Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima. A name that has ingrained itself into the gaming unconscious, recognize it or not, there is no denying that it has affected the RPGs we play to this day with a nearly unparelled level of influence. Ultima has lived on through decades, and though there are no longer the massive singleplayer epics of its heyday, its memory lives on through the immensely popular Ultima Online. 
Despite the disastrous late installments of the series, the Ultima name had not been sullied, and its monumental presence and position as the grandfather of all modern RPGs has still survived, it can be said that when playing any modern RPG, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, Drakensang, Gothic, Oblivion, practically any title one can think of, a gamer is indirectly, through all the evolutions of the genre, playing a descendant and successor of Ultima's legacy.

The series itself is so enormous and the lore so extensive that it has been divided into three "Ages". The Age of Darkness are the first three games in the series, Ultima I, Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress and Ultima III Exodus. While these titles have aged unspectacularly, and are simply footnotes in this day and age, they managed to laydown the early groundwork for the rest of the series.

The second age, the "Age of Enlightenment" included Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, and last but certainly not least Ultima VI: The False Prophet. This was arguably the seperate trilogy of games in the Ultima series that were considered the most revolutionary of the entire saga. Each title refined Ultima's conventions to the point of perfection, and while Ultima V and VI dropped many of the things that made Ultima IV a revolutionary game, they still offered their own fair share of impeccable design.

The last age, which isn't actually called as such, is "The Guardian Saga", containing Ultima VII and its expansion, along with the two greatest disappointments known to man, Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension. While Ultima VII was a fantastic game (which can't be said of VIII and IX) it mangled much of the second Age's appeal, and featured somewhat less impressive design choices (most notably the replacement of the series' time honored turn-based combat with an unappetizing and chaotic real-time variant.) Despite its faults, Ultima VII is often considered the best in the series simply because of its amazing level of interactivity and the ability to manipulate nearly anything in its expansive and atmospheric world.

Released in 1985, Ultima IV's impact was almost immediatly explosive, its arrival wasn't merely a step, but rather a leap, this is the game that delivered the time honored traditions of karmic systems, NPC schedules, moral quandries, an immense free-form interactive world, an overarching quest that was entirely non-linear, and an unexpected storyline that challenged the player to achieve its ultimate goal not only through defeating his adversaries, but becoming the true representation of the word 'hero'.
Becoming the Avatar.

For the first time in gaming, shooting a human opponent in the back with an arrow as he retreated would be considered an act of evil, devoid of valor. Giving an old blind woman selling spell reagents less than you owe her would be considered dishonest, and touting yourself as the Avatar seeking praise and respect would have you labeled as a prideful fool with no humility. There is no significant meter of total karma in Ultima IV, instead you must adhere to a complex but understandable virtue system. There are eight virtues, each representing a different set of actions or behavior.

Honesty - You must be truthful. Lying, stealing or manipulating others in deceitful ways will have you labeled as an untrustworthy brigand.

Compassion - You must spare others, show mercy, forgive and give. If you see a beggar, hand him some coin, or be viewed as a heartless man.

Valor - Hold your ground, fight with dignity and defeat your enemies, retreating or submitting to an enemy is considered cowardly.

Justice - Do not kill those who do not deserve to be killed, and do not go against the law of the land, killing non-evil enemies in combat is considered a immoral act and unjust.

Honor - Honor your word, accomplish the tasks given to you by those in need, and keep your promises while showing loyalty to those who have shown loyalty to you.

Sacrifice - Give for the greater good, give blood or sacrifice your well being for the good of others.

Spirituality - Nurture your spirit, follow the virtues and understand the inherent guidelines of good, help others to follow this path, and meditate on your deeds.

Humility - The humble shall always improve, while the prideful can only fall. Hold your tongue and show no brazen pride and do not boast of your actions.

The most significant element of this system is the fact that many of these virtues contradict each other. How can you be valorous and defeat your enemies when it shall be dishonorable and unjust to kill a non-evil enemy? How can one be humble when a questioning fellow warrior inquires if you are truly valorous. Saying no would be admiting cowardice, but saying yes would be prideful and lacking in humility. How can you be honest while carrying out a deceitful task, but what happens when you have given your honor to a man who has helped you greatly in your quest in return for accomplishing that task? The fact that there are so many ways to affect your standing in each virtue provides an elaborate and non-linear structure in Ultima IV. Your ultimate goal is to become the Avatar, the physical embodiment of all virtue.

And to do that you must find the shrine belonging to each virtue, and prove yourself worthy of each. That is the story of Ultima IV - you must become the best man you could possibly be and find a suitably valorous party of men and women to adventure with.

