The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut - Standard Edition

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3.6/5

( 49 Reviews )

3.6

49 Reviews

English & 5 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: August 28, 2019

jackswift85

Verified owner

Games: 464 Reviews: 18

Directors Cut is old-school RPG goodness

I held off on buying the original Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep because of a litany of complaints about the technical issues with the game. Reviews pointed to simultaneously great old-school RPG fun was to be had if you could navigate through the morass of bugs, crashes, quests not working, etc. AFter buying the DIrector's Cut of Bard's Tale IV and playing for about 12 hours, I'm happy to say I haven't encountered anything except a whole lot of classic Bard's Tale fun. There was one time my Rogue's skills were accidentally replaced with my fighter's (which was kind of hilarious watching my rogue buff up his armor class and become immune to physical damage for a fight), but was fixed in short order. Other than that I haven't encountered any bugs, so far all the quests properly activate and finish. No crashes, no techincal difficulties, etc. By all means I've had a blast so far, but the game isn't perfect. It does seem very weird to have a system of save points that you can "consume" for minor XP boosts and a heal, but in doing so you're not actually saving at that spot. It adds busy work for those min/maxers out there (especially since so far, I haven't seen any respawning enemies, so XP is likely few and far between), since you can consume those points for XP and then usually backtrack to an older post to save. I get that the developers probably wanted to put some more risk/reward elements to venturing forth, but it doesn't really work. That being said, I love the combat and the class skills, each of the four classes can be specced in different ways. The combat mechanics are fun to play with... sometimes it almost reminds me of Into the Breach where you can bait the enemy into attacking and then mess up their position/movement and have them kill each other. The story so far is fairly bland and the graphics are suitable. I am enjoying the music, which seems like they put a fair amount of effort into. Overall, I'm having a great time with this new edition of BT4.

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Posted on: September 28, 2019

bluejay345

Verified owner

Games: 68 Reviews: 8

Wanted it to be good...

Besides the technical problems that still plague the game after two entire releases (they have improved but are still there) the game is kind of a mess. There are massive difficulty spikes, content that will punish you for not having the perfect party selection (if you are going to force a particular configuration why give the player a choice?), and numerous other problems that just make the game frustating. If it were more polished and well thought out this could be a great game. The graphics are ok but the music is amazing and the puzzles are fun. Keep in mind, I am old enough to have played the originals on release (*sigh*) so I am pretty much the target market here. Nostalgia alone makes me more receptive to this game than most people will probably be. But I can see through the nostalgia to be honest about the fact that this game is mostly a miss. If you are more tolerant of bugs and occasional poor design decisions there is a fairly unique game here -- but there are also much better games to be spending your time on.

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Posted on: April 10, 2021

RestartGame

Verified owner

Games: 279 Reviews: 14

This was good until...

This game is long, is beautiful and it is fun until it's not. Exploration is pretty nice, graphics are good, enemies are funny, puzzles are decently creative and combat on the ultimate difficulty level is brutal. The early game has the sense to be half a survival game, like the grimrock games. Encounters are hard and resources are scarce, so you explore everything to the fullest, evolve your chararacters the best you can, use all you have and every battle won brings a good sense of progress. This was a really good part of the game. After the half point though, it looks like InXile's budget ran out. The game threw everything at you the first half, and now things start getting recycled. -Enemies start getting recycled. -Your characters stop progressing as you got all the perks you needed. -Your weapons may get some tuning but nothing significant.- -Recycled puzzles become more and more abundant to keep you from progressing. -Trash mobs everywhere. Now fighting is not progress, it's just annoying. You start getting so powerful you can blast anyone by having nearly infinite turns. -Story keeps repeating itself as they ask you to kill the next bad guy around the world -Lore is really shallow despite the early promises -One secondary quest has you LITERALLY fight 396 low level enemies and waste like an hour. Last level gets so annoying that they really slog you with 10 of the most annoying puzzles they can think of. Then just before the final battle your characters get like "CHAARGE! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS", But wait! The game has another 6 puzzles for you. No. Bad design. F this. On a separate parenthesis, the lore gets all tongue-in-cheek about "human guilt for colonialism", racism, persecutions and its association with humans and bland, unjustified, one-faced EVIL. I see your message but it makes me think you hired antifa writers. "Races" are even displayed as "Cultures" COME ON WHAT IS THIS is your studio threatened by activists? It's not bad but it's a shame...

