Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

aka: Ultima IV: Avatar no Tankyu, Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, Ultima: Seisha e no Michi, Última IV
Moby ID: 884
Apple II Specs
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Description official descriptions

Following the defeat of the evil triad in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria changed beyond recognition: continents rose and sank, and new cities were built, heralding the advent of a different civilization. Unified by the reign of the benevolent monarch Lord British, the new world was renamed Britannia. Lord British wished to base people's well-being on the ethical principles of Truth, Love, and Courage, proclaiming the Eight Virtues (Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility) as the ideal everyone should strive for. The person who could accomplish full understanding and realization of these virtues would serve as a spiritual leader and a moral example for the inhabitants of Britannia; he alone would be able to obtain holy artifacts, descend into the Stygian Abyss, and access the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This person is the Avatar.

The fourth game in the Ultima series features an improved game engine, with color graphics and enhanced character interaction: the player can have conversations with non-playable characters by typing names of various topics. However, the main difference between Ultima IV and its predecessors in the series (as well as other role-playing games) lies in the game's objectives and the ways to fulfill them.

Instead of building up a character by any means possible in order to face a villain in the end of the game, in Ultima IV the player is trying to become the Avatar, a role model for people. This means upholding the Eight Virtues, basically trying to become a better person. Making morally conscious decisions and helping other people is not done expecting a material reward, but because it is the actual goal of the game and the main focus of its gameplay. The game frowns on behavior typical of most other RPGs, such as backstabbing fleeing enemies or picking up everything that isn't nailed down even if it does not belong to the protagonist. This different approach established the game's reputation as the first "true" Ultima, influencing the design philosophy of later installments and the overall spirit of the series.

Character creation is done by choosing responses to morally ambiguous questions. Each of the Eight Virtues corresponds to a character class; by determining the player's personal priorities in the virtues, the game assigns a class and a starting location for the Avatar. After emerging in Britannia, the player is free to explore it in various ways (on foot, moongate teleportation, on horseback, by ship, etc.). Certain items must be collected in any order to enter the Stygian Abyss and complete the game. The Avatar also has to reach the highest level in all virtues. This is achieved by various means: donating blood increases Sacrifice, not fleeing from combat increases Valor, etc. The process, however, is not irreversible: should the Avatar overpay a blind seller, he gains Compassion points; should he, on the other hand, cheat the seller by underpaying, his level in several virtues would decrease.

These unorthodox features of the game co-exist with plenty of traditional RPG elements, such as dungeons to explore and hostile monsters to kill. Enemies are encountered on the world map as well as in dungeons; combat takes place on separate top-down screens, allowing player-controlled and enemy parties freely move on them. Characters accumulate experience points and level up, gaining higher amount of hit points and access to stronger magic spells. Like in the previous installments of the series, world map, town exploration and combat are presented from a top-down view, while the dungeons are pseudo-3D and are explored from first-person perspective.

Ultima IV also introduces several new gameplay features to the series and role-playing games in general. A number of initially non-playable characters living in various areas of the game world are able to to join the party and fight alongside the hero, replacing traditional player-generated characters or mercenaries and adventurers available only in special locations. Additional new elements include buying and combining reagents in order to cast spells, puzzle rooms in dungeons, and others.

The FM Towns version, while identical to the others in gameplay, introduces upgraded graphics similar to those used in next installment of the series.

Spellings

  • ウルティマIV - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Commodore 64 version)

15 People

Project Leader
Plot Collaboration and <i>History of Britannia</i> Writer
Illustrations
Graphics
Additional Programming
Music
Playtesting
Commodore 64 Conversion

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 30 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 342 ratings with 13 reviews)

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

The Good
Ultima IV is one of the most original games in history and this is the game that made Ultima so famous and led a large cult following. Why? because back then (and even today) RPGs are all about killing the main bad guy and find treasure. But with Ultima IV everything changed. There is no end boss an the point of the game is to master the eight virtues and become an Avatar the champion of virtues. There is no religion in Ultima IV but the 8 virtues can be described as a philosophy that the people follow, a way of life. Another thing worth mentioning is that the music is very good and the game offers a lot of exploration in the fantastic world of Brittania. This game can be tough and long if you don't use any guides but if you have a ton of other games to finish just use guides to find the mantra's and rune locations etc.

