That said, in MM VIII I've been picking up everyone I could and stashing them as mules in the Adventurer's Inn while basically playing with my starter party.

Oh yeah, I forgot about using potential members as stash mules in that one. That was great. One was a potion/alchemy mule, one armor, one weapon, etc.

The stash space they gave you per chr. was actually not bad at all, but with all the items/things, I always needed moah space.

 

I also liked being able to play solo in MM8, without having to lug around "corpses" to do it. I realize that goes against the notion of the party game, but it was just another option I liked messing around with after having played it a couple times already. MM7 is still my favorite.

I played the heck out of II and VI. My family's Windows 3.0-computer had a rather nasty boot-sector virus hit it and could never play an action game the same after that. II was my solution to that, as it didn't demand the same performance. It was maybe a year after I started playing that we finally got a new computer... but I never actually finished II until I got the internet. Why?

 

Because II literally required you to use a game exploit to get past a step in the main story. You were trapped in dungeon with an item you needed to take out, but all your teleport spells were disabled and every exit was sealed off. The only solution was to give it to a hireling and dismiss them, then pick them up at an inn.

 

I tired going back to VII a few years after its release, but couldn't get into it again.

Ultima 8 is the Dragon Age 2 of the series. Except I kinda liked Ultima 8. It was fun to just goof around in Tenebrae.