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Posted on: December 11, 2019

cditri

Verified owner

Games: 127 Reviews: 3

Not bad, if they get th bugs out...

The good: -The artwork in the environment is very good. The 3D rendering pulls few punches (talking about the environment here, not the NPCs) -It has some very clever puzzles -The battle interface is unusual, but once you get used to it, it is fun to play in -This might be the best class-balanced RPG I've ever played. All classes have their opportunities to shine, and all are necessary to the game -- and each is roughly equal in power. Very nicely done. -Haernhold. Don't miss it. It is the best place in the game -High level cap -Great voice acting The Bad: -Buggy, restarts due to getting physically "stuck" on something, and couldn't move off. Invisible enemies. Mastery slots showing as blank. None of the Fear based spells or poisons seem to work. Oscon's Halt Foe is a complete waste, as is deathcap poison. Enemies will visibly cower, but they still attack you as they normally would. This was a huge annoyance for me. I filed a bug report on this, and even made a video of it, but inXile didn't seem terribly concerned by it. -Too many puzzles. I'd say remove about 2/3 of the puzzles in the game, they are disruptive to the pacing of the game: Less is more. Also, the placement of the puzzles are almost entirely arbitrary, and don't make much sense within their context. -At normal difficulty, I found the game play a bit too easy -- except for Haernhold. I had to be on my toes in that dungeon. I almost missed it, because it is on a tiny island that I mistook for the another island I had already completed (not on map). -4 items of mastery. I have 105 Keys on my keyboard! What is the point in all the feats if I cannot use them? -NPCs look wooden -Ending is disappointing -Graphics are inefficient. I have a $600 card I bought to play this game... I still couldn't get smooth play. -Environment not interactive Summary: A great game if u LOVE puzzles. A good game if you don't mind puzzles, and you like the battle interface. If you HATE puzzles: pass on this one.

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Posted on: August 29, 2019

beemer127

Verified owner

Games: 261 Reviews: 2

Modernized "Old-School" gold

This is a game with equal parts homage to scottish and welsh folklore and snarky humor. Most of the game is kept light-hearted, but are punctuated with some fairly sobering and dramatic moments. Content/Story Many of the villains and monsters found in old Scottish folklore are reimagined here, something that I personally enjoy. Also, you play a "bard", though you can play different classes. Every class has the same basic bardic abilities that help you solve puzzles, gain clues, and more. This has a good variety of gameplay. It's not just a murder hobo's paradise. There are plenty of puzzles and riddles to solve, some of which can be challenging. The gameplay is great in this regard. Puzzles often incorporate your basic bardic abilites. It gives you basic challenges at first, but then the complexity increases, often requiring you to use several of these basic bardic abilities to navigate various challenges. The story is great, and if you just want to focus on that, then you certainly can, but you'd miss out on a lot of fun stuff! Gameplay You can move in real time, but combat is turn-based. Combat teaches you some basic mechanics at first, but as you level up, you begin to see how these basic concepts work together. It's important to learn how various character abilities work together to get the most out of it. Graphics (running out of room!) In short, it's good, for what it is. It's a square grid-based system for that old-school feel, but within that context, they've created some compelling environments! The Bad (little room, so bullet points) - While classes are great, the level up mechanic sucks. Part of it relies upon you going to some 'council' of NPC's. Great flavor, but an annoying mechanic. - Save points. I mean...really? Let me save anywhere. - Crafting/cooking/alchemy/etc. - This may be personal preference, but this never really clicked with me. Sadly, it is somewhat necessary. Conclusion - is it worth it? Yes. It's fun. Time well spent.

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The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut - Standard Edition

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