The Bad
The battle system and magic system is kinda poor. I found myself getting bored and was it was annoying at times. You can't even keep your spells and you have to worry about reagents. But Ultima's where always different from other rpg's.

The Bottom Line
This is a must for any RPG fan and see how much Ultima IV did to the game industry.

DOS · by TheNightWalker (12) · 2004

Ultima IV from the perspective of a kid back in 1985

The Good
Ultima IV gets a lot of renown for its unconventional plot but I think to truly appreciate what the game meant to the genre it's important to take it within the context of the release year.

In 1985 the first three Ultimas had been out awhile and some clones were starting to hit the market. None of them offered the same depth of package as a true Ultima however. Having devoured Ultima III the previous year, my brothers and I were waiting with bated breath for the sequel. Being only thirteen years old and of meager budget I joined with my brothers in begging our parents to receive it as a Christmas gift.

So fierce was my desire to hold this game in my hands that I broke my own morale code (I'm sure I lost an eighth) by rummaging in my parent's bed room to confirm that it had been purchased. Never before had I broken the rule of sneaking a look at Christmas presents before. I still remember holding the box in my hand and reading the back, visions of future adventures dancing in my head. It was almost physically painful to return the gift to its hiding spot.

Much has been said to great depth about the plot of Ultima IV, the quest for perfection of moral virtues. Yes, this was very revolutionary at the time and still echoes today with modern RPGs offering moral choices as a check box in their feature set. When it was released the RPG formula was not as solidified as it was today, so although the plot was novel, the game also came with sophistications that hadn't been seen in RPG mechanics before.

Of particular note was the sophisticated magic system that required mixing of reagents to make spells. What now seems as a simple keyword conversation system was revolutionary in terms of interaction with the hundreds of NPCs in the game. The moon cycles and moon gates were again advanced over Ultima III. The class system was expanded from the usual Dungeons and Dragons stereotypes to include such oddities as the tinker and shepherd.

The multi-party system also changed. Instead of forming your own party you had to seek out and find the NPCs that would be willing to join you on your quest.

Surrounding all this was a quest that challenged some assumptions you had as a player of RPGs in 1985. While you probably considered moral implications while playing a pen and paper RPG, for the most part there weren't any repercussions in computer RPGs. Every chest was to be looted and NPCs might be killed for personal gain without impacting your progress. In Ultima IV, denying a beggar some gold had risk.

As with previous Ultimas, the game began when you opened the box. The wonderful documentation played into the fantasy world of the game. The enclosed cloth map outline the world and was labelled in runes that required translation. Indeed both me and my brothers became fluent in that alphabet, reading and writing the runes at will. The presentation immersed you in the game world and fueled your imagination to look past the basic graphics and create Brittania in your mind. There was even a small metal ankh included in the package, just the same as your avatar would find at the beginning of the game.

By today's standards Ultima IV required a huge investment of time. My brothers and I kept journals of our progress, noting every possible hint given by NPCs and using copious amounts of graph paper to map every town and dungeon level. Even though the game offered gems to provide you a map, nothing beat having a hard copy. One of my friends created a one to one scale map of the land on graph paper, each square colored to represent a single square in game. The map covered one wall of his room.

The music also helped to immerse you in the world. On the Commodore 64 many excellent songs played forth depending on what you were doing. The music as you traveled overland, the town music, combat music and more still rings in my memory today.

A new Ultima wasn't something you just burned through, another one wasn't going to be out for awhile so what might seem like inconveniences nowadays were just part of the long and wonderful journey back in 1985.

I devoted countless hours to the game and it was by any definition the single best RPG of that year. Technically advanced with a unique story and a fascinating world, it was everything you could ask for at the time.

The Bad
Ultima IV wasn't without it's flaws. From a modern perspective you can say that the game didn't lead you towards your goal unless you were willing to sacrifice the time to explore every nook and cranny and interrogate each NPC. The clues to your quest were littered all around and there was no straight path to uncovering them. For the most part though this exploration was expected and enjoyed.

The biggest flaw in my opinion came with the sheer size of your party. While Ultima III had allowed you four members, Ultima IV required you have eight members in order to complete the game. During the tactical combat each of your characters took a turn, one step at a time. This could lead to even relatively simple encounters taking time just cycling through all of your party members.

In dungeons this problem became worse. While the main dungeons are presented in pseudo-3D graphics, when you entered combat the game would switch to the tactical screen showing a rough layout of where you were in the dungeon. This was initially very cool as combat entered around a bend in a dungeon corridor was so reflected in the tactical map. It was however slow to load off disk and the combat and even slower to manage eight players.

Dungeons also had special rooms of combat that had to be negotiated. These led to even longer combat sequences. Your enemy could flee if injured and you often spent many turns just trying to chase after them.

There is no way to save the game inside a dungeon in Ultima IV which meant you had to finish it or else return later and do it over again.

The final dungeon (the Great Stygian Abyss) was a grueling slog to get through. If you made it to the bottom and failed the final questions at the codex, you would have to start all over again.

To get around this technical limitation we used a cartridge that could save the game state to disk in case we needed to reload. Cheating? Maybe, but given the time investment I think it was worthwhile.

The Bottom Line
Ultima IV is a classic RPG from the golden age. It has a very unique plot and a highly realized world. If you aren't a patient gamer with an interest in the history of the RPG genre, this is going to be a very difficult game to get into. None of the modern conveniences are present. You may find yourself bewildered and lost as to what to do next or surrounded by monsters well above your ability to defeat.

If you can commit yourself beyond its dated nature you will see one of the formative RPGs and be able to recognize its influence in many games that came along after.

Ultima IV is one of my top ten favorite RPGs of all time and I think it is clearly the most influential of its era. A true classic that requires investment on the player to appreciate fully. We've come a long way since 1985 but in some ways Ultima IV still hasn't been exceeded. Influential and inspirational anyone who wants to understand the history of RPGs has to take this journey.

Commodore 64 · by snuf (14104) · 2011

An all time classic. Still as playable as it ever was

The Good
This game was where the Ultima series developed a theme of its own. Ultima 3 was an excellent RPG but still boiled down to killing the bad guy. In this game, the quest is to prove yourself as a person of virtue. Commercially this must have been taking a serious risk but its one of the things that make the Ultima series stand out from the crowd. The system of virtues is very well thought out and is woven into the gameplay throughout the entire game.

This was the first in the series to feature a conversation system. This works by typing keywords. To finish the game you need to hunt down a lot of information from all the towns inhabitants, who may give you words to say to people in other towns. This adds to the adventuring/exploration element to the game, and I spent a lot of time walking around the towns getting information.

The game world is much larger than Ultima 3, making the cloth map a true necessity this time around.

The dungeons now have pre-designed rooms in them. These are basically combat screens that occur when you walk on a particular tile in a dungeon. Many of these rooms have secret passages that can be opened by treading on particular squares. A reasonable amount of effort has obviously been put into designing the rooms and by the time you get the the games final dungeon, they often link together forming mazes. It gives a more epic feel to dungeon delving, than simply navigating through badly rendered 3D mazes and requires some basic puzzle solving to navigate through some of the more complicated rooms.

The towns, dungeons and world maps all play very differently and this adds variety to the game. Provided you talk to everyone in the towns, there is no reason to become stuck or bored in this game as you always know the next task to accomplish.

The Bad
In truth not that much has changed from Ultima 3. This isn't a bad thing as such but apart from the dungeon rooms and conversation system, it appears to use pretty much the same engine.

There is no music in this DOS version. There is a patch to add it back in, and I do like the music there is. However, a grand total of around 10 minutes of 4 channel music to cover a game that took me 15-20 hours to finish is not enough. No matter how good it is, this would be the aural equivalent of Chinese water torture.

