There's a Reason They Got Up to Nine

When the Ultima games first began, they were much like any other CRPG - travel, fight, gain levels, do the occassional quest. It wasn't for a long while before they set themselves apart from other RPGs. Ultima had shown glimpses of the moral high ground it would take in the early games, but in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, your regular actions became important. You could choose to ignore someone's plea for help, you could attack an innocent and that was all fine - except that your standing with the people would worsen. They would begin to distrust you, refusing to help. Thus the Ultimas truly set themselves apart.

Ugliness incarnate

Don't you wish you had his hair?

Their stories were intricate and deep, requiring a lot of thought on the part of the player about what to do. The player was always on the side of good, always had to act with virtue. Sometimes it was obvious, other times not. The game also started making leaps and bounds in the technological department. Each was more stunning than the last. Just when you thought no one could touch Ultima VI's beautiful top-down view, Ultima VII brought contemporary system's to their knees with its extravagance. So it continued with Ultima VIII which adopted a 2/3rds view.

Firewalker!

The first of many times I did a Neo 'Whoah'

The Ultimas kept to their moralistic roots for 5 straight titles (U4-7, including U7 part 2.) At their darkest moments when they needed him most, you, the Avatar would show up to pull the collective Britannian ass out of the fire. The Avatar faced incredible horrors for them and prevailed despite being limited in his actions by the virtues. He was a shining example to the people of Britannia.

Then BAD Things Happened

At the end of U7: Serpent Isle, the Guardian takes the Avatar and drops him off on the devastated world of Pagan. Here the Avatar is confronted with a world that has been ravaged by the Guardian and is now just recovering. However, in his desperate quest to get back to Britannia, the Avatar compromises just about every single of his virtues. He murders, lies, cheats and in one way or another commits one evil act after another just to become the titan of ether and escape Pagan. By the time he's done, the fragile balance that the people of Pagan had established for themselves is over and the Avatar leaves the mess for whatever survivors might be left. More than the silly arcadish elements (someone dubbed Ultima VIII as "Mario: The Avatar"), confusing spell systems, or the strange, male-only helmeted Avatar, people disliked Ultima VIII for destroying their image of the Avatar.

Are there words to describe this sense of scale?

The world map, if you lost your cloth one