Overall 9 Graphics 8 Sound 6 Addictive 7 Story 7 Depth 8 Difficulty 4
7.8
A vast RPG world where your actions, good and bad, are always under scrutiny endings
The quest of the Avatar. No, not the blue cat people and nature. Further back. No, not the Nickelodeon cartoon about the element bending. This is a game about becoming the Avatar and leading the people as an example of shining awesomeness. So this game is a morality play. You must adhere to the 8 virtues, and disobeying them hurts your rating with that broken vow.
Now what I like about this game is this game takes all the usual tropes of RPGs and turns them a bit on their head.
Lets take this one for example. In pretty much every other role-playing game, if you're in a house and you see a treasure chest, you open it, right? Thats a bad idea in Ultima:A. Oh you can do it, theres little stopping you. But your soul will know, and its always watching you. You just lost some Honesty, pal.
Or how about this one, you're hurt and trying to get to town and heal, but you come across a random battle. So you run, right? Fine, but you'll be a coward, and lose out on the virtue of Valor.
The 8 virtues: Compassion; Honesty, Honor, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality, Valor - they all play a role in the game. Besides battles and dungeons that you expect challenges - there are many towns you will go to, and even there the people will question or test your will. You will find others to join you, each representing a virtue - and from all 7 you will make a party, which you can change at any time.
Graphics: 8
This game has great detail for a NES game. Everything is aerial view, so there are no roofs, you see right through them. But the floors are detailed with brick lining, there are small touches like mummy-wrapped patients in the hospitals, and my favorite, slightly noticeable secret passages to find in several towns. You do have to contend with some first-person 3-D dungeon mazes, which I used to dread, but the game is good enough that I slogged through them. The detail on characters is quite nice, and I really enjoyed the over world, which is huge for the NES. The selling point for me was the fact this game had many detailed towns to explore, buy stuff, and recruit followers. Although there is a lot of detail for the towns and most character sprites- its not quite so in combat. It suffers from a lack of good backgrounds while fighting, all looking pretty much the same. The 3D mazes are all quite mundane looking and boring also.
The good: The really sweet detailing! The individual tiling on the building floors, the design of individual bandages on a patient! Being able to see a secret door with own eyes if you look close enough! Even the limited bit of shadowing on say, an ankh decoration, looks good.
The bad: The 3D dungeons are dull and fairly lifeless, no real detail other than the occasional fountain or chest.
Sound: 6
There are some simple tunes, but nothing noteworthy. None of its outright awful, but it lacks even one great midi to take this game's sound to levels above average. There are several OK tracks, the town theme, the battle music. There is also a separate music just being in Lord British's castle. The over world music is pretty OK, but nothing really great.
The good: There is nothing awful about the music...
The bad: But there is nothing memorable either, its just there.
Addictiveness: 7
I admit to not being a fan of the Ultima series. It seemed kind of clunky and stuffy. But I really like this game. The open-ended aspect of you being the bringer of divine enlightenment, it smacks of religion, but the game is not heavy-handed about it. I also like that you can be totally failing in one virtue (Sorry Honesty, I just opened ALL the people's treasure at the beginning) and still make it back into good standing eventually. It lets you choose whom your allies are at the time, and with so much to do and explore - there is no rush put upon you. Its like a very early sandbox game.
The good: The game lets you do what you want, when you want!
The bad: As I said, the dungeons were a hassle for me, but thats personal bias and I won't mark the game down for that. At the same end of the coin, having so much freedom also can be stifling if you don't know where to go next for your quest. The people don't quite help you a lot.
Story: 7
You are the spiritual leader, and even Lord British looks up to you. Considering he is like the uber-being in this world, that is awesome. Your whole time playing people will give you information, and sometimes test you - such as the blind shopkeeper who wants to see if you pay him. The element of morality is somewhat simple, but its packed into the game.
The good: Your quest is inwards, but regards things in the real world. Its kind of heavy, man.
The bad: your team mates have little to no personality once they join you. I would have liked to see more about them, and maybe them even helping you a bit understand virtues. There is also a lack of bosses or real conflict other than the struggle to master yourself.. which is a let down and I had to mark the game down on that.
Depth: 8
Secret doors. Secret recipes. A town for each virtue, and several small towns that are out of the way but hold surprises. Recruiting all of your companions and using the castle as your HQ. Being able to talk to Hawkwind the Seer and hear how you are doing with each virtue! All the dungeons to explore too!
The good: There is a lot to do in this game. Seriously those secret doors are cool when you find them, even if they don't lead to anything important.
The bad: A little too much depth? The dungeons are big, and some require steps to get to them. Such as finding runes, they are hidden in towns, but its hard to find some. And the spells, they all cost ingredients. And that sucks, reminds me of FF8 and the stockpiling of spells. Again a lack of cool bosses, and no interaction with your party as people.
Difficulty: 4
Since this game is about mastering the role of the Avatar. The issue is you. Can you sacrifice money to the beggar when you need it to buy a weapon? The other difficulty is navigating dungeons and fighting battles. Once you level up your party, battles are trivial. And with internet, you can find maps to dungeons. This is not a hard game, but its time consuming, like most old RPGs.
The good: its not too hard!
The bad: I wish there was some element of evil to tempt my player, you know, like sneaky riddles in the dungeon, or a devil character. More could be added here!
Overall final score: 7.8
This is my favorite Ultima game for the NES. I like that it tries to do something different other than saving kidnapped princesses or the token evil empires to fight off. None of that here. This game could add more punch, but what you get is a nice slice of old-school RPG grinding, sneakily designed as a play on morality!
Graphics 8 Sound 6 Addictive 7 Story 7 Depth 8 Difficulty 4
Review Rating: 4/5
Submitted: 08-07-14
Review Replies: 2
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