Ultima™ IV: Quest of the Avatar

This game must have been amazing for its time. Even really now I can see how it was enjoyable... it's like a giant treasure hunt really and having OneNote in this day and age is very, very useful for playing through. It's refreshing to piece together a picture, and THAT part of the game is great... However.... it is also very very old and as such there are number tedious elements. The combat, searching for hidden buttons in passages to go deeper, the time it takes to go places in general... I gave it 5 stars since I feel that's what it should get for it's time, but it certainly has not aged well. Like another review said you're never, ever gonna beat this game. Very, very long and fairly repetitive.

A great game that stands the test of time.

Now we all know that most Ultima games are great and well made, Savage Empire wasn't that great but still had some fun in it. Now, Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar, to me, is a great game. Why? I don't even know! It just has some "old-school" feeling, probably with the pixelated graphics and style of the game, I haven't beat it yet but when I started to play this game I was hooked. I couldn't just stop playing it, and I didn't know exactly why! Was it that is just a great game, even though the controls were pretty clunky? I might never find out, but I can say this...the story is well done. Detail isn't the best, but the Combat System is average. Its a good game if you played, and liked, the Final Fantasy games which I do also love. But if you want a game where you like to "hack-and-slash", then this isn't the game for you. This game has a Combat System where you must actually plan your attack, not just rush in with your weapon like some drunk maniac! So the conclude this review, the game doesn't have the best graphics, Combat System is one you must think then attack, detail is quite low, and the story is quite interesting. Leaving me to give this game, a 4/5!

I played this one circa 2002 when it was already considered heavily dated and I was surprised at just how playable and fun it was. What impresses me the most about this, and most of the other Ultima games, is just how well-designed they are. Since you are resurrected when you die, there are no dead ends, and yet, the game still retains a fair challenge. The word fair is quite important here as many early (and current!) games were (are) designed by idiots who cheat by increasing game life cheaply with unfair difficulty levels or requiring tedious backtracking. In terms of design, modern gaming owes a huge debt to the Ultima series with its open worlds, interactivity and fair, balanced gameplay. Ultima IV doesn't take long to complete and is a simple, beautiful game. In many ways it's perfect and still perfectly playable.

I played this when it first came out on Apple ][ and it was an amazing game. Later I got it for the PC and it sat on a shelf for years. Then I saw it on GOG and I had to get it. For the first time in almost 20 years I played it again and the rush of fond memories past came flooding out as I did. This game is just as amazing as the first time I played it. I would recommend to anyone who wants to see what it was like to play old school games and have to actually work for it rather than have it handed to you.