Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director's Cut

It's kind of sad that they keep fucking up promising games like that. TTON could have been much better if they had some good editors cutting down the text and better combat.

As to BT4: Whoever created the beginning of the game and thought that it's fine should be fired. I can probably get into the combat, the subclasses that are unlocked later through skills and the weird item system - but the story and dialogues are completely bland so far. Exploration is okay, but I'll wait for the grid-movement and for them to fix the movement controls.

 

Do you guys think a "Director's Cut" pass could salvage this dumpster fire?

 

Doubt it will sell enough for it to be worth it.

 

I fail to see how Wizardy 8's formation system is so radically different from BT4's system that one is a blobber and one isn't. It makes no logical sense. Both have graphical representation of party members in combat, that can move around as individuals, and impacts what enemy from what quarter can hit them and who they can hit. Sure, in Wizardry 8 it is a colored circle, but that doesn't matter. Science, facts, and reason are on my side. Your side has youth, inexperience, feelings, and illogical gibberish. I'll stick with my side and science.

And the fact that you have such an extensive backlog just means you are a general gamer and a young child. I have no backlog and never had, because unlike all you kids I started on this site because I am into rpgs. I'm not a general gamer. I wasn't born in 2012 like you guys so I don't have a huge backlog of real crpgs to play. I have what trickles out.

It took nearly a half century for Underrail, AoD, and Grimoire combined development time. Expedition Vikings is a crpg, but Conquistador certainly wasn't. And Vikings was almost completely ignored by this community.

Look at the combined sales of Underrail, AoD, Grimoire, and Expedition Vikings. 95% of the rpgcodex community ignored these titles while salivating for Pokeman, KCD, and Fallout 4. Big development studios making good crpgs is rare enough it deserves support from people claiming they like crpgs. But they don't, so they don't.

When you kids grow up and if you are unlucky enough to be cursed with good taste in crpgs when you do - you will look back and say, "Man, I wish I wasn't so retarded. I wish I didn't bite of my nose to spite my face. Curse me for having been so retarded as a small child with poor taste!" Then you will cry like the low T stupid pansy ass bitches you all are. And I will continue to be the guy that is always right, cursed with impeccable taste and barely any games to play because I actually like the games in the genre named in this site's title.

 

Its coming with a later patch. It was never turned on. Respecing was, so I wish they had a greyed out dialogue in the AG showing that it is coming like they did for grid movement.

 

The game is actually decently fun and doesn't really deserve quite as much hate as it's getting from a gameplay perspective. It's just not much of an RPG. Far too simplistic in too many regards. I've played it for about 4.5 hours, and will probably pick it up occasionally to give it more of a chance.

Probably one of the biggest mistakes they made in terms of player expectation and gameplay was touting it as some hardcore CRPG.

 

My impression is the negative rating mostly comes from bugs/stability/performance problems. I haven't heard much about the game itself other than it being ok. Maybe people would like it better if they found it playable.

 

I know.

Leaving aside the Tourette's for a second, can you honestly say that you've played all worthwhile CRPGs ever made? Even the lesser known ones that have had a renaissance of sorts on this site because a few dedicated nerds have rediscovered them? Have you played the games aweigh mentioned? I'd love for you to say yes, so we can drop this whole discussion.

 

Roqua outed as CRPGAddict in this thread

 

Unlike Skyrim, which is STILL buggy, including the "remastered" edition", KCD was fixed within the first few months. Well worth it.

 

Ah, the "support bad games because it will make more good games appear, obviously" argument, but chimpout style. I'm quite enjoying this thread.

He's right about Troika though. This "It's a bad game, but it's good b... b... because it's akin to actually good games. On some very general level. Theoretically." inanity indeed started with them.

 

I dunno I bought all 3 Troika games and I think 2 of the 3 are legitimately top 25 material. Won't get into which 2 of their 3 games because it isn't relevant.

inXile though, I don't think any of their 3 games released so far would make it to anyone's top 1000, so I really don't see where any comparison to Troika comes from other than both developed "RPGs".

 

Huh, is my Steam page wrong? I just went to Steam and BT4 isn't not even listed on the front page anymore (yesterday it was). But now it's not on Suggested, not on Recommended and not even in the "New Releases". Wtf?! That is bad. Very very bad.

