Forums > Submission Feedback > overdrive's Ultima: Quest of the Avatar review

I kept meaning to get around to reviewing this--and playing it again, to help in the effort--but I just haven't found the time. Your review covers all of the points that mine would have and was enjoyable to read. Thanks for covering it!

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

Gah, yet another game that I have a half-written review for and someone beats me to the punch!

You're definitely right about the manual spoiling the game. Giving the playing things like the locations of moongates, dungeons, etc takes out the whole exploration thing.

The one thing that absolutely infuriated me about this game was the way random encounters are initiated by a timer, rather than my steps as in like ever other RPG. It took a lot of the joy out of dungeon exploring for me because you couldn't take a step, stop, draw on your map, rinse and repeat like you can in Wizardry -- you had to move as quickly as you could to cover as much ground as you could before the next fight. And the fights themself are pretty useless, especially once you can afford Magic Staffs.

The combat really hurt this game a lot in my eyes. And I didn't really like how the virtues were reduced to such trivial things like giving money to beggars. With modern game design, a lot more could be done with this formula.

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