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Ultima VI:The False ProphetOrigin Systems, 1990DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, C64 and SNES**Thanks to Nuvie,Ultima VI can alsobe played underWindows, Linuxand Mac OS X.The game alsohad a japaneseFM-Towns version,that addedvoice acting byRichard Garriottand other Originemployees.The Shrines ofVirtue allow theAvatar to level up,once they havebeen liberated.Each confersdifferent statbonuses, basedon its respectiveVirtues.Ultima VI must have come as a shock to Ultimafans when it was first released, so wildlydid its graphics depart from the design of thefirst five titles in the series. Gone were the overheadtiles and dual-scale worlds that had been staples of theseries; full-color isometric graphics and a continuous,open world awaited the Avatar.From the first moments of its introduction,Ultima VI marks itself as different. The turn-basedcombat is the first aspect of the game that players experience,and the initial battle plays out in the middleof Lord British’s throne room!It’s a grim picture that is painted as the gameopens: Britannia is under attack by a new and terrifyingfoe. The Gargoyles have marched out of thedepths of the world, killed many of the realm’s soldiers,and have seized the eight Shrines of Virtue.And it’s up to you to stop them. Ultima VI thus seemsto set up a very generic tale about a hero ridding afantasy realm of an army of monsters. And were thisany other game, that might well have been the scopeof its story.But this is an Ultima; Ultima VI twists its storyaround in a brilliant act of narrative subversion. TheGargoyles, we soon learn, have a legitimate grievanceagainst Britannia, one which upends the Avatar’sseemingly noble actions in Ultima IV and Ultima V.For, as the player will soon learn, the Codex was notBritannia’s to claim; it has, in fact been stolen. And therescue of Lord British precipitated a horrifying cataclysmthat devastated the Gargoyle people and theirhome. Now, bereft of their holy book and reeling fromthe destruction of much of their world, they have setout to pay back Britannia in kind for its misdeeds.And it is only by finding a way to reconcile the warringsides, to forge peace, that the Avatar can prevail.In fact, Ultima VI gives players the option toalmost completely avoid the use of violence. It isn’teven necessary to level up to finish the game, andthere are only two or three fights that are genuinelyunavoidable. (The opening battle, notably, is not oneof these.) Clever players can, for the most part, findways to carry out each piece of the game’s plot usingnon-violent methods, and some parts of the plot caneven be skipped entirely.Not that one can’t find combat if one goes lookingfor it; there are plenty of random encountersscattered across Britannia. Ultima VI’s monsters areusually not difficult to best even at lower experiencelevels, but some of them can be truly devastating incombat. (Battle-hardened Avatars can even test theirmettle against the dragons of Destard...if they dare.)Of course, you don’t need to throw yourself outinto Britannia alone. The Avatar’s companions fromprevious games can be found all across the land, someof them eager to join you again. New NPCs can alsobe found, to further fill out the ranks, and up to sevenparty members can be recruited.44