 

Nah, they just decided to give the competition some breathing room, they already sold 2m copies and Fargo is on his way to buy back Interplay

 

This community PAID for the development of Wasteland 2.

And Torment.

And Bards Tale IV.

We've put in tens of thousands of dollars, just to get insulted and lied to. We've given way more chances to InEptitude than they ever deserve. That gives "this community" more than a fair right to criticize them for not delivering what they promise and failing to learn from their mistakes.

And for anyone who still pays attention to anything that Roqua says, here is the final nail in the coffin:

 

Has anyone played enough to answer this for me?

I'm curious about how the exploration is later in the game, as there are no random encounters and people have described the world structure as "metroidlike" (where you gain access to previously locked/inaccessible areas as you play the game). Are there a lot of shortcuts back to "hubs?" Are new encounters placed in older areas once you've unlocked a new area? Or do you have just walk around empty areas you've cleared in order to get to new areas?

 

You do require a bit if cpt obvious treatment don't you. I'm not talking about the relative quality of their games.

 

Its ToEE because you hate games with good combat. Both Arcanum and Bloodlines had bad combat, so they're clearly the ones you like.

I would say WL2 DC is top 10 for me. I like it more than FO 1/2 and Arcanum. TToN is definitely top 25 for me. I think it is clearly superior to PST in every possible way. Anyone who says PST had a better rpg system, chardev, or combat is a hipster retard and should be IP banned from this site.

Is BT4 one of my top 25? Probably not. It has been a lot of fun, and the dungeons are well done. It has content so immediately is better than both Grimrocks. Its a fun blobber, even if rpg-lite. It has surprisingly good combat (on hard, which it clearly was designed for normal people with normal being for the codex community, and easy probably being for literal helmet wearing mongoloids) for an rpg-lite game. I'm not going to go hipster and say the chardev is "elegant" but it is better than what it seems at first, especially once you find some synergies and some complimentary equipment. The boss fights have been well done too. It has a good mix of content/rpg stuff to do and puzzles, like MMX did. Some trinket slot/boot/glove options have been hard decisions to make.

I feel safe saying that anyone who doesn't like any of the three inXile crpgs released just plain doesn't like crpgs. Period. I also feel safe saying everyone on rpgcodex could die of AIDS and the rpg community would be improved greatly. But, we'll let time decide who is right (on the first point, you low T pansies aren't going to get laid enough in life to worry about AIDS). Its always proven me right so far.

TLDR picture for the tardo kids as a summary-

 

Well Troika's been invoked numerous times and I'm just trying to guess why. I can't think of any reason. Also ToEE is the Troika game I most liked, Arcanum the least.

 

Labyrinth of Refrain is now outselling BT4 on Steam, rank 110 compared to rank 128.

Anime has won

 

Yes. I did miss a bunch from the 80s but they are not good or have controls so bad I can't play them. I attempted to play the major ones I missed during that time, or when I was in the army and without a PC. I hope there are some gems I've missed over the years, or from foreign countries that haven't got translated yet. I order games for shipping you can't get online, like when Hammer & Sickle came out only outside the US, or Tudigor and the alliance with Rome, etc. I have missed a ton of console only games - but they usually aren't real games never mind real rpgs so I haven't missed much. The only Wizardry I haven't played is the one that was a PSN store exclusive or the Japanese language only ones for the consoles. I even gave their weird figurine one a solid, fair shot just because of the name and I gave the mmorpg a try.

When you are not a general gamer your pie is a lot smaller. And when you have high standards and impeccable taste your replay repertoire of games is extremely small. You should be very happy you are a general gamer with shit taste. You'll always have a big backlog and more games coming out made for you than you could ever play.

 

Yeah, like Bard's Tale IV. To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in this modern quasi-RPG, I'm busy playing CRPGs from the 80s. But please, keep calling me a general gamer.

 

At least you finally put your cards on the table...

 

I've been saying WL2 DC is one of the best RPGs ever made since it came out. The way they managed to salvage the buggy, undercooked mess that was the vanilla and turn it into a truly great game is the reason I've never really written inXile off. I hope they pull it off again with BT4. I'm not holding my breath but it'd be nice, it's a good game.