The Bard's Tale Trilogy

This needs more attention, why isn't it in the GoG charts!?

When this first came out on the Commodore64, this was my favorite game. I never went back to revisit it due to the originals poor graphics, and the pain in the balls to map every square on graph paper. This new upgrade fixes all the old problems while keeping the charm and storytelling of the original.

Great update. Maybe I'll actually be able to finish it this time!

Based on first game in the trilogy: Positive: The remastering is good. Cheerful, cartoony graphics, excellent automap and ingenious minimap (you can toggle on or off), in-game manual, customisation options. Negative: Engine mimics original game, even when not in legacy mode, so you mostly only have one option - step forward, and you can go from one random encounter straight to another before you even move. Of course, you can't see the enemies coming, it's that old school. You also can't camp or rest or regain health or magic by praying at altars or whatever in the dungeons (as far as I've ever got), so you have to keep running (or rather fighting you way) back to the start, about four times every game world day. It's also boring that I got to level 8 or 9 and all my non-mages were no better equipped than they were at the start. The mages get plenty of new spells, so the game feels really unbalanced between magic and the rest. Worst of all is the primitive level-up system which means you will often get a really bad dice roll, like a tank fighter getting plus one - yes, one - HP out of a possible 15. Try playing a level 50 paladin with 60 HP or so HPs - if you accept the dice rolls, you could do. So you inevitably end up scumming the level-ups - save and reload for every character in your party, every level, until you get at least a reasonable dice roll. The game always felt like a hard slog and I never lasted long with it, even in the 1980s. Now I can only play it for half an hour at a time, with the thought in the back of my mind, I wish there were some mods for it.

I first played this game on my C64 back in 1991 and I was INSTANTLY hooked. Definitely a classic RPG!! 4 thumbs up, (if I had 4 hands 😁)!!