Ultima: Quest of the Avatar

North American box art.

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar is a fantasy role-playing video game originally developed by Origin Systems. This port was developed by Newtopia Planning and first released in Japan by Pony Canyon on the Famicom on 1989-09-20, and later in December, 1990 in North America on the NES by FCI. This is a port of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, and, while the game mechanics are similar enough that it should be on the original game's page, like the NES port of Ultima: Exodus, it has enough media differences to warrant its own page.

In the game's story, Lord British is looking someone to embody the eight virtues, rid Britannia of the remnants of Mondain, Minax, and Exodus, and uncover the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. The player must walk the straight and narrow path to become the hero of the land.

Personal

I was already a fan of Ultima: Exodus, when my friend Chris rented this game. I remember being very impressed by greatly improved graphics and music, and he and I worked our way through the manual's built-in walkthrough progressing quite a ways into the game before having to return it. Later, I bought a copy for myself, but I never beat it. While researching the game to get its soundtrack in the Video Game Music Preservation Foundation, I discovered how incredibly boring the game gets near the end, and I've never had much desire to try and beat it.

Status

I own this game on the NES, but I have not beaten it.

Review

Good

• The game reproduces much of the original game, while stream-lining a lot of the menus and input.
• The fully re-drawn graphics look fantastic. The best of any of the ports.
• The sound and music have all been remade. Although I enjoy the original soundtrack, Seiji Toda's new music is among my favorite soundtracks on the entire platform.
• The game's documentation is phenomenal. Not only is it a full-color manual for how the game works with fully illustrated guides to the weapons, items, and monsters, but it also acts as a walkthrough for a large portion of the game with detailed maps and hints. It also comes with a fold-out map of the
• The auto feature in combat really helps speeds things along.

Bad

• Too much of the game is random encounter combat. Each combat can take several minutes, and you have to fight hundreds of battles to become powerful enough to beat the game, so you spend most of the game just killing random enemies.
• Having to control the wind, especially in how it pertains to the hot air balloon, is annoying.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The Japanese cover has a cartoon pilgrim-like Avatar standing on a high ledge overlooking Britannia with rays of sun highlighting the cities. It's practically a religious painting, calling back to the original cover art. This is my favorite cover.

• 

  The North American shows a white-clad Avatar fighting with a sea serpent. It has aspects of the original art, but it's much less interesting.

Documentation

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  North American manual.

• 

  Map - Britannia.

• 

  Map - Dungeons.

• 

  Japanese hint book.

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  Japanese hint book.

• 

  Japanese hint book.

Maps

• 

  Britannia.

Credits

Roles	Staff
Original Designed By	Richard Garriott
Producer	Yasuo Hattori
Director	Kunihiko Kagawa
Designer	Yasuhiro Kawashima
Coordinator	Kouji Ichikawa
Character Designer	Reiko Horimoto
Music	Seiji Toda
Sound Driver	Kazuo Sawa (uncredited)
Illustrator	J.C Staff
English Project Manager	Kunihiko Kagawa
English Translation	Atelier Double Corp.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
Japanese		Seisha he no Michi

Links

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