I cannot take anyone serious who is saying the new Bard's Tale is more related to the 2004 version than to the originals.
Some points from the InXile forums on "why this isn't Bard's Tale"
1. The inability to create complete party from the beginning. Unforgivable for me. The reasons for justifying this choice and the whole concept of mercenary tokens is frankly insulting. (Play with our pre-made characters and not your own.) Where's the re-rolling?
2. No random encounte+rs. This means no xp grinding, no loot grinding, and you can't just exchange a character in your party with a new one, becaause there are no monsters left when you killed them.
3. Tilebased movement is merely added on top of freeform movement as an after thought. This makes making good old graphpaper mapping nearly impossible. (Obviously modern audiences couldn't care less about this, but for some of us, this is important)
4. Where are the other races?`That's...a dwarf? Where are the great classes? (Monk, hunter etc..)
5. Ludicrous lore inconsistencies. Treatment of Tarjan? Skara Brae? (It was never a coastal town!) Why isnt Roscoe dead? He died during the destruction of Skara Brae.
6. The combat System is slow, tedious and far away from the fast text based combat of BT 1-3. It's not a logical evolution of mechanics or gameplay.
7. Levels are completely meaningless. No joy in levelling.
8. Skills? Why? and Why were they implemented so badly? Only 3 masteries.
9. Hitpoints?
10. Spells. Not enough. Not even close.
11.. The humor of BT2004. Childish, annoying.
(Quote from Lanatir; a poster on the InXile boards with some minor edits from me.)
I'll add some additional quotes from other posters to reinforce some points and add more for general consideration/discussion:
When you play bards tale 4, the only thing making you think: "Oh, this is a bards tale game?" is the naming and the lore references. The game itself, by it's actual game merits, has zero to do with what made the previous games into bards tale games. It's a totally different game. (Spectralshade)
At some point the developers decided that a true sequel to the trilogy was taking the 2004 game (which I barely noticed but I'm only speaking for myself) as a justification for emphasizing a Gaelic-Celtic "funny" or "comedic" game, and pretending that what happened in the trilogy didn't really happen? (Superdave17)
There are a lot of 35-60yr old gamers out there - the biggest spending demographic, and they wanted a proper Western turn based blobber. Probably the first big one since Wizardry 8 (or 7 if you're not a fan of that one). Clearly inXile wanted to go in a different direction, but the lack of engagement with the hardcore BT people (probably most of the big money backers) isn't really acceptable. (themadcow)
They (InXile) were so big-mouthed about how old-school they are and about where publishers can shove their ideas of mainstreaming and dumbing-down games and chasing the mass market for $. And they're pretty much doing exactly just that.
This is very very far from the "true sequel" and "revival of the classic dungeon-crawl" they were going on about, so loudly. Even if it is not a bad game on its own, their campaign was very dishonest and I don't trust them anymore. (ZIN)
I think there's clearly a growing numnber of disgruntled old school fans expressing a valid point of view here which I certainly sympathise with to a degree. I also don't think InXile have managed this angle particularly well; as I've observed quite a few times, these rational expressed voices being either ignored and skipped in favour of more congratulatory "yes, this is what I wanted!" echo chamber" type posts.
For the entire thread:
https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=19047
Incidentally, belated welcome to the Watch, @KeepitClean;.
Be sure to take my perspective and pessimism with a grain of salt; as there are certainly a variety of experiences of the game. I know there are players on the 'Watch for instance who are enjoying the Beta.