Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, first released in 1985, is the fourth entry in the of Ultima series. The game takes place in the land of Britannia which is in an era of peace, and though most of the time this setup would lead to disaster, Ultima IV instead stays in this peaceful In it rather than focusing on defeating a single bad guy, the player is tasked by Lord British to develop their character’s virtue in hopes that they will become an Avatar and set a good example for others.

The game starts off with the player talking to a gypsy who presents cards, these being the virtues the player will be building up, for the player to choose, these include Honor, Compassion, Sacrifice, Honesty, Justice, Valor, Humility, and Spirituality. You are then tasked by the gypsy to find the lord. This is where my first problem with the game came into play, I had no idea where I was going. I started in a town but couldn’t find the lord, so I left. Once I arrived in the over-world I began my quest to find another town. The enemies weren’t a problem, luckily most are easy at the start and if you get in trouble you can run. Instead after about 2 minutes of walking my health began depleting and I died. I assume this occurred from staying in the over-world for a long period of time without resting, but it didn’t matter because then I spawned in the castle of Lord British, mission success.

After talking with him and learning what I needed to do I began to find ways to increase my virtue, this did not go well. I still had no idea what I was doing and began walking around until I died again. Once I died again, I decided to look up tips on what to do. This is when I discovered that some of the artifacts are placed in the world, but you can’t see them, not only that but I have to stand over the square they are on, if I can find it then search the tile. I bring this up because I found out that one of the artifacts was in an area, I had already been to on a tile I had stepped on. After this I began to look for people to recruit so I could fight enemies easier and get gold for equipment, after 30 minutes I only found on person to join my party a bard named Iolo. I then began to grind for gold to obtain better weapons and armor. With new equipment I began to look for another town again, and wouldn’t you know it I still don’t know where I was going.

As I went through the over-world I began becoming bored of what I was playing, nothing was keeping me engaged. Ultima IV has a interesting concept, having the game focused on building up how virtuous your character was a nice mechanics. However, I just can’t get over the fact that I don’t know where to go most of the time. This most likely isn’t even the games fault, I might have missed something that would have made things easier, but after restarting twice already and not getting anywhere I had to throw in the towel.