Ultima IV (Amiga)

Ultima IV is arguably the first "true" Ultima, starting the Britannia continuity that would last for the rest of the series. It's unique among RPGs in that there is no major villain who you spend the entire game building up to defeat - your ultimate goal is basically to be a really good role model.

Hidden Developer Message


Saying "OJNAB" to any townsperson results in the phrase "Hi Banjo Bob! Your secret number is 4F4A4E0A".

This is a reference to "Banjo" Bob Hardy, who ported the game to the Amiga. 4F4A4E0A spells "OJN" followed by a newline, but it is unclear whether this is simply another reference or a code.

Unused Dialog
In Serpent's Hold, there are two guards at the gate. Speaking to them cause them to identify themselves as Sentri, which is the wrong dialog.

The correct dialog is as follows: Name: the gate guard. Sex: He Description: A very big guard. Job: Guard the gates, of course. Health: Very strong! GATE: These are the gates to Serpent castle. GUAR: Guard, watch, protect. Art thou here to find courage? Yes: Then thou art at the right place. No: Then perhaps to become a guard!

This is caused by MAPD.LWZ assigning dialog entry 01 to the two guards, instead of 02. When compared to SERPENT.ULT from the PC version, you can see just those two bytes differ.

The incorrect dialog was fixed in the PC version, but snuck back in when distributed on Good Old Games.

Placeholder Dialog
Some characters don't have full dialog, and associated fields are simply filled with A.

This placeholder can be revealed in-game. For example, Barren of Skara Brae (among a few other characters) respond to the player inputting A, and respond with A instead of the default response.