Bard's Tale IV - Review @ COG

COG has reviewed The Bard's Tale IV:

The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep Review

Thirty years is a long time to wait between installments for one of the most notable RPG franchises in gaming history. Sure, there was a revisit of sorts in 2004 with a version of The Bard’s Tale, but that wasn’t a direct sequel or even a remake. And, yes, VR owners did get a chance to get back into the “proper” lore with last year’s The Mage’s Tale, which set the stage nicely for The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep. With such a big gap in time between the last main chapter of the story, will it be able to not only connect with the nostalgia factor but also keep things up to date for modern gamers?
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There is so much going on that is good that it’s hard to even mention it all. You start with plenty of customization options, not just with character creation, but within classes and skills. All told there are somewhere between sixty to seventy skills per class. I haven’t even mentioned the puzzles, which I found to be just the right mix of difficult, neither boring nor too hard. The story is great, even with the occasional self-spoiler. Combat has a lot going for it and keeps things interesting, but it’s always possible that not everyone feels that way on that front. The few performance issues aside, it’s a game that’s hard not to like. Interestingly enough, prior to release InXile Entertainment CEO Brian Fargo said that if The Bard’s Tale IV sells over two million copies over the first eighteen months he’ll attempt to buy back Interplay. Is this a two million seller over the next year and a half? It very well may be.

The Good

• Excellent story and music
• interesting combat style
• Good puzzles
• Lots of options
• Great visuals

The Bad

• Game occasionally spoils itself
• Long load times
• Some stutters

Score: 86/100

More information.

While I have some complaints for those who play on ssd very little load time.

Yeah, I wonder if it's because of my SSD the game also runs so smoothly?

Yeah the hour I played I didn't notice any huge load times, but then again I do use a SSD. Looking forward to trying out some more of this once a few patches hit.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Yeah the hour I played I didn't notice any huge load times, but then again I do use a SSD. Looking forward to trying out some more of this once a few patches hit.

I was thinking the same thing but couldn't stop after the first hour. Too enjoyable, which is of course a great thing.

It'd be nice if the game let me make the character I wanted. I'm not sure how you release your game into the wild without catching something like that.

Very encouraging review! I'm looking forward to starting the game soon!

I play on HD (don't have 51 gigs to spare on my SSD right now) and the load times are pretty bad (30+ seconds), but you're not normally switching between areas very often so you normally only have to put up with them once in a long while.

Overall I am enjoying it quite a bit. Lots of different puzzles, music's great, combat's interesting. Turn off motion blur in the menu, you'll thank yourself later.

(For context, I'm 20 hours in)

For those that get motion sick I would recommend to turn off head bobbing.

Loading is fast on SSD but I made the room needed. Other files and games can go on my other drives.

Wow user reviews are in the 40% range on steam. Mainstream "Pro" reviews in the 80s. Hmm, quite a gap.

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
Wow user reviews are in the 40% range on steam. Mainstream "Pro" reviews in the 80s. Hmm, quite a gap.

Reverse ELEX syndrome.

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
Reverse ELEX syndrome.

I don't know what to think. I would think bad steam reviews would hurt sales more. I backed it and am not that excited from what I have seen but I never play games upon release. Mostly looking forward to the other remasters.

There's a lot of talk of bugs and bad response times in the Steam reviews. I've also seen a good number where the person buying the game didn't seem to know what s/he was getting into. One was even complaining about how the game wasn't open world! Seriously!?

<sigh> I remember the good old days, when I would complain about people who bought a game just based on a trailer. Now it seems like people can't even be bothered to watch a trailer any more.

Originally Posted by Avantre
(don't have 51 gigs to spare on my SSD right now)

Just go through your installed games and delete ones you haven't played in 6 months. That's what I do. Never had any space issues on either my 256GB laptop SSD or my 1TB desktop SSD.

What a surprise another kickstarter game that loads faster on SSD's. It's a conspiracy I must must unravel. As most of the Unity Engine RPGs also had the same problem.

So this is either deliberate or people cant code correctly anymore.

Now excuse me while I make a sandwich while waiting for Tyranny to load a map.

Well I think the coders aren't that great but I also think they have to be better because they are moving a lot more data. Mind you that's no excuse for poor technical design but it takes more knowledge to understand the impact of larger data sets being moved between disk and memory and design a more efficient technique. This is an area for which I have years of experience but a lot of these kids these days have no clue about i/ops and how to lay things out to make it efficient.

Can't really blame the engines anymore, either. All the major ones, including Unreal and Unity, publish their source code now. If there's anything wrong with the loading of data, the code is right there to be inspected, modified or replaced by the devs.

Originally Posted by Ripper
Can't really blame the engines anymore, either. All the major ones, including Unreal and Unity, publish their source code now. If there's anything wrong with the loading of data, the code is right there to be inspected, modified or replaced by the devs.

One has to wonder if it has to do with hiring amateur contract workers who are cheaper?

I really suspect it's what I mentioned before - they have a certain range of skiils in these small studios, but not the hardcore bearded wisemen of old, who would feel confident ripping out the level-loading code and tuning it up.