Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar

History: The Age of Enlightenment has begun. Lord British calls for a champion who lives close to the eight virtues and gives a shining example for the land. This game marks a new era in the Ultima saga. Old Sosaria has changed its shape one last time to an unified Britannia and changes only little in future games. The engine is similar to Ultima 3 with more details like new monsters and reagents which are needed for spellcasting or the infamous dungeon rooms where the 3D perspective reverts to a bird's eye view. The most innovating new feature was the opportunity to chat with NPCs by typing in special keywords. Ultima 4 also is the first game with a graphical, movie-like introduction and a new character creation process. A gypsy woman asks you a set of ethical questions which influence your class and attributes.

A scene from the beautiful graphical introduction to the game.

The character creation with the gypsy cards has become standard for Ultima 4-6 but also 9.

Background: No big enemy threatens the lands in this game, you will have to master your inner self instead. An Avatar is needed who lives fully in harmony with the eight virtues, meditation at the shrines gives you insights how well you proceed on your path. You start alone but during the game you can add famous NPCs until you have a party of eight. Lord British offers help and healing for your quest, the final task is to descend into the most dangerous dungeon of all, the Stygian Abyss and discover the Book of the Codex of infinite wisdom.

Near Lord British's castle with some hostile orcs and headlesses approaching.

Engaged in combat with a party of cyclops.

Recommended Version: The game has been converted for many platforms with the PC version being the worst, as usual. This can be fixed with a patch which upgrades the tile graphic from EGA to VGA and also adds the music from the other versions. In the patched form, the PC version is by far the best choice. The patch also adds the opportunity to save the game in the dungeons, but this feature seems to be buggy and crashes the game in the Abyss, so I don't recommend it. The original boxed version comes with a cloth map, two manuals, reference card and a metal ankh.

Lord British is more helpful in this game and gives hints and healing.

Meditation at shrines is now essential for your way to Avatarhood.

Statistics:

Party with 1 created character and up to 7 NPCs.
8 character classes
26 different magic spells
Introduction of material reagents for spells
Dungeons 3D (2D in rooms), Outdoors/Buildings 2D
On-Screen-mapping: Yes
Save game option available only on surface

The fill-mode dungeons look not better than these in Ultima 3, but introduce now the special rooms.

One of dozens of different dungeon rooms filled with treasure, traps and monsters.

Morale: The number eight, inspired by the buddhistic eightfold path is very important here. There are eight virtues and anti-virtues, eight cities and eight dungeons, eight runes of virtue and eight colored stones. Ultima 4 is one of the most educational games in the series, albeit the world is still very black and white with no shades of grey and the problem of corruption of virtues which is present in Ultima 5 and 9. While playing the game one gets a feeling for the basic ideas of the buddhistic religion. It also teaches the concept of the three principles Truth,Love and Courage and how they affect the eight Avatar virtues. Some say this part is inspired by the Book "The Wizard of Oz" although Lord British has never confirmed this.

Britannia