The Bard's Tale Trilogy

I really tried to like this game. I spent 3 hours just for the creation of a perfect party. But, the remake sadly does nothing else, than adding an automap, and a little comfort. You will still play one of the most unfair, frustrating, annoying game of all time. You will die A LOT, without any possibility to prevent it, and you will need to grind like you have never before, because the whole game is designed around being a pain in the ass, and prevent you from proceeding as much as possible... As somebody who hasnt played the original back then, this simply feels like a stress simulator, and i dont recommend it, at all...

The game comes without a manual and without any sort of documentation explaining the ingame mechanics and how the various stats influence the gameplay. I find this very sloppy and totally unacceptable, and would refund the game if it was possible. If you want to milk the nostalgia crowd, at least do it right - the original game came with a book that containted vast amount of information.

Game itself might be great but now I will never know When I bought the game, it was exactly what I wanted and what was advertised. Didnt have the time to play though, but always looked forward to having the time for it. Now I have the time but latest version removed the ability to choose the language of the game, so it defauts to the OS language. Unplayble for me, destroys all nostalgia, really kills the point of it for me. But mostly its just a really offensive and harmful practice to not allow you to choose your installation language, something that is beyond my understanding of the human mind to fathom why anyone would consciously program something like that. Maybe at some point in time someone will invent a technology that will allow you to just choose the language you want to play the game in, during installation or even within the game itself. But apparantly such a technology is beyond our time :/ Third game I bought on GoG I cannot play :( This is not the part of the past I want to relive really. (also GoG now leads 3:2 against Steam on that account)

I have to say, I am somewhat disappointed. I bought this game as soon as I saw it on GOG. I have fond memories of playing the originals back in the day, but have largely avoided them since then because of the old graphics, awful sound and old-school interface just make playing the game such a chore. A remastered version of the game should be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, what I got was anything but. First of all, although it is currently being sold as "The Bard's Tale Trilogy", right now only the first game is available (Bards Tale II and III are due in Fall 2018 and Winter 2018 respectively). I found that a bit disingenuous (yes, it's mentioned in the description, but it wasn't made at all obvious and I missed it. It should have been made much more clear this is a game still under development). Even the "Legacy Mode" for the original Bards Tale isn't available yet. No goodies included with the release, not even a manual. Or, for that matter, the map of Skara Brae that came with the original game, which is almost essential for navigating the city. The 3D view is ridiculously small. I know this is true to the original, but it could have been made larger, especially since they re-did all the graphics in proper 3D. Optionally, a "full-screen" toggle might have been a nice addition. The interface - while making some nods to the mouse - is largely unchanged from the original, much to its detriment. You have to do a lot of niggling extra steps even for simplest thing. On the plus side, the addition of the automap is a really nice feature, and I expect my adventures into the dungeons - with all those awful spinner traps - will be less of an annoyance. The modernized graphics nicely capture the old-school feel without being too much of an eyestrain. There's a journal too, but - let's face it - the story and quests of the Bards Tale aren't so complex that a journal is really needed. The intro is a bit poor, though (largely because I prefer the tune from the Apple II version), but it's a nice addition. And the core gameplay is absolutely the same as the original 1985 edition, in all its brutal difficulty. InXile didn't compromise on that in the least. Essentially, this is a graphical patch laid on top of the original game (I'm half-surprised they didn't have a toggle allowing you to switch between the two game modes, that's how similar it is). It's not a bad game - I mean, it is the original Bard's Tale - but it definitely doesn't feel worth the $15 I paid. The additions are too minor and the lack of Bards Tale II and III borders on dishonest. Die-hard fans may enjoy it, but everyone else should wait until the other two games are included in this package.