Ultima: Runes of Virtue

Ultima: Runes of Virtue brought elements of the famous computer series Ultima to the Game Boy in the form of a top-down action RPG adventure in which the player makes their way through dungeons, solves simple puzzles, and fights enemies in real time. The game preserves the theme of virtues on which the Ultima series is built, and the player gradually collects runes corresponding to individual virtues, which moves the story forward while also unlocking new abilities and access to further parts of the world. The player is thus repeatedly drawn back to the question of how to balance a character's strength with the moral principles the entire Ultima series is founded on.

Unlike the classic Ultima games, this is a more action-oriented take, its pacing sped up to suit the handheld – battles take place directly in the environment without switching to a separate battle screen, and the game also offers a two-player mode via link cable, where the second player controls a different character with their own separate set of abilities. The graphics on the monochrome display are clear, the dungeons are visually differentiated through repeating but recognizable tiles, and the music fills in a darker atmosphere than the handheld was usually associated with, with individual melodies changing according to the type of environment the player currently finds themselves in.

For fans of the Ultima series, this was an unusual but interesting experiment in bringing a philosophically oriented RPG series into a portable, more action-focused format without entirely abandoning the idea of virtues as the core of the gameplay. The game still serves today as a reminder of how varied developers' approaches were to adapting computer RPGs for the Game Boy. Even now, players appreciate the dense atmosphere of its dungeons and the fact that the game offers a solid challenge despite its smaller scope compared to the computer originals it loosely follows, albeit in a significantly simplified, portable form adapted to a smaller display.

Why play it: For fans of the Ultima series, this is an unusual but interesting experiment with a dense dungeon atmosphere, bringing a philosophically oriented RPG into a more action-focused, portable format.