Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Game: Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Developer: Origin Systems
Platform: PC (MS-DOS), NES - First came out on Apple II.
Release Year: 1985
Stephen's Rating: n/a

Ultima IV was the first game in the Age of Enlightenment series and marked a turning point in the Ultima franchise. Unlike traditional RPG games there was no evil being to defeat, instead the game involved ethical and spirital exploration.

Basic Plot

After the defeat of the triad of evil in the previous Ultima games, the world of Sosaria lay battered and broken. Three quarters of the world had been destroyed. What was left was ruled by Lord British. Although no evil threatened the land anymore the people were aimless and had no purpose or guidance. To provide guidance Lord British formed the eight virtues:

• Compassion
• Justice
• Valor
• Spirituality
• Sacrifice
• Humility
• Honor
• Honesty

But founding them was not enough, he needed a hero to embody these virtues to show the populace the way.

From the Commodore 64 version.

Many heroes tried and failed. In the end The Stranger was summoned from Earth again to see if he could succeed where others had failed. The Stranger succeeded in embodying the eight virtues. He gathered companions on his travels, and finally entered the Abyss on the Isle of the Avatar and consulted with the magical tomb; The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. There, the codex annointed him The Avatar; the champion of virtue. The world was renamed Britannia.

After the end of the game the democratic Great Council went about taking the codex out of the Abyss so that all could read it. The impact was devastating and the Underworld collapsed. To avoid the denizens of the Underworld travelling to the surface the council sealed the great dungeons.

Similar gameplay to the previous games with some enhancements.

Gameplay

This game defined a new level of storytelling that would be adopted by many RPG's to come. The game focused more on story than it did anything else which gave the player a richer experience than ever before. Richard Garriott himself places Ultima IV has one of his favourite games in the series.

The actual gameplay was similar to the previous Ultima games and involved exploring, talking, and completing quests.