1. Ultima V - PC
I ended up deciding to start this because I'm somewhat limited in what games I can play at the moment. The hilariously low system requirements are perfect for my Surface. And, to be honest, I thought it'd be good to pick up since I did Ultima IV over the summer. And it was quite fun, though it did end up being a bit more traditional compared to Ultima IV.
So in Ultima V you, the Avatar, get called back to Britannia; Lord British has gone missing and his regent has gone mad with power, twisting the Virtues from things to strive towards into horrible compulsions (sacrifice becomes "you will give half your shit or lose all your shit"). In addition to Lord Blackthorn (who comes from the Grima Wormtongue school of naming that should have been obvious before you gave him the job) there are three mysterious wraiths attacking the land; indeed, when you first arrive they were about to kill Shamino until you were able to drive them off with an ability you will never get again. Your mission is clear; defeat these shadow wraiths and find Lord British so he can set things right.
The first thing that stuck me was just how much of my previous knowledge was able to carry over. The world is basically the same, including the locations of everything. A few new towns have sprung up since, and there's a handful of changes to the type but not shape of terrain, but otherwise I knew exactly how to get wherever I needed to go. Additionally, the shrines still respond to the same matras, so I don't need to take the time to learn those clues. Being able to carry forward all this knowledge (and it's even ok in game, since you are supposed to be the same character as Ultima IV) gives a major sense of continuity, but it also shortens the game. My clue hunting ended up being discovering how to get into all the dungeons, and the tools I needed to defeat the wraiths and save Lord British.
What really makes things more traditional is that they dialed back the virtue system immensely. Now you just get a basic karma meter, which reacts similar to what you'd see in a Bioware game. But the only thing this affects is how much experience you keep when you die and are resurrected by the astral projection of Lord British. It's unfortunate that they dropped all the virtue stuff, as that's what made Ultima IV a more interesting play experience.
The game is a major technical upgrade; the spell system is now syllable based, with a given syllable representing an effect. The overworld now has a ton of new edge tiles added to make terrain features blend much better, so the world is much more natural (and now neigh impossible to map by hand without your own crazy ass custom tile set). And you now interact with the world more, like pushing chairs in front of doors to block off access or taking torches off the walls. There's also a day/night cycle which affects your vision range and whether towns or shops are open; NPCs follow a schedule and sometimes you need to hang out until after dark to speak with some of them.
It's quite the great sequel, it's just unfortunate it has started to slide a bit back towards the standard RPG style; there's not really any moral choices to make in game and no ambiguity. My understanding is they bring back some of these elements in Ultima VI.