The Bard's Tale Trilogy - Review @ Wizard Worm

Wizard Worm reviewed the remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy:

The Bard's Tale Trilogy Review - Is It Worth Playing Now? (Old School Dungeon Crawler RPG)

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More information.

Well worth playing!! In all honesty, if you sponsored the kick starter for Bard's Tale four, you received these for free in advance, and I had more fun with these than I did the game I sponsored. They were awesome when first released and hold up quite well these days, should the genre be to your liking.

Soo much better than the Wasteland remake.

I had played the originals decades ago, but never finished II and III.
Last year, I played through the remasters and had a great time... and have the OLED burn-in to prove it. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to upgrade to an LG C1.

I played a little of BT1. I thought they did a good job with the new visuals, although I would have preferred a slightly darker tone overall.

Hastar said:

Soo much better than the Wasteland remake.

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What didn't you like about the Wasteland remake? I'm planning a full run of the trilogy later this year.

I played have played both Wasteland Remastered and The full BT trilogy and completed both.

The Wasteland remaster is pretty barebones, apart from the graphic updates there are no QoL features. It plays very faithfully to the original and I had to use a walkthrough in a few places. I honestly hate to think how hard/tedious the last base would of been without a walkthrough - although the rest of the game is certainly playable without. I would probably rate it a 8/10 for what it is though. Of course it is not comparable to WL2/3 in any shape or form.

I loved the BT trilogy remaster. The automapping is excellent and it actually makes mapping the dungeons fun. I loved visiting every square to complete each map. Make sure you download and use a Key macro program though. I used "AHK" and I had about 3 different macros to automate combat i.e. one that handled single group encounters and one that handled more than one group. In the end I had a macro that just had the casters casting NUKE every single fight. It made the games quite enjoyable and really reduced the typing required.

Like Bjon045, I've played both the Bard's Tale remasters and the Wasteland one. I quite enjoyed them all, and as for the first Wasteland, I thought at the time when I replayed it that sticking to how it functioned at release was a good idea, as it evoked the same thoughts/feelings that existed back in the day when I first fired this game up. My old maps served me well, as did the notes I'd had from back then, although I'd lost a page or two due to moves and such, I muddled through. Both franchises benefited from these efforts, imo. And the customers are the big winners.

After finishing the BT trilogy last year, I tried the Wasteland remaster but just couldn't get into it. I never played the original, but I remember the spin-off Fountain of Dreams as being much better than this.

I keep hoping that great old games will resurrect Fountain of Dreams at some point. I really wanted to replay that one as well, after going through the first Wasteland game a few years ago, someday hopefully it will be ours again to enjoy.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind playing it again to see if it still holds up.
I actually have a brand-new copy of FoD in my collection, but it'd cost me several hundred dollars in value just to remove the shrinkwrap. Those things go for $750 on eBay.

Odd, that. I distinctly recall FoD being received very poorly at the time. Is this one of the few that has over the years actually gotten better than people recall?

Moorkh said:

Odd, that. I distinctly recall FoD being received very poorly at the time. Is this one of the few that has over the years actually gotten better than people recall?

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This was partially because games had moved on a LOT in the couple of years since Wasteland was released (1998). When it was released it was competing against Ultima 6, Kings Bounty, Wizardry 6, QFG 1&2 etc. Meanwhile FoD had almost the exactly same system as Wasteland.

I also see the reviews say that it was much shorter and smaller than Wasteland (I never finished it), although IMO that is probably a good thing as Wasteland is full of filler content i.e. 100 houses that all look identical inside.

I skipped FoD at release due to those poor reviews. A couple of years later, during a painful bout of RPG withdrawal, I found it in a bargain bin and was pleasantly surprised. It was much more engaging than what little I'd played of Wasteland, and like bjon045 said, it likely benefited from its shorter length. After all of these years, I still remember those killer clowns!

Originally intended as a Wasteland sequel, EA dropped references to Wasteland after a dispute over the IP when Brian Fargo's Interplay broke from EA to publish their own games. EA finished the game with a different team and development was likely cut short. A few years later, Interplay released their spiritual sequel to Wasteland and called it Fallout.

Due to its rarity and connection with the Fallout and Wasteland series, FoD has become a sought-after collector's item. EA released them in small flimsy boxes that were easily crushed, and I doubt many stood the test of time. I'm lucky to have a sealed uncrushed copy of Fountain of Dreams in my collection.