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

Interesting review. I hate playing these old RPGs, but I enjoy reading about them. I like how you differentiate Quest of the Avatar from other adventures (comparing the descriptions of Wizardry and Avatar was an effective idea). The conclusion was convincing, too. After reading the review I accept the idea that Quest of the Avatar deserves a seven for its significance, although I'm not sure I would ever want to play a game that made you fall asleep!

"fuck yeah oblivion" - Jihad

...Britannia? Seriously? That's... original. >_> Is there a mock Stonehenge, too? Haha. And yet the main religion is Buddhism/Shinto?

Anyway, nice review. Very analytical well explained, and your argument is quite believable, especially with how you justified it in the conclusion. The comparisons to other RPGs of that era and this is much appreciated because it gives a clear example of what this game tried to do, even if it failed. It's interesting that the game tried to do something unique, specially during it's time. I'm glad you recommend it even if it's boring, shallow, and otherwise fails completely; I've been interested in the Ultima series for a little while (and even downloaded Exodus on my comp), so it's good to know that this one, even though it comes later, is worth checking out despite its flaws.

I did find some typos, though (sorry), but just in one part of a sentence.

like having a cities represent virtues as they do here, requires a lot more colours and the ability

I think the "a" should be removed. And I think "colors" (or your preferred spelling of it) should be singular.

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

WQ: The land is called Brittania because the creator of the series was known by the pseudonym of Lord British during the heyday of the Ultima series. And, I guess, for all I know, he still calls himself that. The king in the series was named Lord British and the land was named after him.

Good review, dagoss. I remember how just a few months ago, someone else wrote a review for this game and received second place in the Alphabetolympics with it. I just wish I could remember who that rugged sex-panther of a man is!

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

"Compared to contemporary titles, Quest of the Avatar must have seemed like a literal novel, an attempt to turn a game into something intellectually engaging rather than a child's play thing. Suddenly we aren't here to get treasure and experience, we're here for self-explication and strange interactive spirituality."

Heh, I find it interesting to muse on this ventured idea, which is a good one, since I was a functioning 10 year old gamer who'd already played Ultima III when this was released. I enjoyed answering the moral questions at the start of U4, but I found the game to be the most confusing, unwieldy Ultima to date. (And Ultima III was already bloody confusing.) Relatively speaking, I got nowhere. Some of you guys reviewing these things in the age of walkthroughs, you potentially have no idea how impenetrable a game like this was. If you were stuck or confused, you could remain that way for years. Years!

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Years indeed. There is a Commodore 64 adventure pragmatically named The Detective Game, and it took me eighteen years to finish. And that's not even an RPG!

"Deep in the earth I faced a fight that I could never win. The blameless and the base destroyed, and all that might have been. -- GK"

I don't know about any other versions of the game, but do know that Ultima IV's NES port came with a game and an instruction manual that gave most of the recipes for spells, basic maps for all but the final dungeon, complete instructions on how to use moongates, and pretty much everything that you'd expect to find in a competent walkthrough. With this stuff, there is almost no mystery or guess work for this game, which I think further downplays the importances of the actual game here. But again, I don't know how other versions were packaged, so this may simply be a cause of reducing the challenge for Nintendo's younger audience.

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Wow. Very descriptive. I've spent very little time playing any of the Ultima games, but I've got a good sense of what this one is like. The timer thing sounds like a bad idea. I am confused by a couple of things however.

Allow me to give an example: in order to improve your honesty, you must pay full price to all in-game herbalists, who are all completely blind and require you to count the money into their hands.

I'm not sure what else you want the game to do to show your character has honesty. For valor, I can see wanting something more than not running from battles, but for ideas like honesty, there is only so much you can do.

And you pretty much reprimand the game for most of the review, yet it somehow gets a 7. I get the impression you gave it that score because you do like at least appreciate the attempt at original ideas. I guess I can kind of see that, but it just seems that score just came out of nowhere. I was pretty surprised it scored that high after reading the entire review.

Anyway, I still enjoyed reading it and how you covered all the important features in the game.

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

I enjoyed this review, too. It's interesting to see what made it from the Apple/PC version and what didn't. Now this may be more about my experience with the Ultima series, but I hope you find this extra info useful/entertaining.

The dungeons in the PC are set up differently--for instance, in the PC you can run from monsters, who roam the dungeon just as you do, and you have rooms where you have to push walls to find secret passages. Timers? Awful awful awful.

As for virtue, you're right--there IS only so much you can do in one game, with the memory/disk space involved. And I imagine the NES could not retain a lot of the dialogue from the PC, which may slightly seem like mumbo jumbo but is still interesting.

The PC had an amusing quirk where you could steal from the castle, losing several virtues, before giving extra money to blind reagent sellers, pumping those virtues up to avatar level. And also you could achieve the virtue you needed by finding the right virtuous action to repeat. Sometimes it'd be talking continuously to the same person and answering them correctly.

It's dilemmas like this that spawned the sequel Ultima V where virtue is corrupted into bad laws, and you fight from the inside.

I'm even more interested in the game than before. And I understand where you are coming from, because it's pretty clear what the port had to drop from the PC version.

BTW, I'd be interested to read if you think the PC version works. It's freeware. While bloomer mentions he had trouble getting a start(and so did I,) I was able to do better the second time around.

My principal said, 'Emo, Emo, Emo.'
I said 'I'm the one in the middle, you lousy drunk!'
-- Emo Phillips

It is funny to read a review giving a game such a decent score with the reviewer saying combat literally sent them to sleep. Its funnier still to find myself nodding along to it all.

I gave up on this early on due to the combat, then picked it up again a week later after the other parts of the game kept calling me back. I can't believe the game again punishes you for levelling up by making combat slower and more difficult, but keeping the gold rate flat (all pain, no gain). I have just reverted to a save game to avoid levelling up to 6 (at which point combat becomes tedious). Its not as puzzling a design choice as the maddening penalty for levelling early in Ultima III but it still makes me wonder if these decisions were intentional from people who were clearly talented. You need the valour of a true Avatar to persevere with these games if you work on the sensible assumption that levelling up is a 'good thing'.

I gave up completely on Exodus but having learnt there is an unofficial remastered NES version that addresses some combat issues, I'll be giving that a final chance once I've finished this one off. I also commit the cardinal sin of referring to maps when playing these games (only when I get stuck), rather than drawing maps myself. If you are willing to behave in such ways that prevent you reaching your personal avatarhood, but that soften some the harsh and punishing edges of RPGs from this era there is much enjoyment to be had. I somehow connect with them far more than with RPGs from this century.

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I think I like almost everything about the game except its fairly tedious combat. Well, I can't say I loved having to piece together recipes, either. But the actual 'role-playing' parts outside of combat were very enjoyable, and I liked the visual style at the time. In fact, I sometimes still find myself thinking of the game and wishing that instead of trying so hard to evolve everything, the developers would have tinkered with Avatar a lot more and turned it into the amazing game it almost was. There have been RPGs since that flirt with the edges of such a notion, but this still feels like a missed opportunity.

"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