The bulk of Ultima IV takes place in a top down view, the graphics are impressive for its age, yet it's still servicable now, not pleasant, but servicable. It’s nothing incredibly beautiful yet it isn’t prone to melting your eyes like most games from this era. While in dungeons the view switches to a first person perspective comparable to that of most step-RPGs. NPCs have a lack of visual variety, but when you consider the limitations of the time and just how unique each NPC is in his or her personality, this hardly matters. For the most part, the visuals are negligible, as though you could expect anything else from a game made in the 1980s.

There are some neat features, each mode of transportation has its own corresponding visuals, the first person dungeons are far better than previous installments in the series and tend to be much less confusing, and most significantly there is far more detail in this installment, which is a large improvement from the relatively empty worlds of the preceding Ultima games.

Hands down the most impressive thing about Ultima IV’s graphical arrangement and aesthetic is the overworld, it’s spectacularly easy to navigate, there are multiple ways to travel, and even though tiles mostly look the same and are only derived from a small set of geographic features (mountains, trees, desert etc.) the actual structure of the world is recognizable with quite a few distinguishable landmarks and land masses. After a few hours of playing Ultima IV, glancing at the map shipped with the game is hardly necessary at all, it’s very easy to acquaint yourself with the small details in the over world. Because of that, travel is less tedious than it possibly could be and it’s satisfying to explore the world and visit the multiple cities, shrines, dungeons and isolated landmarks scattered across the world.

Since the world is suitably large, time passes in “steps”. Walking on foot takes a chunk of time out with each step, whereas riding on a magic carpet will only take half the time that walking does with each step. Because of this, you can move two steps while NPCs on foot only move one. Your companions all move with you, and there is no annoying party management outside of combat beyond fiddling with equipment and using items. Time passes relatively quickly in the game and included in the interface is a small moon diorama that not only keeps time relative to night and day, but also allows you to predict the destinations of various moongates that can teleport you around the world, with a telescope and a reference to the moon cycle, you can easily tell where moongates will lead you at specific cycles of the moon.

The time of day doesn't just influence details such as moongates, NPCs will sleep at certain periods, close their stores for a break or go to dinner at certain times, or go to sleep and engage in various other activities. Because of this, it’s interesting to explore the cities and discover the nuances within them. Each NPC has his own entirely unique schedule, and although many of them would appear similar, it’s interesting to note that the city of Britain’s inn keeper goes to bed earlier than Trinsic’s provisioner. Yes, this doesn't seem as impressive now, but considering that this is one of Ultima IV's most powerful additions to the RPG genre it's worth noting that Ultima IV was in fact the first to have extensive NPC schedules, following the quickest path and keeping track of the time was actually meaningful, since being locked out of a city at night left you prone to monster attacks and left you no safe haven.

These details were incredibly revolutionary for its time, and provided more depth than most people thought possible, it’s interesting to note that although Ultima IV had pioneered elaborate NPCs twenty-three years ago, very few modern RPGs have approached its variety in NPC schedules, and it is also a notable mention that no game has accomplished the level of depth Ultima IV’s virtue system has, rather most titles tend to defer to Ultima V's singular karmic system.

Funny that a game this revolutionary hasn’t been beat at its own archaic methods despite the attempts at emulating it for the past twenty years.

Among its innovations. Ultima IV has its fair share of conventional RPG mechanics. Providing food for your party is still necessary (but much like the previous games, it never really becomes much of a concern), the combat is merely an expansion of Ultima III's tactical turn-based affairs, and the dungeons themselves very much resemble earlier incarnations of the series.
However, these elements are incredibly well polished and manage to adhere to the general rule of quality present throughout the entire game.
 
Though Ultima IV's doesn't even possess a shadow of the depth Ultima VII held in terms of interacting with the world, discussion with NPCs was far more fleshed out that previous installments or indeed other titles at the time. NPCs would respond to keywords which were typed in manually, not only did this maintain the illusion of actual conversation, but it meant the player had to adequalty research and understand information, which while common in RPGs today, was an entirely new element at the time. The idea that you could not only roleplay through actions but through words was a profound realization, compound this with the fact that your various Virtues could be impacted through the course of conversation and the complexity involved within a previously mundane concept of interaction was elevated to a higher level.
 
At this point it is wise to end the retrospective and ask the question, how well has it aged today?
Ultima IV is hardly playable, and even then, it's extraordinarily basic in its more prevelant matters, despite the complexity and depth of its features as a whole, the lack of breadth in its content will be dissapointing to players who are used to massive worlds with nearly limitless unique landmarks and items with their own myriad of randomized attributes and specialized features.
However this review was not meant to be a cold calculation of Ultima IV's performance related to modern products, but rather a fond recollection of one of the genre's most powerful pioneers, the fact that every Renegade or Paragon path in Mass Effect, every Karmic decision in the Fallout series, each NPC that goes to bed at night or eats dinner in the afternoon in Oblivion, whenever the sun rises or the moon ascends in any modern RPG, is a direct love letter straight to the memory of Ultima IV.