Lessons in Video Game History- The Ultima Saga, Part III- Ultima IV!

[NamerOfStars]

If you peruse any list of "all-time best RPGs", you'll see the Ultima series represented. If you've been reading what I've written on them (previous installments here: Lessons In Video Game History: the Ultima Saga, Part One and here: Lessons In Video Game History: The Ultima Saga, Part 2- Ultimas II and III ), or if you're familiar with the series from another source (or ideally, your own experience), it won't be hard to understand why: they were genre-defining games, and some of, if not THE, first examples of it (that all depends on where you draw the lines of what is and isn't an RPG). And although most who played the series will agree that IV was actually NOT the best of them, it was so different from what come before that it blew all of its competitors away, and stands even today as an example of what you can achieve if you're willing to step outside the established patterns of what works.

Ultima III was a big success, just as its predecessors had been, and Garriott decided to take things even further, not just making refinements, but building a whole new engine for the game. He was also troubled. As with many games of the time, earlier installments had contained, at their ending screens, a notice to report your success to Origin headquarters (or even Garriott himself) for a congratulatory certificate (the equivalent of an "achievement unlocked" notification, but as an actual physical object. Not only did he get swamped (it meant people were not just buying his game, but PLAYING it, but it was still overwhelming), he was disturbed by what he was reading. People told him, in glowing details, about how they'd found quick ways to gain experience, by walking into towns, slaughtering everyone, stealing everything not bolted down, and fleeing before guards could overrun them. Sure, it was all just imaginary stuff in a video game, but would YOU be content hearing you'd prompted all that? Garriott wasn't. So he decided that Ultima IV would be different.

This is a game about becoming a better person. I mentioned in my last MyTake on this subject how the first three (four, with Zero) Ultima games made up the Age of Darkness. The next three (well, four, but we'll get to that) made up the Age of Enlightenment. Gone are the great villains threatening the peace of the world, or the world itself- Mondain, Minax, and Exodus are no more. Now? Now the people grow restive, as they lack something to contrast themselves with. Ennui and malaise are on the rise, and again the land (now unified under one rule as the kingdom of Britannia) needs a champion- but to inspire, rather than deliver. If the imminent threats are gone, what's to stop them from turning on each other and spending the rest of eternity as a collection of warring tribes? Is there no higher calling to which they can aspire? This, then, is your quest: to seek to become a shining example of all eight of the elements of Britannian virtue and become their avatar. So let's jump right in!

If you can look at this cover art and NOT be intrigued, I don't think you count as human

After giving our name and (purely aesthetic again) gender, we get something different:

Um... are we at home, on Earth?

We're going to charge through it, aren't we?

I guess not!

We find an ankh. Then we wander around and find a Ren Faire, where a gypsy gives us a personality test disguised as a tarot reading. Through a triple-elimination bracket, we choose which of the eight virtues we value most. Interestingly, it's not just the final result that matters; every time you choose prioritize one virtue over another (in this sequence), you get some stat bonuses. The final choice will determine what class we start as, as well as our starting location. Map time!

Aw, yeah. You have no idea why I'm enthusiastic about this, but you will.

This, with the exception of changes to the world that occur as the series progresses, is the way the world will look until the end. The letters that you probably can't read depict the land's eight major cities, each of which is tied to one of the eight classes, and its corresponding virtue. Answering the seven questions honestly gave me the final virtue of honesty, which is keyed to the mage class, and starts you near the city of Moonglow, so that's where we begin:

Off we go!

We're down to three attributes now, and we start at level 2 (starting level is determined by class). There's more to say about these changes, but first let's head into Moonglow, there, where a HUGE change awaits us:

Wait, WHAT?

Talk. T is now the command for "talk", instead of "transact". You can actually converse with NPCs now, instead of simply shopping, or having them regurgitate their one talking point. This may seem like a small thing, but it plays an enormous part in making the world come alive and making characters feel like individuals, instead of mouthpieces. Granted, most of them don't have much to say, but this guy is named Calibrini, is the greeter for the town of Moonglow, and will happily direct us towards the Inn or the Healer's. That's already WAY more information than we'd've gotten from an NPC in any of the previous games. It means that this one can be a bit more of a puzzle, and requires exploring the world to find out what needs to be done and how to do it, which also makes it feel more alive. Picking out the right words to trigger topics can be tricky, but it's WELL worth the effort. Exploring around this one town, we learn the location of the shrine of honesty, the mantra we need to use it, and even find the necessary rune stone! (The others are more difficult). We also learn about the new magic system.

As before, a character's magic is limited by their mana points, the maximum is based off your intelligence, multiplied by a percentage determined by your class. Mages are naturally very good at magic; they get twice their intelligence in MP. By Ultima III rules, this would let us throw around Dag Mentars (massed fireballs) almost casually, and even add in (though not pronounce; even magic has its limits) the odd Zxkuqyb (multi-death bolt), but in IV- and for the rest of the series- the main check on magic isn't MP, but reagents. See, each spell consumes a certain amount of specific reagents, generally (but only generally) related to the effects of the spell. For example, the game's cure spell, which removes poison, uses the reagents of garlic and ginseng, so to cast it, we need to buy those, [M]ix them up into a usable spell (it's not the physical form they're supposed to take, as later games make clear, but I always thought of them as potions), and consume it, with the five mana it costs, to cast the spell. Different herbalists sell different reagents for different prices, but the primary limit on spellcasting is money, not MP.

