Ultima IV

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, first released in 1985 (USCO# PA-317-504) for the Apple II, is the fourth in the series of Ultima computer role-playing games. It is the first in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy, shifting the series from the hack and slash, dungeon crawl gameplay of its "Age of Darkness" predecessors towards an ethically-nuanced, story-driven approach.

The game was ported to many systems, including the PC, Commodore 64, NES, and the Sega Master System.

In 1996 Computer Gaming World named Ultima IV as #2 on its Best Games of All Time list on the PC.

Overview

Ultima IV is a rarity among RPGs in that the game's story does not center on asking a player to overcome a tangible ultimate evil.

After the defeat of each of the members of the triad of evil in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria underwent some radical changes in geography: three quarters of the world disappeared, continents rose and sunk, new cities were built to replace the ones that were lost. Eventually the world, now unified in Lord British's rule, was renamed Britannia. Lord British felt the people were unhappy and was concerned with their spiritual well-being, so he proclaimed the Quest of the Avatar: He needed someone to step forth and become the shining example for others to follow.

The object of the game is to focus on the main character's development in virtuous life, and become a spiritual leader and an example to the people of the world of Britannia. The game follows the protagonist's struggle to understand and exercise the Eight Virtues. After proving his or her understanding in each of the virtues, and meditating at the shrines of the Virtues, the protagonist becomes the Avatar. The second task of the game is to find the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, a book that contains all of the answers to everything.

Background

Richard Garriott has stated that he began writing this game when he realized (partly from letters of enraged parents) that in the earlier games immoral actions like stealing and murder of peaceful citizens had been necessary or at least very useful actions in order to win the game, and that such features might be objectionable. Furthermore, organizations like BADD were drawing attention to the supposedly satanic content in role-playing games in general, and the demonic nature of the antagonist of Ultima III was a good target.

Gameplay and features

Instead of the statistics-oriented character creation process typical of early computer role-playing games, in Ultima 4, players choose their character type by answering a series of ethical dilemmas. These situations have no easy resolution; players must rank the eight virtues and whichever stands as their highest priority determines the type of character they will play. For example, choosing Compassion makes you a Bard; Honor a Paladin, Sacrifice a Tinker, and so on.

Technically, the game was very similar to Ultima III, although much larger. This was the first Ultima game to feature a real conversation system; whereas NPCs in the earlier parts would only give one canned answer when talked to, now players could interact with them by specifying a subject of conversation, the subject determined either by a standard set of questions (name, job, health) or by information gleaned from the previous answers, or from other characters. Many sub-quests were arranged around this.

Another addition were dungeon rooms, uniquely designed combat areas in the dungeons which supplemented the standard combat against randomly appearing enemies.

The game is also notable for setting the world and tone for the games that followed in the series. After Ultima IV, the storylines became more and more linked, with many details from earlier games referred to in newer games, often in a self-explanatory way so that the player doesn't necessarily need to understand everything in the previous games - but it helps. This in contrast to earlier Ultima games, and many other examples in other series, which tended to favor "new antagonist is the son/daughter of the previous one" type of weak relations.

Also, the world of Britannia was first introduced here in full, and the world did not change too much between the parts of the series.

NES version

Like Ultima III, Ultima IV was ported to NES by FCI and Pony Canyon. This version, titled Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, was released in 1990.

The overall game had not been changed much, though the approach was very similar to other console RPGs of the time, particularly Dragon Quest and NES Final Fantasy games.

Graphics had been completely redone, as was the music; the overall graphical and musical tone was close to the feel of the Japanese games. The dialogue options were quite limited once again.

However, the combat system was fairly close to the computer games, with the additional option to use automated combat.

Ultima IV on modern operating systems

xu4 is a game engine recreation for Ultima IV that is available for Linux, Windows, OSX and Sega Dreamcast. This requires original Ultima IV for DOS files to run, and maintains compatibility with the original DOS version (you can use save files from the original DOS game on xu4, and vice versa).

Other trivia

Garriott himself considers this game his most outstanding work (with Ultima VII coming in second).

This is the only game of the series that is currently downloadable legally from the Internet. The MS-DOS version of the game can be found in many download sites (see External links).

On a more dubious note, the Apple IIe release of this game was the last game to be cracked by "Hot Rod" of the group "Black Bag".

References

Kasavin, Greg & Soete, Tim (1998). "The Ultima Legacy". GameSpot.

External links

The Moongates U4 Annex - home of the graphics and music patch, and maps and dialogues for the whole game
xu4 - A rewrite of the game engine for playing on modern systems
Ultima IV - Humility of Virtue a re-write in darkbasic
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 - of the unofficial world text maps originally released simultaneously to when the game went on sale in 1985. Designed to be printed and hung on a wall, these were the most popular maps available at the time for the game
Ultima IV Multiplayer - The Quest of the Avatar rewritten for a multiplayer experience. Features new quests and large 2D dungeons.