Bard's Tale I - The Classics Return

It's definitely waaaay easier than it used to be.
Finished the game in 18 hours with only two party wipes (one due to a trap, the other getting one shotted by a certain "sucker"). Never had to grind a single level cause my party was overpowered almost from the start (since my magician reached spell level 3).

The increased XP gain makes combat a breeze while Quicksave/Quickload/Automap take away all challenge from the dungeons (traps,one-way-doors, spinners, teleporters etc.)

I'll be waiting for Legacy Mode before touching BT2/BT3.

figment said:

So this was the first RPG I ever played so its got a little place in my heart so I had to play it this weekend. Just finished. I was surprised how much I remember vividly about the game. I could navigate Skara Brae from memory. The automap feature was good as was the journal in general but I really could have used the manual to refresh my memory on class details. I took a Rogue and I think their identify was probably the most useful thing about them.

Also the most painful part was having to reenter commands every turn. Its fine to do that for important battles but painful for simple ones. I ended up writing a script to autoselect common combat moves and then use the review to see if it was smart enough. Anyway, I liked the new Unity port overall as it was faithful to the original though it could have used a few more helper features like auto combat.

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I envy people with such good memory. I wouldn't be able to remember a thing about the map one month after playing the game.

I've been playing this since release day, and it's absolutely awesome! Really a great remaster and the Devs are a doing a great job of supporting it.

Daniel.

I only played for three hours one day last week, and enjoyed every second. Once I get done Trails in the Sky, I'll be diving back into Bard's Tale the first, with one caveat.....I will only save in the guild.

So I'm enjoying my time with Bards Tale so far. I neglected to bring a rogue through which I am regretting as the wine cellar has a strong need for one. All the rest of my party is level 9 and I am able to get by with trap zap. I am glad I finally got a spell to remove poison because removing through the temples is very expensive.

So I have a few questions:

-Is there no way to replenish spell points except by getting them recharged in town?

-Does anyone know the deal with Sinister street? I keep getting turned around. Is there a spell that breaks that or a secret passage around it maybe or am I wasting my time?

-Is there any way to illuminate a dark zone?

-I've visited Longinus the Mad who apparently isn't the mad one referred to in the temple. I am trying to decipher his riddles but can't figure it out. Any hints please put in spoiler for others.

-Is there no way to replenish spell points except by getting them recharged in town?

and change classes after you reach lvl 7 in a caster class (lvl 13 char) to get more SP

Seems like a lot of Watchers are playing it (and enjoying it). I'm curious though, is this game fun only for people who played it before (more of nolstagic reason) or is it fun for new players as well?

Nolstalgia. Bards Tale was a historical landmark, but that's about it.

purpleblob said:

Seems like a lot of Watchers are playing it (and enjoying it). I'm curious though, is this game fun only for people who played it before (more of nolstagic reason) or is it fun for new players as well?

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Its an RPG about party builds and exploration. Combat is a large part of the experience but really it depends how okay you are with menu combat. I find it charming in its own way. The exploration is interesting. I couldn't play this game without automap so I'm glad its got some ease of use features. Don't expect big conversations with NPCs etc.

Its the first proper playthrough for me. I couldn't perservere with it before because no automap in the original version and you had to look up spell initials all the time.

wolfing said:

I envy people with such good memory. I wouldn't be able to remember a thing about the map one month after playing the game.

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I like to think that is more of a curse and its occupying space that could be better put to use elsewhere. But you never know when you need to know the layout of a fictional town 30 years after first visiting it.

Silver said:

-Is there no way to replenish spell points except by getting them recharged in town?

Click to expand...

Silver said:

-Does anyone know the deal with Sinister street? I keep getting turned around. Is there a spell that breaks that or a secret passage around it maybe or am I wasting my time?

Click to expand...

Silver said:

-Is there any way to illuminate a dark zone?

Click to expand...

Silver said:

-I've visited Longinus the Mad who apparently isn't the mad one referred to in the temple. I am trying to decipher his riddles but can't figure it out.

Click to expand...

purpleblob said:

Seems like a lot of Watchers are playing it (and enjoying it). I'm curious though, is this game fun only for people who played it before (more of nolstagic reason) or is it fun for new players as well?

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More nostalgic. if you get it for free as part of the Bards Tale IV stuff then its worth a playthough.

darklord said:

I've been playing this since release day, and it's absolutely awesome! Really a great remaster and the Devs are a doing a great job of supporting it.

Daniel.

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Agree 100%. I'd really like to see Krome Studios give a face lift to other classic RPGs that can be painful to play nowadays, like the early Ultimas, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Dungeon Master, Lands of Lore, and Eye of the Beholder 1-3. I'd even support a Kickstarter for it. Some of those will never happen because the license would be difficult or impossible to obtain, but one wouldn't… Brian Fargo's own Stonekeep.

