While BT's visuals and music aren't much to talk about, the diverse locations throughout Skara Brae, such as the Wine Cellar and Kylearan's Tower, are a definite high point. Bard's Tale isn't the best-looking or sounding RPG around, but maze trail-blazers will find this musician's song is worth a listen.
If There's one sure fire way to drum up free publicity for your latest gaming venture, it's by wheeling out an update. In the case of The Bard's Tale, you'd have to be a fairly grizzled old school gamer to remember the original and its sequels from when they first showed up some 20 years ago.
This particular update isn't quite as cynical as some, though - not only is the original developer Brian Fargo involved, but he's used his return as an opportunity to send up the RPG genre. Many of the nods to the cliches of the genre are made by the Bard himself, expertly voiced by The Princess Bhde's Cary Elwes in cockney mode.
A refreshingly witty but shitty character, the Bard is concerned only with earning cash through whatever means necessary, and encouraging the land's various buxom wenches to play his purple flute.
Naturally, his less than noble efforts at getting his rather unsavoury end away are channelled into a more wide-reaching plot involving saving a beautiful and, of course, rich princess. Just how much of a cad the Bard is throughout the adventure is, to a limited extent, up to you, as you can pick whether to be bolshy or nice at key points during conversations.
It's even based on the same engine used for Dark Alliance and Champions Of Norrath, which are the console versions of Baldur's Gate and Everquest respectively. Taking into account that the Snowblind engine is effectively four years old helps to explain it looking less than state of the art, but it's by no means terrible.
The majority of the RPG elements have been stripped down to their bare bones. The loot regurgitated by vanquished enemies one of many commonplace RPG nonsenses acknowledged by the Bard is automatically sold, and you have to distribute a couple of experience points every now and then when you level up.
The summoning system proves to be the most interesting aspect, as once you've collected some summoning-tunes, it's left to you to select the best combination of allies to call upon to help you out at any given point. The biggest sting in the Bard's tail is that it doesn't realise that taking the piss out of the genre's cliches doesn't excuse it from relying on them.
Most of the quests consist of a repetitive and sometimes excruciatingly strung-out series of battles. The fact that the combat itself amounts to little more than uninspiring buttonbashing leaves the impression that much of it is there merely to serve as padding. While The Bard's Tale is told amusingly enough, the disappointing combat fails to lift it from the upper end of mediocrity. Although the gags fail to hold a candle to the likes of Monkey Island and its ilk, they still just about maintain your attention long enough to make it to one of the multiple endings.
Ultimately it's lightweight stuff and would be a better buy if it was going for a song. Twenty years later this re-imagining delivered 3D graphics, Carry On Take this: the tutorial mission in has you killing a giant rat in the cellar of an inn. So far, so cliche you think, until you see this giant rat would dwarf a rhino and breathes fire.
Added to this healthy disrespect for all things Tolkien is double-entendre laden dialogue; a dickish anti-hero of a main character; and squad-based combat that lets you use an imaginative range of a dozen or so summoned allies. Based on our scan system, we have determined that these flags are possibly false positives. It means a benign program is wrongfully flagged as malicious due to an overly broad detection signature or algorithm used in an antivirus program.
What do you think about The Bard's Tale? Do you recommend it? The Bard's Tale for Windows. The Bard's Tale for PC. JackQuest: Tale of the Sword 1. Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition 2. The original Dungeons and Dragons board game heralded the rise of the role playing genre and captured the public imagination.
However, RPG board games involved a lot of calculating, making notes, rolling dice and collecting cards. With the rise of computer RPG games, this changed. The computer took care of all the complex calculations, all the variables - and the most important thing: you didn't have to worry that it would try to cheat. Although they're classical RPGs, they're somewhat different from the rest: you don't get to customize your characters. You need a party to go on a quest, as in every classical RPG, but you only get to select the race and the position of the party members.
There are no skills, wisdom, magic, or any other points you may distribute either randomly or intentionally; you can only create characters and choose a party to go on the quest. That quest is to overthrow the evil wizard Mangar, who has seized control of the city of Skara Brae. This may sound very easy, but bear in mind that Mangar is helped by all sorts of monsters, which you'll have to fight on the streets, in dungeons, in sewers, and in the very towers of Skara Brae, where the evil one hides.
So if you're looking for a classic RPG from the golden era of computer gaming, the original Bard's Tale is the right thing for you! Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses.
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