History VideoGame / UltimaIV

* NintendoHard: Of all the playtesters, only Richard Garriott himself actually ''finished'' the game before it was released. If you can complete the game without using internet spoilers, you deserve a ''medal''. Also, ironically, the NES port is a lot easier than the original.

''Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar'' was a 1985 video game, the fourth installment of the legendary ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series by Creator/OriginSystems. No one can deny that ''Ultima IV'' was a masterpiece (even if modern gamers [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny are likely to wrestle, at best, with the interface]]) that took the still-nascent concept of the "role-playing video game" and turned it completely on its ear in a way that, even decades later, ''still'' hasn't really been replicated, but has informed virtually every [[WesternRPG Western-made role-playing game]] that came after it.

* PlayerPersonalityQuiz: Quite possibly the TropeMaker. Unlike the previous games where you specified your characters' class and attributes directly, you now have to answer seven simple questions on how you would act in certain dilemmas. This determines your character class, starting location and your initial standing on the game's eight [[KarmaMeter Karma Meters]].

A {{freeware|Games}} version was distributed on the Internet in 1997. In 2011 Creator/ElectronicArts began issuing C&D orders to people distributing it after 14 years of salutary neglect. This has caused some concern in the community, but the game remains legally free on [[http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_4 Good Old Games]] and should be played by anyone with even a passing interest in [[RolePlayingGame role-playing games]].

** However, "Lord British" is not his original name, as it is [[AllThereInTheManual told in the manual to an earlier game]] how he arrived from Earth, and people started calling him "British" after he said he is from Britannia (the British Isles) on Earth.

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Iolo and any other bard in the NES port.

In the MagicalLand of Britannia... all of the {{Big Bad}}s are dead. The [[VideoGame/UltimaI evil wizard Mondain]] is dead. His [[VideoGame/UltimaII apprentice Minax]] is dead. Their [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot child/demon/computer]]... thing, [[VideoGame/UltimaIII Exodus]]... was destroyed. While there are still [[LockedInTheDungeon dungeons]] and RandomEncounters, there is NoAntagonist to fight. [[PostModernism Nothing for the people to hope for; no more heroes for them to emulate.]]

[[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Can there be Good without an external Evil to fight?]] The [[BenevolentMageRuler magical ruler]] of Britannia, [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]], [[SummonEverymanHero summons the Stranger of old]] who defeated those evils with a very new, very different task. Become the Champion of Virtue for people to have a goal to achieve. Master the [[KarmaMeter Eight Virtues]] and find the Answer to this postmodern dilemma in [[GreatBigBookOfEverything The Codex of Wisdom]], located in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Great Stygian Abyss]]. Fulfill the [[TitleDrop Quest of The Avatar]].

** Sadly, played straight in the NES remake. No monster you encounter in the game will run from you, forcing you to kill any monster you randomly encounter.

*** Independently from the above system, there are 8 armors, 8 long-range weapons and 8 short-range weapons (in the NES remake: 11 armors, 6 long-range weapons and 9 short-range weapons). There are also 8 reagents used to cast spells (the total number of spells is 26, though).

* ArtifactOfDoom: Mondain's Skull (remember, the villain from ''VideoGame/UltimaI''). Using it would instantly wipe out every living thing in the player's current location, except for Lord British (even Lord British in the NES remake). It also drove your KarmaMeter (all of them!) to 0. The warnings about its evil tend to be pretty explicit, especially in the PC versions where the person who directs you to it tells you it is an artifact of pure evil, so it ends up doubling as SchmuckBait to tempt players.

* BigBad: One of the first aversions in gaming history, as part of the point is that there is no villain.

* FinalExamBoss: The final dungeon requires answering questions to each virtue introduced throughout the course of the game, and the final opponent flings 13 of those questions in a row, as the challenge is based on mastering virtues rather than being powerful characters. There's a few attempts to answer each question, but failing to answer them flings you outside of the difficult gauntlet.

* GenderFlip: in the NES remake, Julia, a woman companion, was replaced for some odd reason with ''Julius'', a burly looking male.
* GenreShift: The NES remake (developed in Japan) plays much more closely to a Japanese role-playing game than a western one, streamlining much of the gameplay and introducing RandomEncounters.

** On the NES remake, you will probably wonder why some of your virtues such as honesty keeps going down despite answering to the best of your ability to be virtuous. Answers are about humility, more than honesty. It takes a bit of trial and error to identify which conversations hold this trap.
* JokeCharacter: If after taking the intro quiz your highest virtue is humility then you get the shepherd class. Leather armor, a marginally better weapon selection than the mage, no magic, a poor trap disarming ability (though no worse than that of over half the other classes), and you start the game at a lower level than the other classes, stranded on an island infested by demons with no shops and no clear way out.
** On the other hand, there is a MagikarpPower potential here, but only in the NES remake. If you know what you're doing it's fairly easy to level up quickly. Once you ''do'' master the powers of the Avatar, you can equip anything and cast any spell, even if you're a Shepherd.

