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Bards Tale 1-3

Started by RedArgo, August 06, 2018, 04:03:19 PM

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RedArgo

Remastered versions of Bards Tale 1-3 due out before the end of the year.  I spent a lot of time playing the first one (maybe the second one too) on the old Apple 2e.  Good times.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/08/06/the-bards-tale-trilogy-remaster-date/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29

Rayfer

I see they added automapping...the graph-paper map drawing required in the original would have had me disinterested in a remastered release. This might be fun to get.

sandman2575

#2
I probably poured more hours into Bard's Tales I-III on my family's Apple IIgs than any other games when I was a kid. Was totally obsessed.  Great, great games.

Still, I doubt I could return to them in 2018. 

Very excited about InXile's newest Bard's Tale offering though. Insta-buy, unless the initial impressions are truly awful, as I hope will not be the case....


EDIT -- actually, looking over the Steam page for the remastered BT 1-3, these look they could be pretty sharp:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Trilogy/

FlickJax


Tpek

Quote from: sandman2575 on August 06, 2018, 06:56:37 PM
I probably poured more hours into Bard's Tales I-III on my family's Apple IIgs than any other games when I was a kid. Was totally obsessed.  Great, great games.

Still, I doubt I could return to them in 2018. 

Very excited about InXile's newest Bard's Tale offering though. Insta-buy, unless the initial impressions are truly awful, as I hope will not be the case....


EDIT -- actually, looking over the Steam page for the remastered BT 1-3, these look they could be pretty sharp:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Trilogy/

If you go to the official website:
https://bardstale.com/

You can get already pre-purchase BT4.
If you get the 75$ bundle, you're supposed to also get the original BT 1-3 with an emulator to play, plus instant access to the BT4 beta on steam.


CJReich46

Interesting. I remember seeing the ad for the first one when I was a kid.

This might be on my list.- dammit.

" He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all."  - James Graham 1st Marquis of Montrose

sandman2575

Quote from: sandman2575 on August 06, 2018, 06:56:37 PM
Very excited about InXile's newest Bard's Tale offering though. Insta-buy, unless the initial impressions are truly awful, as I hope will not be the case....


Wow, looks like I spoke too soon -- or without being in fuller possession of the facts (...not the first time that's happened !). Was really excited about the new Bard's Tale, Barrow's Deep, until I dug a little deeper (ha) to see how it has evolved. 

And it looks like an absolute trainwreck.   >:(

https://steamcommunity.com/app/566090/discussions/0/1744469130468368645/
https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=19047

"Barrow's Deep" appears to be much more in keeping with the dopey, jokey, unwanted stepchild Bard's Tale from the mid-2000s, rather than the true dungeon-crawlers from the '80s.  Why InXile chose to go in this direction is utterly beyond me.

Just look at the character creation video on the Steam mainpage. You create a Bard, and he has all these Guitar Hero animations, rockin' out on his lute with magic sparks flying all about like some lame 80s glam-rock band. 

WTF???

And in the footage of gameplay -- the encounter with "Arthur" with the dagger in his eye.  Hahaha. This is supposed to be... funny, I suppose?

Again, wtf?

The tone is completely off. There were definite flashes of humor and fun in the original Bard's Tale trilogy, but it was never the sort of heavy-handed juvenile nonsense that apparently became a trademark of the 2000s reboot (a game I admittedly never played because it looked bloody awful and seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the original trilogy...) -- and which has apparently returned in spades with Barrow's Deep.

Barrow's Deep also eliminates most of the races for your character builds (no Half-Orcs or Gnomes or Half-Elves or Hobbits anymore!) while introducing a new one -- "Trow" -- that seems utterly gratuitous and a half-baked replacement for the classic choices. Also, there are now a whopping 4 character classes -- Bard, "Fighter", "Practitioner", and Rogue.  Yup. Gone are Hunters, Monks, Paladins. Gone are the 4 magic classes, Magician, Conjurer, Sorcerer, Wizard -- replaced by the catch-all "Practitioner" (and what an inspired stroke that is! Practitioner! Reminds me of a General Practitioner! I.e. something with no lore/magical associations whatsoever!).  Jesus.

Some of this could be forgivable if the gameplay itself looked good. But it does not look good. The presentation has a "Pow! Kablammo!" pyrotechnics that, again, just feels completely tonally off to me.

And apparently random encounters -- which in so many ways was the core of the original Bard's Tale experience -- have been eliminated. No more blundering into a house where "the mystic denizens of this place assault you! You face 4 Kobolds!"  That's pretty much *the game*. How could they tear the heart out of the classic experience like this?

OK -- rant off. Just had to vent some major disappointment. On the plus side -- totally unexpected too -- the remastered Trilogy does look really sharp. Will have to pick it up later this evening. Looks like it's going to be the only way to really get that Bard's Tale feeling back.....






Rayfer

yes, that 2004 Bards Tale game was a mess and waste of time and money.  I found this guy's review for the new Bards Tale 4 coming out in September.  He had some very positives to report.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRtfE7-q0g0

sandman2575

I'm glad some folks are having fun with the Beta, but even in the first 60 seconds of that video, the reviewer refers to how "whimsical" and "playful" the new game is, that it has a "sparkly aesthetic" and "isn't afraid to be silly" --

...which just gets back to my complaint that the *tone* of the new game seems completely off. I'm not at all against humor, believe me! But "whimsical" and "humorous" and (gah!) "sparkly" are not words I'd think of offhand to describe the original BT trilogy.

And yeah, you also get to see the Bard rockin' out at 1:14.  God that's depressing. What were they thinking???


To be less of a negative Nelly -- the Remastered version is really sweet!  I just spent an hour creating a party and wandering around Skara Brae. It's amazing how 30 years later, I can still roughly remember where some key locations are!

Krome Studios appears to have done an outstanding job revitalizing this -- I thought they were just going to brush some stuff up graphically, but they did a lot more than that. It's a thorough overhaul for 2018. Very impressed and very pleasantly surprised.

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

sandman2575

There are many reasons I might be damned, Gus -- curious to know which specific one you're referring to ?   :)

Gusington

I loved the original Bard's Tale when I was a kid...your writeup above is going to get me to buy the enhanced versions. You bastard.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

sandman2575

That's because you should buy them!  They're only $15, and I'm seriously impressed at the overhaul they've pulled off here -- definitely beyond what I thought we'd be getting, in terms of UI improvements and new functionality, not to mention new graphics -- the town of Skara Brae never looked this good in the originals. It looks terrific -- like a game done in deliberate 'retro' style but still a game recognizably 'of' 2018.

Buy and play it, damn you!

:D

bbmike

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence."
-Sherlock Holmes

"You know, just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."
-Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

"There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you!"
-The Doctor

"Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth."
-Clifford D. Simak

Gusington

I can't not get it now.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd