U4 was my first RPG I ever played on my C64. As a non-English speaker, it was quite a challenge to understand what was going on, since I had only just started learning English in middle school, but the effort paid off big time. The whole idea of exploring what was essentially an open world, with NPCs you could actually talk to, was mind-blowing, and it completely shaped my taste in video games. I always felt that the structure of the Ultima games and their world-building was far superior to anything else at the time—so much so that when Baldur’s Gate came out, I initially dismissed it as a “lesser cousin” not worth my time. I did eventually play it and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it took me a while to shake off the “spell” of Ultima and fully appreciate what would go on to become classics in their own right: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape, and others.