Anyone with a modicum of interest in CRPG history knows what a watershed moment Ultima IV was - for the first time outside text adventures, we see rich worldbuilding, a backstory that plays more of a role than simple window dressing, and two mainstays of the genre; choice & consequence and morality systems. It's these last two which are best known as Ultima IV's raison d'etre, and in time, perhaps the defining elements of the late 90's CRPG renaissance.
Truth be told, when I played Ultima IV for the first time 15+ years ago - I used the xu4 port with modern enhancements - I couldn't help feel I had been oversold on its momentousness. Certainly it deserved plenty of credit for introducing the concept of ethical decisions to the formula, arguably the only thing that justifies the "RP" part of the CRPG initialism. But in practice, I never felt like I was making any sort of ethical decisions at all; the virtues are little more than semi-visible stats which you'll need to max out in order to win the game, and the gains or loss of virtue points is the only consequences you'll ever see for your actions. Some got there through normal play, but most had to be grinded out through repetitive actions - for instance, the only way to raise Honesty is by paying your apothecary bill correctly, and I'd reach the necessary levels by making lots of small purchases over the course of several minutes.
This time, as with previous Ultimas, I'm playing the Apple II version, with unmodified copies from the Woz-a-day collection. Ultima IV also goes a step further than Ultima III's Mockingboard music board support, already an uncommonly supported feature in the system's library, and supports stereo-format music on systems with dual Mockingboards. AppleWin, of course, supports this configuration just fine.
Once again, Origin Systems gave Ultima a deluxe packaging treatment on its initial release, including a useless but fancy-looking pewter ankh amulet among the goods. The cloth map now depicts Britannia more or less as it would be for the rest of the series. A 60-page spellbook offers elaborate descriptions and full page illustrations for each of the magical reagents and spells, which are no longer split into mage and priest types. Lastly, of course, is a lengthy manual, front-loaded with history and lore.
The manual opens with a heavily redacted recap of Ultimas I-III - now that the series is invested in its own continuity and cohesion, it's got to revise or remove everything from past games that doesn't fit, and this would be the last time that the series needed to do this. The past is declared the Eras of Darkness, a feudal period in which the unincorporated land of Sosaria was thrice threatened by evil, and thrice saved by heroic adventurers - not necessarily the same adventurers, nor necessarily the Avatar. The time-traveling shenanigans are downplayed, the twist about Exodus' true nature is lampshaded but not explained, the fact that Ultima II was set mostly on Earth isn't brought up at all, and the totally inconsistent geography of Sosaria is handwaved; it is what it is and the events of Ultima III reshaped the world into the way it is now and will always be. Honest.
With the fall of Exodus, an era of relative peace begins. Eight kingdoms unite under the benevolent rule of Lord British, making the city-state Britannia the capital of the newly unified empire. The lands are charted, the remaining enclaves of evil routed, and academies of science, spirituality, and militarism are opened. Britannia-by-the-sea, overlooked by Lord British's castle, becomes an epicenter for culture and art. The seven other former kingdoms each have their own geographical features and respective capital cities dedicated to a craft or trade. Life, it seems, is good. Evil of course cannot be completely vanquished - orcs, highwaymen, and even wild animals make travel in the wilderness dangerous, pirates remain a nuisance at sea, and true horrors still lurk deep in the unexplored subterranean realms, but for most, day-to-day life is one of stability and prosperity.
The manual explains gameplay mechanics, which are for the most part similar to Ultima III, but there are some notable changes and additions. Your party is recruited from willing companions met during the game - a feature mentioned in Ultima III's manual, but not actually present. Conversation is greatly expanded, with townsfolk responding to keywords, namely NAME/JOB/HEALTH, but also to topics which can be discovered through investigation. Magic requires mixing reagents, which can be purchased at any town's herb shop, though some of the rarer reagents needed for the most powerful spells must be sought out in the wilderness.
The final chapter alone touches on Ultima IV's objective - humanity has survived, great evil is at bay, now what? Society needs principals to last in the long run, and people need inner fulfillment to make life worth living.
A group of philosophers at the Lycaeum have discovered the eight virtues that make the path to enlightenment. Many have dedicated their lives to a virtue or two, but the people must know and strive to attain them all. Therefore, Lord British seeks a champion - to become the Avatar and be the paragon of virtue for all to follow, you must visit the eight cities, learn of the virtues, their mantras, and meditate on and practice them. Only then, after achieving mastery in all eight virtues, in both understanding and practice, can one seek to discover the secrets of universal harmony and usher in the Age of Light.
