1UP.com’s Essential 100 list (that’s a link to the third quarter of it; find parts 1 and 2 here and here, respectively) takes the somewhat more original approach of ranking games according to their overall importance in the history of gaming, using a tandem ranking system combining the opinions of 1UP’s editors and the votes of 1UP’s readers. (I don’t know if that makes the list any less subjective than any other list, but I trust it more than IGN’s ranking system.)

1UP actually ranked Ultima Online as the 43rd-most essential game already, but it has taken an additional twelve entries on the list to get around to the first single-player Ultima title that ranked: Ultima 4. And while some might say “what took them so long to mention Ultima — any Ultima — at all?”, it’s worth remembering that in lists such as these, later is better (as is a lower numerical rank).

Anyhow, here’s their reasoning for ranking Ultima 4 as they have:

Ultima IV didn’t lack for combat, but battling monsters was not particularly the point. Rather, the game’s design centered on Garriott’s returning hero, the Stranger, who — having saved Sosaria from Exodus — now needed to restore moral guidance to the land. For once in an RPG, victory came not from raising experience levels, earning the best treasure, and conquering a monster. Instead, the Stranger could only ascend to become Britannia’s Avatar by modulating his behavior; how the player approached Ultima IV had greater impact on their chances of success than how many monsters they destroyed.

…

Ultima IV’s underlying message seemed a direct barb at the self-appointed moral crusaders who sought to demonize RPGs. Not only were Garriott and Origin presenting a direct counterpoint to their critics’ claims that RPGs could offer no redeeming values by building a game entirely around the canonization of responsible living, the game offered a subtle but pointed implicit criticism of the genre critics by demonstrating that true moral worth comes from within — and through actions — rather than through rabble-rousing or demonstration. Alas, the irony in seeing an “evil” RPG better present the Christian admonition to back faith with works in quiet modesty than the Bible-waving watchdog decrying the medium seems to have been lost.

Fortunately, the design lessons inherent in Ultima IV didn’t go unnoticed. The game detonated within the RPG space with the force of a high-yield bomb. If Wizardry established RPGs as a genre, Ultima IV ushered in the shape of RPGs as we know them today. Garriott’s change in focus from combat to the hero’s behavior and interaction with non-player characters inspired a more narrative style in RPGs and a move away from the primordial dungeon-crawler. From there, we arrived at Dragon Quest’s charming character vignettes, BioWare’s branching dialogue and morality systems, and Final Fantasy’s grand bombast. If the RPG truly is the most diverse and varied genre in gaming, surely Ultima IV deserves much of the credit for the breadth of its creative reach.

There’s two points I could raise here. The first is that while Ultima 4 actually ranks lower on 1UP’s list than it does on IGN’s, I actually think 1UP’s is the better ranking, personally. Ultima 4 did indeed cause an upheaval in the RPG space, and it did indeed prove that an RPG could be driven by a story — and then one focused on moral development — rather than just by combat and loot. But I think later Ultima games, and games that came after the Ultima series, probably deserve more credit for taking the concept of morality as a plot element and doing interesting things therewith. Ultima 4 certainly laid the foundation, but the important innovations around the concept came later.

The second is that even if you disagree that Ultima 4 should merit a mere 31st-place rank on a list of the most important and influential games of all time, consider this: it’s the first single-player Ultima mentioned on 1UP’s list this far. And there are no other Ultima titles mentioned in the remainder of the third part of their Essential 100 feature. Thus, any other Ultima games that merited mention — and I’m basically assuming it to be a foregone conclusion that more did — are ranked at least 25th, if not higher. There remains hope, in other words, that an Ultima title might crack the top ten at 1UP.

We’ll have to wait and see when they publish the last quarter of the feature.