The mechanics of the virtues are fairly basic and its easy to exploit this to build up a virtue quickly if you know what you are doing. I'm sure the intention was that you were rewarded for behaviour throughout the game but most players will just repeat a particular action to build up a virtue within minutes.

There are double the number of party members (8) this time around but I'm not sure this added to the gameplay. It makes battles more complex, but typically you can't get the whole party involved in a given fight as the scenery gets in the way. Navigating the party through the dungeon rooms 1 by 1 is a little tedious also.

I chose to play the game as a fighter, which bizarrely turned out to be one of the weakest combat classes in the game due to the limited range weapons they can use. Conversely, a wizard with a magic wand is one of the best combat classes.

I preferred not having to use reagents to cast a spell as in Ultima 3. It makes the use of magic expensive, not to mention cumbersome having to mix the reagents for each spell individually. Combined with the magical characters actually being stronger in combat this meant that I never used an aggressive spell at any point playing the game. My magic use was limited to healing, warping between dungeon levels and dispelling magic fields.

The Bottom Line
Its easy to forget quite how old this game is when playing it. I was hooked from the moment I started and it holds up well today provided you can see past the graphics.

Its not the best of the Ultima games to play now but the unique nature of the storyline and gameplay still stand out and Ultima 4 really was amazing for its time.

DOS · by Pix (1172) · 2008

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Apple II game supported the Mockingboard sound card. Andrew Fisher (697) May 23, 2023
The Best Game Ever or The Biggest Waste Of Time? mobiusclimber (235) Nov 8, 2007
Test, test! Unicorn Lynx (181780) May 17, 2007

Trivia

Cancelled remake

In 2001, Jaakko Peltonen organized an effort to completely remake Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar with an updated game engine, isometric graphics and symphonic music tracks. The project was abandoned three years later.

Certificate

A completion certificate could originally be obtained after winning the game.

Completed remakes

Several remakes were successfully achieved, the two most famous being two Neverwinter Nights mods called Avatarship and Ultima IV Reborn

Development

In an interview with Computer Gaming World (Issue #26, March 1986) Richard Garriot states that the original version of the game was rushed for Christmas and therefore playtesting was cut short. In fact, Garriot himself was the only one to complete the game before release.

Extras

Original boxes of Ultima IV included a metal ankh symbol.

Fan patches

Aradindae Dragon & Wiltshire Dragon, members of the Ultima Dragons Internet Chapter, have created an upgrade for Ultima IV, adding upgraded 256 color graphics, MIDI sound, and other fixes. See the Links/Searches section for the URL.

There is no music in PC version, but there exist a freeware patch that adds all the music from C-64/Apple versions to play properly with the PC version as MIDI.

Freeware release

In order to promote the release of Ultima IX: Ascension, Origin made Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar freeware.

References

Some of the town inhabitants in Ultima IV have the same names as famous historical figures. Or are they really those figures, magically transported to Britannia? For example, in one of the towns you meet a man named Shakespeare. In another one you see a person who looks like a philosopher, and when you ask him his name, he says: "I am Buddha".

Virtues

At the time of Ultima IV's development, RPGs were undergoing a bashing by right-wing extremists who claimed such fantasy gaming was amoral or downright evil. The concept of the virtues in Ultima IV were partially inspired by Richard Garriott's desire to prove otherwise.

The moral concept of the game was undoubtedly influenced by Buddhism. The number eight that appears in the game constantly (eight virtues, eight character classes, eight party members, etc.) is a sacred number in Buddhism (one of the most important concepts of which are the eight steps on the path to enlightenment). Shrines, meditation, mantras, the total independence of Britannia's moral codex from any supernatural power are all typical attributes of Buddhism. Lastly, the concept of the Avatar is nearly identical to the concept of bodhisattva, the Buddhist ideal person (although the word avatar itself derives from Hinduism and means reincarnation of God).

