Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
System: NES
Release Date: December 1990
Developer: Atelier Double
Publisher: FCI
Genre: RPG
Become the embodiment of Britannia’s virtues in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar! After the terrible port of Exodus, I wasn’t coming into this with great expectations, but I know the PC version of the game is special. You are the stranger who helped Lord British put an end to the Age of Darkness and you’ve been away in the real world for some time when a moongate appeared to bring you back to Britannia. It’s up to you to become the Avatar of Virtue by finding eight runes, eight stones, and four artifacts.
You begin in a reading from Hawkwind. The seer of Britannia asks you questions about the virtues that will decide what class you play as. I ended up with the choice of Sacrifice or Humility and decided a Tinker would be more useful than the nearly useless Shepherd. After getting sent into the world by British, I ended up in Minoc. Walking around, you find people to talk to (and you want to talk to them all). Some of them ask you for gold or questions about yourself. Giving money and answering correctly are very important as all of the things I’ve said so far will raise your standing in certain virtues (Humility, Honesty, and Compassion). I also learned through this that the Rune of Sacrifice would be found in a furnace, so I searched and had my first rune within the first five minutes of play. Yay me. I also happened to be poisoned from walking in a swamp square and promptly died. Stay away from swamps, have plenty of Heal reagents ready, or know where the Healers can be found. You want to know where the Healers are anyway, because donating blood is how you increase Sacrifice. Luckily, death meant I got a free trip to Britain, which is the center of your journey.
Lord British will give you some information, free healing, and grant you higher levels when you are worthy. Hawkwind will give you your standing in each virtue and speaking with him increases your level in Spirituality. Unless you have a walkthrough handy, you need to talk to everyone and write your clues down so you don’t forget them. Most people give you information that you will have to use throughout your journey. Such as which of the eight virtues are attached to which combination of the three principles (Truth, Courage, and Love). There is a companion in each of the eight main towns, of which you can bring three with you at any time. Once you’ve recruited three, you need an extra level for each extra companion you find. Most of my time was spent with Iolo the Bard, Dupre the Paladin, and Jaana the Druid, though I did switch Iolo out for Mariah the Mage later on.
Having the right companions is important, because they’ll be entering into battle with you. The battles are a slog and, unless you’re grinding for experience, are only worth fighting on land on the overworld map. After winning, a treasure chest appears on the overworld that you need to search to open, instead of just being given the spoils of battle automatically… Sea battles get you no gold and dungeon battles don’t either. You’ll be fighting hundreds and hundreds of battles, though, so get used to them, or get a bunch of money and always stay stocked up on reagents for casting Blink. I found money kind of a pain to come by. There are treasure rooms situated away in most dungeons, but they are a trek to get to and they take forever to open each chest up one by one. Dungeons also hold orbs that you can touch to gain attributes at the cost of taking great damage. I didn’t mess with them much.
You can get most of the runes and stones right away, but need to save up 2000 gold in order to buy a Key to open doors. This should be your second priority after picking up the party members you want, though running solo or with less party members brings less enemies in battle. It’s also important to note that enemies become more difficult as your level increases, which may be a deterrent to fighting too much. Though you have to fight enough enemies to master Valor and you can’t run away without losing Valor, either. That’s why you want a spellcaster and enough reagents for Blink. This immediately ends the battle without the penalty. Reagents are found in some towns and are a test of Honesty, Justice, and Honor. The reagent sellers are all blind, you see, and you can pay them whatever you wish, but if you overpay them, you get benefits in those virtues.
Getting around begins on foot, but there are other means of conveyance. Each main town has a gate that appears and warps you based on the moons. The moon on the left dictates which gate is open and the one on the right determines your destination. The phases change as you walk or stand around, but standing isn’t safe as enemies will appear randomly. Once you reach level three, pirate ships will begin to appear on the shores and if they touch you, it’s a fight to the death, with the winner taking the ship. The ship allows you to reach most places you want to go, but you can also get access to a hot air balloon. With this, you can fly over mountains, but have to cast the wind spell to go where you want, which gets really expensive really quickly.
When you finally amass all eight runes, all eight stones, make it to the altars at the bottom of the dungeons to get the keys, find the Bell, Book, and Candle, Mondain’s Skull, and attain Avatarhood in all the virtues, the endgame begins. When you become the Avatar, your Magic Points zoom up to 99 and you can collect the Sword of Paradise and the Exotic Armor, which makes you an unstoppable killing machine. Heading to the final dungeon, you find your companions must stay back, sending you down eight levels on your own. The Abyss is the trickiest dungeon you’ll face with a lot of hidden doors and paths through rooms. I succumbed to using maps, otherwise I would have needed tons of gems to show my surroundings and that sounded like more grinding I didn’t want to do. Eschewing RPG tradition, there is no final boss and the final battles aren’t that bad as you’re full of one hit kills. But you instead find the Codex with the answers to all of life’s little questions.
Graphics: 2.5
You can tell what everything is, but it doesn’t look very good or detailed. Better than average, but we’ve seen better.
Sound: 2.0
The music is fine, but there’s not much variety, so it gets annoying by the end of your journey.
Gameplay: 2.5
Walk around, talk to people, find stuff, fight battles over and over again, not much variety, but it all works right. Well, except for talking to shrine guardians where the coding seems to be reversed…
Difficulty: 3.0
You’ve got all the information you need to solve your quest, it just takes patience, which I always thought was a virtue.
Fun Factor: 2.5
I had a decent enough time, but it does drag in the middle as you try to raise your virtue, unless you want to cheese the system.
Overall Rating: 2.5
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar earns a B-. The adventure begins the Age of Enlightenment trilogy, which we will return to over the next few years. This is a solid title, but I’m told it’s way better on PC and the Master System.