Ultima IV C64 Released for iOS, Overview
-
Category: News ArchiveHits: 1965
The new release is a port of the Commodore 64 version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Ultima IV is the point in the series where it went from being a relatively conventional Western-style role-playing game to focusing more on the concept of the Eight Virtues that would become a recurring theme throughout the majority of the rest of the series. 
The Eight Virtues themselves are Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality and Humility, and in order to succeed in Ultima IV you'll need to practice all of them to become a moral exemplar. Series creator Richard Garriott incorporated the Virtues and their corresponding effects on gameplay into Ultima IV in an attempt to make players think about the consequences of their actions, and the system has since been described as "an industry standard" that went on to influence morality systems in titles such as BioWare's RPGs and the Fable games. 
The main difference between Ultima IV and games that succeeded it is that in Ultima IV you have to be "good" in order to win -- though your progress is not tracked explicitly through point values or meters. Instead, you must role-play your character according to the Eight Virtues in order to become a spiritual leader and the very embodiment of their philosophy. The game is still relatively distinctive in this regard in that it's not, unlike many other RPGs, a quest to defeat a tangible evil, but rather a quest to achieve enlightenment; the "Avatar" that the player becomes at the conclusion of the game goes on to become a mythological figure in the fictional lands of Britannia -- as well as a recurring protagonist. 
The iOS port makes use of Elite Systems' Commodore 64 emulation software, which allows the game to be played as it was on its original 1985 release. Controls are handled through virtual keyboard and joystick inputs, and the game can be played in either portrait or landscape orientation on your device. The game also comes with virtual recreations of all the physical materials that came with the original version, including a player reference card, a history of the series setting Britannia, and a "Book of Mystic Wisdom."
