If you’ve played Ultima 6, you already know Rowan Kaiser’s answer to the question he poses:

These days, it’s pretty much unthinkable to have a story-based game with combat that doesn’t include a big boss at the end. Back in those days, 1985 and 1990, respectively, it was extremely rare as well. The first three Ultima games included a normal batch of big bosses: an evil wizard, an evil witch, and their spawn, a demonic inhuman named Exodus. Other RPGs and action games of the era all included final confrontations with supervillains like Metroid’s Mother Brain or Wizardry’s Werdna. Ultima III gave some indication of the series’ future by making Exodus unkillable in combat, only defeatable through puzzle-solving, but regardless, your success in the game was still based on a final act of violence.

…The immediate reaction — that maybe having a strong villain makes for better games — doesn’t fly given that the Ultima series in general, and…two incarnations of it in particular, are amongst the greatest RPGs of all time. Ultima IV takes the entire concept of heroism in games and subverts it by asking the player to embody each of eight virtues (Justice, Honesty, etc.) as the “Avatar.” While this could have been viewed as an academic exercise or a novelty, Ultima VI takes the no-Foozle concept and expands upon it to tell a fascinating story.

The kingdom of Britannia, the setting of the Ultima series, is being attacked by gargoyles from the underworld. In a more conventional game, you’d fight off a few attacks, run into an evil wizard or the like controlling the gargoyles, and then defeat his nefarious plot to destroy the world in a final battle. In Ultima VI, the Avatar learns his enemies’ language, earns their trust, and concludes the game with a peace treaty. This narrative is musically embodied in the end of the game with a beautiful little tune that combines the main themes of both the humans and the gargoyles into a single song – no rocking boss music.

Now, to be fair, past Ultima 6, Foozles of one sort or another returned to the series in some way, with Serpent Isle being the only other notable exception (and then not entirely).

And to be even more fair, Foozle-killing is a very common trope in the genres that are most commonly featured in RPGs. In sci-fi, there’s typically a Death Star to blow up, or a Khan/General Chang/Borg Queen/Romulan clone of Picard/Human Reaper to kill. In fantasy, there’s typically a White Witch/Dark Lord Sauron/Archdemon/Batlin/Guardian to be dispatched. In the post-nuclear wasteland, the Master is typically waiting. In a “real world” setting, Dr. No and Ernst Blofeld are typically behind whatever nefarious scheme is afoot.

Killing the foozle is a very common trope.

But it’s also a trope that, when subverted, makes for hugely compelling storytelling. The Empire Strikes Back is memorable because it flips the Foozle script; Luke fights Vader, but Vader leaves the encounter with barely a scratch, whilst Luke is left maimed and half-dead. The movie ends with a massive question mark hanging over…basically everything.

So too Ultima. We can argue all day about whether Ultima 6 or Ultima 7 has a better interface, or better controls, or offers the more immersive experience. But Ultima 6 easily wins for plot and story; Ultima 7 is a very basic “chase” story with an impressive amount of sandboxing surrounding it.

Anyway, be sure to read all of Rowan’s article, which goes on to examine other games that subverted the Foozle formula to great effect.

Note: I’ve already pinged Rowan about his use of the Ultima wiki at Wikia.