Now, in Moonglow, we also found Mariah, the mage, one of our Companion NPCs, and of the series' long-running (well, from this game on) characters, who won't join us, because we're already a mage. See, your party consists of you, plus up to one other party member for each level after the first. So at level 2, we can already recruit somebody, but your party can't contain more than one person of the same party. This makes it kind of an odd choice to start you in a town with an NPC you can't recruit (every class starts near their class's/virtue's town), since that's where you'll find them. If you scroll back up to the map, you'll see a large island on the far right, near the middle- that's Verity Isle, where Moonglow is (and we are). Verity Isle contains no other towns, so if we want to recruit someone, we'll have to leave the island. Does this mean we need to wait for ship to spawn, like in II, or grind up enough gold to buy one, like in I? No, silly- it means we need a Moongate!

I don't know if playing these games a year apart, they way they'd usually come out before this point, makes a different impression, but just being able to teleport around the map by being in the right place is SO much easier; it really feels like a benediction. We hop through the Moongate and find the city of Britain, where we meet... Gweno.

Didn't I kill you three games ago?

Given that it was impossible to beat Ultima I without killing her, it's kind of surprising to see her alive and well now; I guess she's REALLY forgiving. (Okay, the reality is that most characters in the early games were just friends and fellow SCA members that Richard Garriott knew, and he wasn't going to exclude one just because he made you kill her off before, but I like my explanation better.) I've even managed to recruit her husband, Iolo, into my party, as you can see. Another bonus:

Starvation! Wonderful, wonderful starvation!

See how my F meter (for "Food", naturally) is at zero? And the game isn't instantly ending, Iolo and I are just taking damage? Yes! It's not a game over anymore! Sweet!

Now, the main goal of the game, as I've said, is to achieve eight-parts avatarhood, and become the embodiment of virtue. How do you do that? By being a good person. Many actions will raise or lower your score in a particular virtue, and a few will do both- fighting and killing evil enemies gains you Valor, naturally, and fleeing costs you valor. But not all enemies are evil; wild animals aren't, they only attack you because they're scared or hungry, and attacking them costs you points in compassion. Perhaps you see the problem here. Remember that you're trying to max out your karma in EVERY virtue, then meditate at its respective shrine, once you have the rune and know the mantra:

Like so.

And you achieve partial avatarhood in that virtue. But how do you know when you're ready- what number on the karma meter is enough? Well, you don't- that's the thing. Inside Lord British's Castle, you'll meet the Royal Seer:

Wait, did he say...

I wonder...

His own worst critic, evidently.

(Don't worry if you don't get the joke; it just means you're not old). Anyway, Hawkwind will tell you how you're doing in a given virtue, if you ask. When he says you're good to go, if you have the rune and know the mantra (and where the shrine is), you can go and meditate and get it. But what happens if you get attacked by snakes when you have both Valor and Compassion done? Remember DOOM?

Sorry about all the letterboxing; I have HUMAN eyes, and GOG won't accept a proper aspect ratio.

Yeah, you got that same "Thou hast lost an eighth!" message (and when I first played Ultima a few months ago, that suddenly made sense to me). You had to drive them off without attacking them, which was a pain in the butt. Attack them? You lose an eighth. Run? You lose an eighth. It was funny- here you were, the embodiment of courage and honor, fleeing in terror from an approaching pack of seahorses, for fear they'd attack, and you'd risk having to rebuild that virtue and go meditate again (attacking would only cost a few points, so it was an annoyance more than anything else, but still). More obnoxious, yet no more difficult to fix, was when you'd completed all eight parts, but had yet to finish the pilgrimage to recover the Codex, and someone asks you if you're the Avatar. Say yes? Thou has lost an eighth for a lack of humility! Say no? Well, that's what you're SUPPOSED to do, but you'd think you'd lose an eighth for a lack of honesty!

Now, my writing about this isn't really a retrospective, and it's certainly not a Let's Play; it's just my thoughts on the series. And if you're going to play one of them, Ultima IV is not only the best single game to play (not the best in the series, but the later ones rely on knowing what happened, to who, and how, in this game), but the best place to start, unless you're a completionist (by and large, all you need to know from the first games is that Mondain, Minax, and Exodus were three great threats the Avatar dealt with early in his/her career). And I WOULD encourage you to play it, if you have any interest in video games; it's worth it. And it's dirt cheap, since it's so old. So aside from mentioning that said pilgrimage is a solidly difficult challenge in its own right, I'll add only one thing more, and then end this.

Ultima IV saw the introduction of one of the most popular characters in the series. No, not the Avatar, or his companions, or Lord British; someone else. Someone more... equine. In the town of Paws, if you fight your way past a raging bull, you meet a stablehand who tells you that this is the stable where lives the legendary Smith, the talking horse.

No, I don't know why they thought that was "white".

Unfortunately, "I am Smith" is all he has to say, aside from the generic "I cannot help thee with that" you get when you ask an NPC about something outside of their knowledge base. But he was an important character, and we'll come back to him- later. For now, stay tuned for part 4- beauty and monsters.