Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar Review
Price: Free
Version Reviewed: 1.4.28
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 5, iPad 2
Graphics / Sound Rating:





Gameplay Rating:





Playtime: Rating:





Replay Value Rating:





Overall Rating:





Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar sees EA taking its famed Ultima franchise and turning it into an online multiplayer hack 'n slash game for mobile. I can imagine that there's a contingent that's possibly outraged about this, but I'm not that contingent. Ultima was before my time, on systems I did not own. So I can appreciate this game for what it is, but also decry it for what it gets wrong.
There's enough of a story here for players to go after and follow, with certain events influencing players' virtue stats. Having this greater purpose versus "here's some dungeons, go crawl them" even if a dungeon crawl is the greatest crawl of all. There's a satisfying amount of depth here, and it's a very compelling game. That it's also built for short sessions helps - I had no problem playing over cellular internet connections, either.
Now, the problem is that any semblance of satisfaction of a reward from getting a treasure chest is drained. Now it becomes a test: just how much satisfaction is the chest going to provide? And hey, the game provides ways to guarantee higher odds of satisfaction just by shelling out real-world money. That the keys are also used to repair equipment seems to defeat the purpose of them not just being money, though.
But the fact that it's impossible to traverse the game without constantly having money matters on the mind takes out a lot of the satisfaction. Even if it is a rare online dungeon crawl game, the constant nagging feeling that happiness is just a few dead presidents away keeps me from truly enjoying this otherwise fine game.