Well, I finally finished Ultima VII over the week. No part II for me!!!! yikes. I loved the exploration and different NPCs/dialog and puzzles, but the gameplay was terribly boring, and combat was a uncontrollable cluster f**k, plus no real character development, and the most tedious inventory management system imaginable. Not to mention buggy, buggy, buggy. Still liked it though, believe it or not. But I'm ready for a change of pace.
Playing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. After horrible installation issues. Freezes during install, crashes when run, and reboots. Uninstalling, and ignoring Steam (which won't update or install the singleplayer game as advertised).
Just download the SP patches and install them manually, and ignore Steam and you'll be fine, for single payer. Haven't tried multiplayer.
This game looks VERY nice on maxed settings. It's also a nice challenge even just on normal. I'm playing a battlemage who is OK with a staff. No real technique with the staff needed, though (a bit disappointing). Just spam kicks and attacks until enemies are stunned and knocked down, then wack, wack, wack. Power attacks and combos never seemed to work. Talk about popamole!
Spamming lightning bolts against swarms of orcs and goblins has also become rather popamole.
The spells are more fun. Roasting LARGE spiders with fireballs helps me with my arachnophobia. Deliciously disturbing…
All in all, lots of fun so far, now that the horror that was its installation has past me.
But it does seem that the combat system (and the environment of deadly toys), would be most interesting for a melee build.
BTW, I don't understand why it is so hard to hit a cyclops in its big eye with an arrow...