In an interview with Computer Games Online (www.cdmag.com), Richard Garriott offered some interesting insights about the creation of the virtues for Ultima IV. Here's the excerpt:

I started with a whiteboard and wrote down all of the virtues and vices I could think of, the seven deadly sins, many, many others. Obviously I wanted to talk about a few of these, but I couldn't address them all.

As I did more research, I began to notice things like greed and envy would have some overlap, so I needed to create a core set. You can easily split them up into virtues and vices, and eventually arrived at three primary aspects, which became the principle virtues of Truth, Love and Courage. Truth became Honesty, Love became Compassion, Courage became Valor, and I created the eight possible combinations of these three. Truth tempered by Love became Justice, Love and Courage became Personal Self-sacrifice, Courage and Truth became Chivalric Honor. Truth Love and Courage was kind of arbitrary, so I thought, "What is the all-encompassing virtue?" I said, "Spirituality," whether or not you're doing good or bad deeds in the world.

And what if you do none of the above? If not being virtuous is part of your psyche, I call it pride. Pride is not a virtue, so I decided to use the opposite, Humility. Since the eighth combination created a non-virtue, I began to create bits of pseudo-science I was pretty pleased with.

Ultimas are big in mathematical pseudo-science and alchemy, so I invented the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom to graphically illustrate their relationship. Then I associated the cities with the virtues, with the eighth one - which I called Magincia, the city of Pride - destroyed. Having these seven positive things with one eighth one that had to be flipped made for a nice variety of quests you could create.

Once the eight virtues were created, I needed to come up with quotes that expressed why each was important. And had to think of tests for people to see if they were supporting that virtue. Honesty was easy - I let you cheat shopkeepers and steal things, but the game kept a record where it could, later in the game, come back to haunt you. Just like the real world. Why is it you don't steal from people? Because if you do they'll throw you in jail or disown you. So that's how I designed the game - people will reject you if you're not honest.

So I went virtue by virtue and tried to craft these types of experiences.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 1988 (Issue #45) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #2 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #2 Most Innovative Computer Game
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #11 Most Rewarding Ending of All Time
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #10 Best Game of All Time
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #7 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2013 – One of the "Ten Best C64 Games“
  • Happy Computer
    • Issue 04/1987 - #16 Best Game in 1986 (Readers' Vote)
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #32 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • Power Play
    • Issue 01/1991 - Best Master System Game in 1990

Information also contributed by -Chris, Adam Baratz, Eisentel, JubalHarshaw, ktchong, PCGamer77, rstevenson, Unicorn Lynx and Ye Olde Inforcomme Shoppe

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Related Sites +

  • Game Map (Sega Master System) on SMS Power!
    Maps of locations and very detailed world map of the Master System version.
  • Mo'Slo
    Download the evaluation version of a popular DOS/Windows utility that can slow down modern super-fast computers to make older games like Ultima IV: The Quest of Avatar playable.
  • The Exodus Project
    Download an excellent patch to upgrade the original 16-color EGA graphics in Ultima IV: The Quest of Avatar to 256-color VGA and add MIDI music scores and prerendered still cutscenes in various points of the game.
  • The Moongates Ultima IV Annex
    The Moongates Ultima IV Annex - A comprehensive source for information on Ultima IV, and the home of the 256 color/MIDI upgrade patch! GET IT!
  • xu4 - Ultima IV Recreated
    xu4 is an engine reimplementation that allows to play DOS Ultima IV on Windows, Linux and MacOSX, with support for the graphics and sound patches and some optional enhancements.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 884
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alan Chan.

Windows added by LAO0. iPhone, Macintosh, iPad added by Sciere. FM Towns, FM-7, Sharp X1, Atari 8-bit, PC-98, Sharp X68000, PC-88 added by Terok Nor. MSX added by Unicorn Lynx. Atari ST added by Belboz. Commodore 64, Apple II, NES, Amiga, SEGA Master System added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: JubalHarshaw, Unicorn Lynx, Indra was here, Corn Popper, ktchong, chirinea, WWWWolf, Игги Друге, Patrick Bregger, Jo ST, RetroArchives.fr, Kayburt.

Game added February 21, 2000. Last modified March 27, 2024.