every drive.

After struggling to get the game running with sound and having enough conventional memory for this hog, I finally got to start playing.

Even the paper-doll inventory had problems. You never knew where the pointer was if you picked something up, and it was easy to mis-place something. The story line was - for me - disconnected. I never had a clue as to what to do next; I had never played the previous games before (which probably didn't help). I gave it six months of trying and finally gave up.

I finally gave up and found a walkthrough. That was a mistake. I tried following the walkthrough (and actually progressed very well over the next 3 months). Then I found out that something I had (or had not) done back near the beginning was preventing me from moving forward - and there was NO WAY to get it now.

The Bottom Line
First, don't buy it. If you're given it (like I was), read the manual and throw the whole thing away. Re-format the disks and re-use them to store old copies of AOL on them - it'd be a better use of them.

In all, bad install, problem-matic interface, bad story line, no hints to next step, problems with vital equipment being required - but not being able to go get it.

I literally keep the entire box, walkthrough, map, manual, and diskettes around and try to tell people how bad this game is, then ask them if they'd like to try it themselves. I even offer my first-hand knowledge of what to do in the game. I haven't gotten any takers.

The Good
Now, now, burning game boxes won't solve anything, will it? Especially not if you'd earn decent money by selling it on Ebay. Or you could simple give it to me, since I like Serpent Isle as a decent, engrossing fantasy adventure.

Sure, it's not exactly the families brightest child. Okay, you could argue that Origin wanted to milk the engine. And yes, it strains your patience with its infamous memory manager and some vexing puzzles.

But, hey, its still a good RPG. Think about the huge and detailed game world. Think about all those secret caves you discovered, the credible characters you talked to, the joy of exploration. That's Ultima style for you, and you'll get plenty of it in Serpent Isle. If you liked the others, there's little reason to hate this one.

The Bad
That Dupre d... oops. Almost spoiled your fun. :-)

The Bottom Line
Doug, do nothing you might regret! Hand me that box!