Ultima™ IV: Quest of the Avatar

Consoles had early Final Fantasy titles, PC had Ultima. Amazing lore, series have compelling stories and atmospheric gameplay that today’s games are having a hard time to match.

Of all of the games I played in my early computer days, this was by far the best. I first ran into it while stationed at School of the Infantry in Camp Pendleton CA. Our entire office got copies of this game and played it. Downloaded it this morning to try it out and wow, the graphics are horrible these days, but the game itself is still just as fun as it was back then. Thanks for putting this up for a free download.

So based on the first 4 Ultima games, I think they're for "D&D people", but I listened to the cassette recording with this new release of Ultima IV and decided to have one more try at it. So Richard Garriott was kind of responding to complaints about his games and about D&D in general from "religious extremists", when he decided to make the next Ultima game a quest for enlightenment, a demonstration of virtue and mortality etc. So it seems even back in the mid '80s people appreciated this new idea and today I think many view it as the best Ultima. Popular or not, I'm not sure that overall the game is such a great idea. Not to say that I think Ultima IV should have been just another "Beat the bad guy, save the world" theme, but Richard himself said on that cassette that he was concerned people might think he was getting on his soapbox(i.e preaching) or going off the deep end with his new idea. He admits of course that the game is a drastic change. When playing Ultima IV, I saw that its ideas of truth and enlightenment probably influenced later RPG game themes, especially in Japanese RPGs and there were some other things like questioning townsfolk like a detective, finding secret rooms and being joined new characters along the way that I think were good ideas, recognized as such by other game developers. So while I think the game's main idea was a bit too religious, there were some good smaller ideas, some related to the main idea, others incidental.

At the title screen the completely locks up and is unplayable in it's current state.

Never played a rpg before Ultima IV (had a C-64) and didn't know quite what to expect. But when I opened the box and found a totally engrossing game manual and spell book (I read them numerous times too) I was hooked. It was pure magic for me when I first loaded up the game and followed the introduction and was told my "fate" by the fortune teller. I spent so many hours with a notepad next to me scribbling down notes while exploring the many wonders of Britannia. This game is a true gem.