Fan nostalgia isn't enough in Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar

Adam Rosenberg — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:45:00 EST

I walked away from a recent preview of Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar feeling anxious. It's not that Dark Age of Camelot dev Mythic Entertainment has a bad game on its hands, I just don't understand how it's supposed to speak to me as a longtime Ultima fan.

Over the last decade, the legendary Ultima series has only yielded two new titles, both free-to-play endeavors: Lord of Ultima and the upcoming Quest for the Avatar. Unlike 2010's browser-based Lord of Ultima MMORTS, Quest for the Avatar is a story-driven action RPG for tablets and PCs. At least with the latest game, we're off to a more familiar start.

Gameplay in Quest for the Avatar is straightforward enough: Your top-down view of the world offers different points of interaction depending on where you are. In towns and other social locations, you're helping people in need resolve various Quandaries (capital Q), with your dialogue selections feeding into boosts to your virtue ratings.

Gallery: Ultima Forever (03/01/2013)

Continue reading Fan nostalgia isn't enough in Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar

Fan nostalgia isn't enough in Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Can Ultima Forever be a worthy entry in the legendary series?

Rowan Kaiser — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:25:00 EST

This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.

If there's any video game on the planet that demands a remake, it's Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar. As arguably the most important title in what I still believe is certainly the most historically important series in video game history, it's something that deserves to be played by as many people as possible.

Yet the years have not been kind to Ultima IV. Unlike certain other games commonly cited as "needing" remakes, Ultima IV comes from an era before in-game tutorials and before the mouse had achieved market saturation. It is, unfortunately, just out of the range of accessible for many, regardless of its reputation.

So when I first heard about Ultima Forever, I was cautiously optimistic. Perhaps a respectful remake could maintain the core of the story while appealing to a much wider audience. Of course what that "core" is may be different things to different people. For me, the core of Ultima IV is the combination of open-world mechanics, conversational freedom, and its rigid morality system. These aspects of the game work together to make Ultima IV an exploration of the world, its inhabitants, and one's self - which, at the time, also meant an examination of the player's relationship with computer games as a whole. Yes, it really was that special.

Continue reading Can Ultima Forever be a worthy entry in the legendary series?

Can Ultima Forever be a worthy entry in the legendary series? originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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