* MagicMusic: The Silver Horn drives devils away when played. Also, Katrina can play the flute in the NES remake to put enemies to sleep.
* MagikarpPower: The Shepherd class for the main character, but only in the NES remake. While it has no special powers itself, the main character eventually gains access to all capabilities regardless of his/her starting class... Hence, if you start as a Shepherd your final party will be stronger, since you won't have to bring a useless non-Avatar Shepherd to the final dungeon. [[note]] Mind that in the NES version your party is limited to three companions plus the Avatar, rather than allowing a slot for each profession like in some versions of the game. Keeping Katrina out of your party is actually extremely easy in the NES port. [[/note]]

* NintendoHard: Of all the playtesters, only Richard Garriott himself actually ''finished'' the game before it was released. If you can complete the game without using internet spoilers, you deserve a ''medal''. Also, ironically, the remake released on the NES itself is a lot easier than the original.

** The NES remake does this in a sneaky way, as they aren't step based; they are time based. Meaning if you wait long enough on the overworld surface in one spot, a battle will start.

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Iolo and any other bard in the NES remake.

''Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar'' was a 1985 video game, the fourth installment of the legendary ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series by Creator/OriginSystems. No one can deny that ''Ultima IV'' was a masterpiece (even if modern gamers [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny are likely to wrestle, at best, with the interface]]) that took the still-nascent concept of the "role-playing video game" and turned it completely on its ear in a way that, even three decades later, ''still'' hasn't really been replicated, but has informed virtually every [[WesternRPG Western-made role-playing game]] that came after it.

* RandomEncounter: The NES remake does this in a sneaky way, as they aren't step based; they are time based. Meaning if you wait long enough on the overworld surface in one spot, a battle will start. Averted in the PC version as the encounters are not random at all, and in fact you can actually see enemies coming toward you. Still somewhat meaningless, as unless you have a method of transportation such as a ship or horse, the terrain will inevitably slow you down until the monster catches up and attacks you (though non-evil animals will wander more randomly).

** Multiple enemies can be packed into a single NPC icon, typical for the series or genre.

** The items required to complete the game can only be found through the "search" command. Their location can be hinted at by friendly characters, but otherwise the spot where the item is supposed to be appears perfectly normal and featureless (not always, though).

* AbsurdlyLowLevelCap: You may start the game anywhere from level one to three (depending on your class) and can progress up to a whopping level [[ArcNumber eight]]. Of course, this is the game where the KarmaMeter matters a lot more than the ExperienceMeter, and don't assume that getting even to this level cap is going to be easy.

* LighterAndSofter: According to ''The Official (Spoiler) Book of Ultima''. The concept for the game came about when Garriott noted MoralGuardians' response to the first 3 games. He realized that while they were wrong for the most part, the StrawmanHasAPoint, and so the concept for the fourth game was born. This is one of the few examples of this trope where the series actually gained more depth and character because of it, rather than the opposite.

** In fact, just see the [[Trivia/UltimaIV Trivia section]].

* FinalExamBoss: The final dungeon requires answering questions to each virtue introduced throughout the course of the game, and the final opponent flings 13 of those questions in a row, as the challenge is based on mastering vitrues rather than being powerful characters. There's a few attempts to answer each question, but failing to answer them flings you outside of the difficult gauntlet.

[[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Can there be Good without an external Evil to fight?]] The [[SorcererKing magical ruler]] of Britannia, [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]], [[SummonEverymanHero summons the Stranger of old]] who defeated those evils with a very new, very different task. Become the Champion of Virtue for people to have a goal to achieve. Master the [[KarmaMeter Eight Virtues]] and find the Answer to this postmodern dilemma in [[GreatBigBookOfEverything The Codex of Wisdom]], located in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Great Stygian Abyss]]. Fulfill the [[TitleDrop Quest of The Avatar]].

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Averted, because headcount is strictly defined by specific rules: you can have one party member for each level you gain (meaning that at level 1 you only have one slot, for yourself). And the level {{cap}} is [[ArcNumber eight]].

* MagikarpPower: The Shepherd class for the main character, but only in the NES remake. While it has no special powers itself, the main character eventually gains access to all capabilities regardless of his/her starting class... Hence, if you start as a Shepherd your final party will be stronger, since you won't have to bring a useless non-Avatar Shepherd to the final dungeon. [[note]] Mind that in the NES version your party is limited to three companions plus the Avatar, rather than allowing a slot for each profession, like in some versions of the game. [[/note]]

* ArtifactOfDoom: Mondain's Skull (remember, the villain from ''VideoGame/UltimaI''). Using it would instantly wipe out every living thing in the player's current location, except for Lord British (even Lord British in the NES remake). It also drove your KarmaMeter (all of them!) to 0. Since many players at the time didn't realize there ''was'' a KarmaMeter...

In 2013, EA released ''Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar'', a free-to-play MMORPG re-imagining of the game on [[IOSGames iOS]] mobile devices, shut down in August, 2014.

* CutShort: The [[IOSGames iOS]] version was launched on May 22, 2013 in Canada, and worldwide on August 8, 2013, before being shut down in August 2014.

* SpoilerBook: Officially spoilers almost everything.

** However, "Lord British" is not his original name, as it is [[AllThereInTheManual told in the manual to an earlier game]] how he arrived from Earth, and people started calling him "British" after he said he is from Britannia on Earth.

* MagikarpPower: The Shepherd class for the main character, but only in the NES remake. While it has no special powers itself, the main character eventually gains access to all capabilities regardless of his/her starting class... Hence, if you start as a Shepherd your final party will be stronger, since you won't have to bring a useless non-Avatar Shepherd to the final dungeon. [[note]] Mind, in the NES version your party is limited to three companions plus the Avatar rather than allowing a slot for each profession. [[/note]]