Just to add another suggestion:

Maybe someone at InXile would like to get the license for Centauri Alliance (a dungeon crawler) and get it remastered by Krome. It was Michael Cranfords last game while his first was The Bard's Tale.

Just look at the star map to see the attention to lore:

LordConti said:

It's definitely waaaay easier than it used to be.
Finished the game in 18 hours with only two party wipes (one due to a trap, the other getting one shotted by a certain "sucker").

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Is there a trick? I'm 9 hours in and only level 11. This is my first time playing BT1 in earnest. I played it on c64 when it first came out but I was too young to get far. Same deal with BT2 but I almost finished BT3. I'm fully clearing every single level of every dungeon (including visiting every square/house in skara brae) because I have no idea where to go.

Is it just experience with Bt1 or am I doing something completely wrong? How fast are other people clearing it?

purpleblob said:

Seems like a lot of Watchers are playing it (and enjoying it). I'm curious though, is this game fun only for people who played it before (more of nolstagic reason) or is it fun for new players as well?

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I took a quick look at it, and it's actually a really nice remake. Looks better than I expected, and the controls are much more comfortable than they used to be.

It really depends on what you want from a game like this. If you don't particularly care about the last 30 years of gameplay evolution in terms of progression, meaningful loot, elaborate character systems, tactical depth, visually interesting and diverse exploration, graphics, audio, and so on - then it's not a bad game. As a nostalgia fest - I would put it behind games like Pool of Radiance and Eye of the Beholder in most ways - but not too far behind. Also, if you look at the Might and Magic and Wizardry series - then they both evolved far beyond Bard's Tale quite early. Certainly, anything from M&M2 and Bane of the Cosmic Forge represent far more interesting mechanics and content - at least in my opinion.

That said, sometimes, games don't need complexity or depth to be fun - but it's very much a subjective thing. I could probably enjoy a game like this if it took ~5 hours or so to complete.

But 15-20 hours of what I would consider ultra repetitive combat and nearly identical corridors with text-based flavor exploration isn't something I can stomach when I still have modern blobbers I haven't yet played.

The upside to its relative simplicity and combat mechanics is that you're not spending that much time on each individual encounter. So, it's a faster and more streamlined version of some of the games I mentioned. Also, though it's been way too long for me to talk about balance in an informed way, it sort of goes without saying that its simple mechanics should result in a pretty balanced combat experience - because it's so much easier to tweak encounters in that kind of system.

If anyone is interested here is a script I use for the simple battles. I have a few others for various variation (one for when there is more than one group of monsters, one with ranged enemies, and one where all my casters nuke). It is an AHK script and very simplistic to follow but will save A LOT of typing…Once you load it you just push "z" or whatever other key you bind it to and it will follow the script.

I also have scripts to cast certain spells up to the point where you select the party member you want to target etc. You can do pretty much anything once you get the hang of it.

#NoEnv ;
SendMode Input ;
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ;
#SingleInstance force ;

; simple sequence that attacks for all characters in melee range and defends for others.
z::
send,F
Sleep 100
send,A
Sleep 100
send,A
Sleep 100
send,A
Sleep 100
send,A
Sleep 100
send,D
Sleep 100
send,D
Sleep 100
send,Y
Return

A script to handle fights in a game about fights? The irony

Silver Coin said:

Nolstalgia. Bards Tale was a historical landmark, but that's about it.

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This is factually inaccurate. Where's @Fluent when we need him to attest to this?
I'm sure there are new players getting into the game for the first time. In fact, the enjoyment in this thread really is an indictment on all of the naysayers that stated "oh you'll only play it for 5 minutes" or whatever throwaway line. Such dismissals need to be refuted and it's really great to see Watchers getting into this classic. It really does show the quality of the gameplay still exists after all these years.

@Fluent was always the most reliable source of balanced criticism, that's for sure

That's "factually accurate".

I don't see the problem with nostalgia being a factor. Denying it only makes you delusional. That doesn't mean the game can't be great fun (few landmark games aren't) - or have interesting gameplay. That goes for a lot of old games.

But playing Bard's Tale instead of a more modern game is probably not entirely void of nostalgia in terms of what would influence such a decision. Unless you never played it and you're curious what the fuss is about, of course.

So what? Are we ashamed of being nostalgic? I'm certainly not

I didn't get the impression that Pessimeister is claiming nostalgia has nothing to do with some people enjoying it.

I'm pretty sure his point is that there seem to be a significant amount of people enjoying it who never played the originals.

Did I say there was a problem with nostalgia being a factor? Obviously not. I'm simply stating that it is inaccurate to assume that the only reason players are approaching this game and enjoying it is out of nostalgia. A high percentage? Sure. But good gameplay arguably transcends such things.