Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar hasn’t been attracting a huge amount of attention from the gaming press since its soft launch on the Canadian iOS App Store, but a few reviews and previews of it have been published.

148Apps: It Came from Canada: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar for iPad Previewed

Ultima Forever looks much as it did when we took a look at it at GDC earlier this year. The one thing we get to see that we did not see then was how EA plans to monetize this freemium game. Unfortunately EA has taken the route of what amounts to play to win, but just one step removed. In the current version of Ultima Forever you can purchase keys. The type of key you have determines the quality of loot you get when you open up the chests you find in the game. If you use gold keys you get way better look than if you use bronze keys. You can purchase gold keys, yet rarely find them in the game. You will generally find bronze keys which yield low level loot.

That said, the game will likely still be fun, if you choose to play it properly.

MMORPG.com: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar Previews: Mobile Gaming Gets Serious

It’s worth noting that Ultima Forever (U4E) is a recreation not of the later open world RPGs or Ultima Online, but rather a direct “remake” of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. If you go into U4E expecting something akin to VII or UO, you might be disappointed. This isn’t supposed to replace Ultima Online.

If however you go into Ultima Forever expecting a faithful recreation of one of the series’ key turning points, you just might be pleasantly surprised. Add to that the fact that it’s more MMO than most “Mobile MMOs”, and that it’s probably the deepest RPG I’ve yet played on the iPad. It’s a game I’d gladly sit down and play on my PC if they ever port it over. My biggest complaint is one that does need to be addressed before a wide release, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

That “biggest complaint”, of course, is — as with 148Apps, above — the way the game has been monetized:

I’m totally onboard with mobile games employing a Freemium model. And in fact, I’d wager that a large group of the game’s players will gladly spend money to add to their experience. But the core games that are going to be genuinely drawn to a brand new Ultima title will be put off by just how much of the game is unlocked by “keys”.

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Oh, and then there’s your gear. It all breaks down and needs repairs or you’ll have to equip new items. Say you find a really epic piece of equipment you want to use for a while. Well, as you use it it’ll start to break down and lose effectiveness. And unless you use (you guessed it) silver or gold keys to keep it repaired, you’ll eventually break it and find it unusable. I also hope you like running a lot, because even something as simple as fast-travel to a dungeon is gated by silver keys. Mind you, you can get silver keys simply by converting the multitude of bronze keys you’ll find. But you’ll quickly realize that you’re not getting enough to play the game at its full potential, and you’ll start itching to buy some gold or silver keys to make your experience more convenient. You can complete “offers” from various sponsors to get free keys, and even I signed up for a FreeCreditReport.com account just to get 90 gold keys, spend them, and then cancel the free account… but is that really what these freemium games are coming to?

That said:

it’s definitely not all bad. In fact, despite these troubles, I can’t put the thing down. I drained my battery on Sunday afternoon, and was ticked I needed to wait to charge up the tablet before I play again. The entirety of the game’s content is there for the taking without ever paying a dime. And patient people will likely never feel the need to get more backpack space, fast-travel, or unlock more tarot card slots. They’ll also not care if they’re constantly using common gear and dropping the broken stuff. But the game’s more fun when you can get and keep shiny purple loot, and it’s frustrating to see it go broken unless you spend a little cash. And, praise be to the gods of gaming, at least they don’t monetize death. If you fall in battle or to a trap, you’re simply able to resurrect at the nearest Ankh checkpoint in the dungeon.

TouchArcade: ‘Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar’ First Impressions

As it stands, Ultima Forever is a fun grind, but missing aspects that are commonplace in many RPG games, and currently has a very limited social aspect. When the game is launched worldwide, hopefully the majority of these issues will be addressed. You can discuss your feelings of Ultima Forever in the forums, perhaps find some people to group with, and let us know what you think of the game. I’ll be sure to have a review ready for its full release.

AppsGoer: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar Review

You will notice right away that Ultima Forever is gorgeous. The characters and monsters are rendered in 3D and look great, but it is the beautifully hand-painted 2D backgrounds that really shine. An amazing amount of detail has gone into every corner of the world and the backgrounds look simply spectacular, especially on a retina display. The character portraits that are used during dialogue are also hand-painted and equally impressive.

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The game uses Virtue as experience points. Virtue is divided into eight different types: Spirituality, Valour, Humility, Honour, Compassion, Honesty, Sacrifice, and Justice. Each town in the game values a different set of Virtues. As your Virtue of a certain type increases, so too does your reputation in towns that value that particular Virtue. A higher reputation with a town will cause its people to trust you more and provide you with more quests. Any kind of Virtue you gain contributes to a shared Virtue bar that will cause you to level up each time you fill it. The Virtue system is a really clever take on experience points that makes the impact of moral decisions more meaningful.

Their closing thoughts:

Mythic has to iron out some kinks with the game’s performance, but I’m hopeful it will get much better before they release the game worldwide. If you have a Canadian App Store account, this is a great epic-length RPG to try for free. If you don’t, Ultima Forever will be released worldwide this summer, with a more specific date being announced in June at E3. Finally, if you don’t have an iOS device that’s powerful enough to run Ultima Forever, it will also be coming to Android, PC, and possibly other platforms by the end of the year.

So far, the game seems to be generating mixed thoughts. A lot of it comes up for praise, especially its art style and in-game systems, but in most cases it’s the monetization that gets singled out as the major issue the game suffers from (some reports of instability and crashes also can be found, but these seem few in comparison). Hopefully that’s something Mythic can streamline and smooth out a bit before the game goes into wide release at some point this summer.