The Bard's Tale ARPG: Remastered and Resnarkled

I consider it as one of the most pleasant games I’ve ever played. This and Divinity 2: Developer’s Cut! Amazing game with the titular protagonist. Simple battle with swords and bows, but the Bard also has in his repertoire his summoning spells-songs. Another great thing is that the summoned creatures aren’t timed. They’ll continue to exist until dead, or you dispel them. You also get the chance to have a great dog companion (if you are nice), which fights and unearths simple loot from the ground for you! Speaking of loot, there is no need to return to merchants to sell it. Whatever equipment is better than what you have, becomes available for use and if you find inferior items than what you have, they automatically turn into coins. Incredibly funny game. From the quests, to the loot, the narrator, and the dialogues. The game has a rich story and very addictive gameplay. I couldn’t stop playing in order to see what will happen next! Furthermore, all dialogue lines are voice acted, and superbly so! Even merchants’ descriptions about their stock! I found myself pressing to repeat the same line, just to listen it again! And let’s not forget the songs! There is enemy respawn if you exit an area and re-enter. No manual saving. There are stationary saving spots, which can be used multiple times. No map of the overall area, but there is a minimap to help you with your immediate surroundings. Minor negatives: 1) minimal available graphics options and can’t even change screen resolution, 2) you can’t fire an arrow simply by clicking LMB, you have to keep it pressed for about half a second. Both can be used to. Major negative: Why is there a lvl cap (21) in a game that features enemy respawn? Not logical! 30 hours for me.

I made it for ten hours, destroyed two towers. But I can't go on, the gameplay is just horrible. The controls are clunky, unresponsive at times, the camera is by far to close to my character. Inventory and stat screens are clearly made for consoles, not for PC. The graphical quality is, even for 2004, just plain bad. On the plus side, the dialogue is fantastic, which is the reason I made it for ten hours. But even though it's great, the game itself is not. I even activated god mode later in the game, just to get faster through the boring gameplay and levels, forward to the next dialogue/cut scene. But even with that I don't want to start the game anymore. It's hard to believe this was made by the same team that made Wasteland.

but it gets really tedius, boring after few hours

Not a great game, but not a lousy one, either. Game play is completely linear: Go here first, fight this guy, level up, go here next. Little to no open world exploration. In this way, it's very much like to original Bard's Tale games I played as a kid. The humor is amusing, though I found myself skipping many of the songs. There were a few parts where I laughed out loud, such as when a ghost informs you that there's something from the underworld that wants to speak with you, and it turns out to be low level monsters you killed earlier in the game. A big ceremony, and it's just some idiot trow from the first level that pops up. For some reason I found that more amusing than I should. Buy this game on sale. It's inferior to Might & Magic VI, VII and VII just as the original Bard's Tale games were inferior to M&M I, II and III, but it's still worth a play through.

Don't go thinking because the game has a lot of stats to distribute points in that it's complex and hard. Genrally just beeline Strength to 16 then Vitality to about 12 and you've got a strong start. I say this because a poorly built character can be a slog through no fault of the developers modernizing it for modern equipment. It was a game from a different time - when video game rentals were a thing and games were deliberately padded to be too long to finish in the 48-72 hour rental window. But with the previous advice you can cut through all the experimentation and frustration and just have a solid game play experience where your timing and positioning matter more than your patience. Outside of that the game's got some pretty great writing in a semi-linear story (there's some variance on side quests and even a few optional chapters; and don't knosck linearity, if the story is done well it can be a pretty good design flow). It's worth a play on sale. If you are a sucker for tame but raunchy gag humour, basic ARPGs, admitttedly clever song writing at times, and naration by the late great Tony Jay give it a shot. Still it's not going to be for everyone and the pace is a little slow even as optimized as you character gets. Again the rental window of the past does haunt it, so II knocked a star. It's well executed though and delivers the experience it is designed to.