Bard's Tale IV - Gameplay Video

Combat somewhat looks like Xulima, although with the Opportunity system it will allow tactical positioning + attacks in the same turn. Pretty neat stuff.

Anyone else bothered by the way the character portraits bob up and down while they speak? Kind of reminds me of Terrence and Phillip from South Park or the cut-out animations from Monty Python...

Capt. Huggy Face said:

Anyone else bothered by the way the character portraits bob up and down while they speak? Kind of reminds me of Terrence and Phillip from South Park or the cut-out animations from Monty Python…

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From the blurb 1" under video:

"Obviously, this is still in development and there are things we're not in love with yet. Namely, the characters on the HUD are still at a first pass. We will be updating their visual look and likely not have them bouncing around as they speak."

Hah, guess I didn't read it. Thank God. =P

I'd like to see a realistic representation of the movement of the actual game.

In the video it looks like a linear railshooter where you face a combat event now and then.

Fluent said:

Combat somewhat looks like Xulima,

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Which in turn if you trace the lineage back even further, somewhat resembles the combat presentation found in SSI's Phantasie (1985). Or at least that was the game I thought of most when I played Xulima.

The BT4 combat system is pretty much as I imagined from previous descriptions hinted at in the Kickstarter updates. It looks flexible and I like the options of moving characters around to set up tactics. Good to see the MIJA spell in action too! I do hope the dungeons are large enough in scope, aren't too simple and maintain that great tradition of cryptic clue giving and obscure, almost esoteric challenges.

In short, keep up the good and promising work InXile.

Damn... this looks really good. Glad the bobbing characters are going. I also think the portraits turning to face you during combat is weird - especially when they're able to swing a sword and kill enemies while facing away from them! Is that a double-jointed kinda thing?!

xenocide said:

That's looking really nice.

I like the combat animations and I know it's still early but I assume/hope we will be able to speed things up. Once I'm into double digit hours and have seen most things several times I am going to want things 2x-5x faster than that video.

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Yes, they said in the update that the combat in the video was slowed down to make it easier to follow.

Dragonx said:

Damn, looks great i shoulda backed this, now i must pay full price at release.

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I backed it
Wasn't sure at the time if I was doing the right thing but after this video I am content

It looks really great, the characters in the HUD has a lot of work left though.

rune_74 said:

I'm so glad I backed this.

Note: Chien, I will hate it if they change it to an MMO

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wow turned based MMO, sign me up!

It looks so gorgeus. My most anticipated game for the future for sure.

Graphics are incredible, voices are great and combat looks deep enough to keep us interested (I would have prefered being able to move the party as in M&M games but its ok). I love there is a positioning element to it.

About UI, yes it looks weird like the characters pop up and also that they look at you while you command them but look at the enemy while defending (which is a shame because we can't watch their reaction faces like in the M&M or Wizardry games). They've said it is all work in progress but we'll see what the come up with. I feel like, as they announced, they wanted to show a bit more of the characters during combat unlike old blobbers where we only got a portrait, but IMO they got just halfway to achieve it. They need to invest much more in animations to start with. I think that they either do that, or they had better kept the traditional portrait interface.

I think I'm missing some more info on the interface as well (mana left for instance, or active effects?).

Other than that I really look forward to it. Hopefully it will start a trend as Grimrock did, but this time with turn base combat and other more solid mechanics apart from dungeon crawling.

I'm in love with the look of that dungeon, and with the reaction of the enemies to what's happening. Finally creatures who don't just ignore the fact that they're floating upside down.
Plus, I haven't seen such atmospheric dungeons for quite a while now. But they really need to work on those character portraits. I'm so glad to read that they're on it.

And this is finally a forum where people are discussing the trailer, and not concluding what the whole game will be like from it. You won't believe what people are complaining about elsewhere because of this one trailer .
"The dungeons are too linear." - "The puzzles are too simple." - "That's all scripted, because the camera is too static."
Good grief, you can't judge the entire game because of one combat trailer. You can only judge the graphics and the combat. And maybe a bit of the dialogue.
(Sorry, I had to let this out somewhere)

Great visuals indeed. But dungeon crawlers just aren't my cup od tee (anymore).

Kordanor said:

I'd like to see a realistic representation of the movement of the actual game.

In the video it looks like a linear railshooter where you face a combat event now and then.

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That is realistic movement. It is a blobber, which is the only proper dungeon crawler movement mechanism.

I love the music; normally i don't bother with OST but maybe I should add it to my pledge if it doesn't include it. Really good.

Kordanor said:

I'd like to see a realistic representation of the movement of the actual game.

In the video it looks like a linear railshooter where you face a combat event now and then.

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They said the game will also have free movement but they turned that off for this trailer.

I had low expectations for this because I was never a big bards tale fan so I backed it at the early bird $20 tier mainly because they were giving wasteland 2 for free.

Now I must say this is looking pretty good. wasteland 2 and bards tale 4 for $20 is looking like a steal now.

I didn't back this but this looks really nice. After playing so many "action" games recently I think the slow pace of turn based combat will be nice. But i guess the release date is next year?

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