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| This symbol on the back of the manual illustrates the cycles and connections between virtues. |
Personally, I find this to be a lot of wooey nonsense, even if the video game world had certainly not seen anything like it before, and perhaps not very often since. The actual philosophy on display here is pretty juvenile - the selection of eight virtues is a bit arbitrary, and the convenient geometric symmetry that governs it contrived and mostly superficial. It strikes me as a new age syncretism of ancient moral and mystic frameworks, with aspects of Tantra, Tao, and Kabbalah, but without the cultural context needed to even begin to follow any of them, and shed of all aspects of the supernatural and divine apart from pantheistic-like reverence for the abstract concept of virtue itself.
Nevertheless, it's clear that Ultima IV became a launching point for ethics as a gameplay mechanic, which is something that's not just been ubiquitous in Western RPGs but has transcended into other genres. Quest for Glory is one example that stuck with me in real life - do good things and your honor score improves, do bad things and your honor score diminishes, which has real consequences for paladins, whose powers depend on honor, but for other classes it is merely a point of personal conscience, as it is in real life. No game to my knowledge has attempted the superficially complex ethical system of Ultima IV, not even its sequels. Some games, such as the Elder Scrolls and Fallouts supplement it with a complex reputation system, where actions can raise and lower your individual approval ratings among individuals and factions, but as far as the omniscient game world is concerned, there's good karma and there's bad karma. And honestly? I find that easier to swallow.
Next post, I'll actually start playing the game.
I’ve been playing U4 a bit recently. It is probably the first time I’ve played since 1990 or so after they finally released an MS-DOS conversion in 1988. While now dated… it broke open so many new vistas at the time!
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to read you weren’t that keen on Ultima IV when you played it the first time. I had a similar reaction to it when I played it on my Apple II clone shortly after release. I think one reason why I didn’t appreciate it was because of the morality system. I didn’t find it interesting and I also had a bit of a personal grudge against Lord British. The first Ultima I played was Ultima II on my Atari 400. It had a bug in it where you could never leave the starting continent because you were never given the required silk tassel. I spent dozens of hours stuck in the game. So playing Ultima IV and reading about the various virtues didn’t sit well with me.
ReplyDeleteMy bad luck with the Ultima series continued when I bought Ultima VI on my PC clone. I again bought it when it was released and it was incredibly buggy, the game got corrupted. Bridges disappeared and characters were stuck in unreachable locations. After getting stuck with two very buggy Ultima’s I didn’t want to be lectured on virtues. I had much better luck with the Wizardry series.
I did like the game. I just felt its reputation for sophisticated morality-based gameplay and narrative had been really inflated. I had heard that Ultima IV was all about true roleplaying and character development and made you wrestle with moral dilemmas. One source even said it was more sophisticated than any modern RPG - most feature a one-dimensional karma meter, and Ultima IV featured eight! And of course, everyone knows about the radical idea that Ultima IV has no big baddy to beat and just asks you to become a better person. So once I figured out what's actually going on and just beat the game almost as I would any other RPG, ol svtugvat zl jnl gb gur obggbz bs n qhatrba naq nafjrevat evqqyrf vafgrnq bs svtugvat n obff, I felt a bit disappointed.
DeleteI think claims that Ultima IV has sophisticated morality-based gameplay elements are probably conflating the character creation choices in the fortuneteller's tent with the rest of the game. The various scenarios/choices the fortuneteller faces you with are true moral quandaries where there's no obvious correct choice, so they do invite some actual roleplaying in your responses (if you're not, say, using a guide to min-max your reposes to get the class you want). This is in stark contrast to the morality-based gameplay of the majority of the game which, as you note, is mostly grinding specific actions to gain points in the various virtues. I think it's fair to say that more truly sophisticated roleplaying/ethical choices in later CRPGs could be taking inspiration from U4's character creation scenarios.
DeleteRegardless, this game still blew my kid mind when I played it on the Apple II in its release year, both for "improve thyself" being the main quest instead of defeating a baddie, and because the worldbuilding was so rich - I suspect U4's manual/spellbook provide one of the best enrichments of a game experience via physical extras outside of Infocom's mystery game feelies.