Bard's Tale IV - Beta Review

HiddenX

HiddenX

The Elder Spy
Staff Member
Original Sin Donor
Original Sin 2 Donor
Supporter
Joined
October 18, 2006
Messages
20,013
Location
Germany
Hammeh checked out the beta version of Bard's Tale IV:

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrow's Deep - UNWRAPPED! [Beta Review]



The Bard's Tale IV:Barrows Deep Closed Beta is here , and it's a bar brawlin' taste of RPG fun! Join me for Unwrapped as I share my first impressions/review of The Bard's Tale 4, exploring it inside-out!
Click to expand...
More information.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
20,013
Location
Germany
oh dudes, really looking forward to this one !!
Love the humor :D


18 sept.. few more weeks :D
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
1,752
Location
The Netherlands
I should be interested to hear what people think of this one.
 
I'm playing the beta and I'm enjoying it.
Level loading times could be a bit faster and my gfx card gets a bit hotter than usual.
But that's technical - story, turn-based combat, humor, puzzles are fun so far.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
20,013
Location
Germany
Yep, pretty cool so far. I just find the limitation of 3 active abilities per character somewhat too limiting.

Anyways, haven't been looking forward to a game so much for at least a year or two.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,699
Kordanor said:
Yep, pretty cool so far. I just find the limitation of 3 active abilities per character somewhat too limiting.

Anyways, haven't been looking forward to a game so much for at least a year or two.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the 3 abilities thing sounds very odd indeed. Sort of like a moron-level decision, like a few in WL2.

But but, I'll reserve judgment for later.
 
If this one suits my fancy well, I might be playing it for the rest of the year. Assuming I don't get sucked into the remasters first, yipes!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,979
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
Carnifex said:
If this one suits my fancy well, I might be playing it for the rest of the year. Assuming I don't get sucked into the remasters first, yipes!
Click to expand...

Well, it's a dungeon crawler after all. I don't expect it has more than 50h of game time at most, probably closer to 30.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,699
Would definitely buy my way into closed beta for $60 now but unfortunately cost is too high @ $109. I'll wait for Steam release (or even better) GMG pre order coupon.
 
Joined
Jun 29, 2013
Messages
171
I didn't back this but it looks like fun so I will def get it. Is there some kind of in-game reason for the limit of active abilities? That kind of arbitrariness always irritates me - but if there's some semi-plausible reason I'm ok.
 
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
Messages
2,144
Location
Cape Town, South Africa
Well, I guess the idea is that planning ahead is one element of combat. Which makes character development more interesting on the one hand and makes the combat more streamlined on the other.

You can see the same in Darkest Dungeon, which actually has some similarity in combat, as each of your party member's actions has some effect on total outcome as everyone shares the same pool of action points.

So it's not like your Priest is always healing and your fighter always hitting this one attack. You have to think about which combination of abilities makes sense now.

The thing is, in darkest dungeon you have a choice of 7 skills and you can chose 4 active ones.

But in Bard's Tale you have many more. If I counted correctly, the bard has 9 Music Abilities and 7 Attack Abilities, so 14 total. And you can only chose 3 of them.
This means that you are always focusing on passive abilities. And if you have to take an active one in a tree you need to take for a passive one, that basically means that the passiv one costs 2 points because you wont be able to use the active one. It makes the choices harder, but also not always very satisfying.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,699
JDR13 said:
I'm not sure what that has to do with an RPG being limited to only 3 active abilities, but ok. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what ME:A has to do with a turn-based tactical combat blobber, but ok :)
 
I guess the real question is whether the fights will be varied and challenging enough that we will need to swap our active abilities in and out. If beating a tough fight becomes kind of like solving a puzzle where you have to figure out the best combination of abilities out of the ones you’ve unlocked, that could be pretty fun. But if I can get by using the same 3 abilities the whole game and I end up only caring about my passive abilities, then that will be much less fun.
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
2,163
Loving the graphics - such a nice high fantasy feeling. I didn't think the game would look this good. It is a good time to be a gamer. I thought I would have no games to look forward to this year or next except Kingmaker and now I have a few more - Black Geyser, Bards Tale, and Insomnia Ark.

PS - Proof that RPGWatch does, indeed, increase game sales :) Course I suppose in some cases it could also decrease them :p
 
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
3,971
Location
NH
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom