I am going to continue to pop the clutch over the next few weeks and talk about a few different random things. You might get the sense that I am stalling in the middle of telling a significant story. You might be correct. Please accept my apology and try to enjoy the side-quest we are now on.
I was in three conversations this week where we talked about meaningful games, purpose, and transformational play experiences. There is no doubt in my mind that Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar was the most transformational game I ever played. I think it is probably unparalleled even today for its depth and sophistication. If I am wrong, please let me know. I am happy to reschedule a few afternoons of chasing kids off of my lawn to enjoy transformational play.
I am going to attempt to summarize what I think is so special about this game.
Character Creation
The standard character generation for most games around this time consisted of rolling and re-rolling (and re-re-rolling) stats for your starting adventurers. Many roleplaying games inherited the pencil and paper re-rolling methods.
Ultima IV had you fill out a virtue questionnaire. Your answers took you down a decision tree to pick the virtue that you most identify with. For a game that is not about the stats, or the min-maxing, I am somewhat conflicted when I say that you want to pick Humility, and start off with the shepherd. Otherwise when you do get around to recruiting poor Katrina of Magincia you will have a real hard time leveling her up. If you wind up with the shepherd, you will be able to level quickly since the lead character gets 100 experience points for each “quest item” you find in the game.
Character Dialog
I love the dialog system in Ultima IV. Every NPC has a set of keywords that they wait for. Some people will tell you about the dungeon stones. Some people will tell you about the mantras. Some people in the game will sit there and wait until you learn from someone that you need to talk to this person about the skull, or the wheel, or even one of the spells that is not in the game’s documentation.
I really like that you need to understand who to talk to and what to ask them. This kicks the pants off of choosing option A or option B in the dialog tree. I refer to this as “meta-knowledge” in games. The knowledge that you need to have, as the player, which is not represented in the game.
Party Progression
You have eight slots for characters and there are seven non-player characters scattered throughout the world who will join you. You get to add a character to the party each time you level up. If you are not yet able to add them, they at least will tell you that there will come a point that “I would be honored to join thee”. It is nice to focus on a few characters when you begin the game, and be able to layer in additional characters over time.
The Virtue System
I almost wanted to talk about this first, but the most important part about Ultima IV is the virtue system. The point of the game is not to slay a specific dragon or to take down a powerful wizard. The point of the game is to strive to be elevated to the status of “Avatar” through eight virtues of enlightenment, which are Honor, Humility, Honesty, Sacrifice, Spirituality, Valor, Compassion, and Justice.
Everything in the game rolls up into these eight virtues.
There are eight shrines to meditate on each virtue. There are eight cities, each of which has a virtue as their raison d’etre. Each member of your party represents a class that is associated with one of these virtues. There are eight dungeons, which are generally the homes for the eight stones you need.
The best part about it is that there is a set of eight numbers in the game that tracks your status in these virtues.
If you attack evil monsters, your valor goes up.
If you pay the blind reagent vendor correctly, your honesty goes up.
If you kill non-evil monsters, your compassion goes down.
There are very clear actions throughout the game to increase all of these virtues to the level they need to be. In order to win the game, you actually have to do these things instead of running around town being a giant murder hobo. This was probably the most impactful part of the game because it was so different.
I do not think there is a game out there today that captures what the virtue system did in Ultima IV.
The Pretty Colors
The next really interesting thing about the virtue system is that they were all color coded. There are three “principals” in the game that represent Truth, Love and Courage. Courage is red, as is valor. Each virtue can be broken down into one, two, or even three principles, and the color of its stone matches the principles it stands for.
The white stone for Spirituality, for example, shows it is the embodiment of all three principles.
The orange stone for Sacrifice shows it is the embodiment of Love (yellow) and Courage (red).
I played this game early enough in my life that this is how I learned about primary and secondary colors. My mind was totally blown!
The Window Dressing
Let’s set aside that Ultima games meant cool cloth maps, funky stones, and necklaces.
The spell book was incomplete and some of the spells needed to be learned by tracking down people in the game to ask them questions.
The shrines in the game gave you visions that correspond to runic letters to spell out a word that you needed to win the game.
There were a series of magic gates that took you from city to city based on the moon cycle. The moon cycle was also needed to enter specific shrines and find specific items.
Not all of the magic reagents to cast spells could be bought. Some of them could only be found at midnight in special places on the map.
There were optional items like the Skull of Mondain, and the Wheel of the HMS Cape that you could find and use at various points.
If you used the Skull at the wrong place, you would lose all of your virtue. If you used it at the mouth of the abyss, it would destroy it.
If you learned the coordinates of the Wheel of the HMS Cape, you could use it to beef up your ship.
I don’t even know if I can remember all of the cool things that you can find in the game—Hot air balloon, mystic armor, the list goes on.
The End Game (spoilers question mark?)
After all of the cool things you need to learn and understand, almost none of which have to do with combat mechanics, the last thing you need to do is to enter into the final dungeon that is the holding place for a magic book of virtue.
You collect the book—and you win the game.
This was so vastly different from so many games with an end-boss who spends most of their time sitting in a room doing very much nothing.
When you do complete the game, it does one more thing that I really appreciated.
You get a little “chef’s kiss” narrative that amounts to Bill and Ted’s wisdom to “be excellent to each other”.
The boundless knowledge of the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom is revealed unto thee. The voice says: 'Thou has proven thyself to be truly good in nature. Thou must know that the quest to become an Avatar is the endless quest of a lifetime. Avatarhood is a living gift. It must always and forever be nurtured to flourish. For if thou dost stray from the paths of virtue, thy way may be lost forever. Return now unto thine own world. Live there as an example to thy people, as our memory of thy gallant deeds serves us.
Some pretty deep stuff!
I appreciate a good twist ending as much as the next person. Bard’s Tale II and Diablo, I am looking at you.
I do not know that any other game out there has moved me so deeply. I cannot help but wonder why this game is the exception, and not the norm.
What other games have you played that weave such a rich, profound personal tapestry?
