The Avatar
The player-created hero who seeks mastery of the eight virtues and the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.
Documented for this version
D-pad | Move the party or move the cursor during commands. |
|---|---|
A | Confirm a selection or interact with the highlighted command. |
B | Cancel or return to the previous menu. |
How it plays
The player controls the Avatar from an overhead perspective while exploring Britannia, towns, shrines, wilderness, and dungeons. Conversations provide clues, recruit companions, and reveal the virtue system's central questions.
Turn-based combat switches to a tactical battlefield. The party can move, attack, cast spells, use items, and exploit terrain. Progress comes from learning virtue principles, improving equipment and abilities, recruiting allies, finding the eight virtue shrines, and ultimately obtaining the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.
Plan your run
Ask townspeople the same questions in different locations and record their clues; many objectives are discovered through conversation rather than explicit markers.
Meet the cast
The player-created hero who seeks mastery of the eight virtues and the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.
The ruler of Britannia and the Avatar's principal patron.
The mystic who evaluates the Avatar's progress in the virtues.
A skilled bard and one of the Avatar's potential companions.
A ranger and recurring ally in the Ultima series.
A courageous fighter and companion associated with the virtue of Valor.
Before you begin
Talk to nearly everyone in each town and revisit important NPCs after major discoveries.
Save before entering unfamiliar dungeons or making decisions tied to virtue progress.
Use ranged attacks and terrain to reduce unnecessary damage in tactical battles.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is a fantasy role-playing game developed by Origin Systems and adapted for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Pony Canyon. Instead of focusing on a single villain, it asks the player to become an Avatar by studying and practicing eight virtues: Honesty, Compassion, Justice, Sacrifice, Valor, Spirituality, Humility, and Truth. Exploration, conversation, dungeon expeditions, and turn-based battles form the core play style. The NES edition reshapes the computer original with simplified presentation, a redesigned interface, and hardware-specific changes while retaining its philosophical premise. The game was historically praised for its ambition, open-ended progression, and ethical theme, though the console adaptation is more streamlined and differs substantially from the original in content and balance.
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