Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale Trilogy - remaster by Krome Studios

[KeighnMcDeath]

Having finished this a few times I was pondering cheats for this game before uninstalling. Are there any? Was there a trainer to make fucked up weak starts and uber over the top starts in the first part of the trilogy? What about hacks giving abilities from other classes/races to another. Hunter/monk, geomancer/rogues, Bard/archmages, etc etc? What about map/item/mob hacking? Since therewas no BTCS patch for the trilogy I just had to inquire if there was anyone who bothered?

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, i finally got around playing this a bit yesterday, BT 1 remaster.
The character creation is great, mage classes are something, very unusual mage classes with multiple prestige classes, it's the best feature by far.

On the other hand, the random encounter rate is way too high and having to get back to one building to level up in a maze city is really annoying, particularly since the remaster doesn't come with a good auto-mapping solution, the automap is mostly useless and i'm not going to map the game.

I would have make the effort if the game was top tier, it's alright so far but not good enough.

 

[newtmonkey]

I found the entire BT trilogy to pretty mediocre when I played through it a year or so ago, but I enjoyed it enough. I thought the remaster had an excellent automap... it even notes information on fixed encounters and text messages that occur on each square. What don't you like about the map?

 

[Gregz]

So, i finally got around playing this a bit yesterday, BT 1 remaster.
The character creation is great, mage classes are something, very unusual mage classes with multiple prestige classes, it's the best feature by far.

On the other hand, the random encounter rate is way too high and having to get back to one building to level up in a maze city is really annoying, particularly since the remaster doesn't come with a good auto-mapping solution, the automap is mostly useless and i'm not going to map the game.

I would have make the effort if the game was top tier, it's alright so far but not good enough.

Try again, this is a great classic. If you memorize the routes between the guild hall, inn, and garth's shop, it will all be a lot easier. If you don't enjoy grinding combat for XP and loot you should probably pass though. Myself, I love that shit.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The only Bardstale like I didn't ultra enjoy was swords & serpents on NES. It was ... fine but combat annoyed me. It seemed gimmicky and dropped to 4 players.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I found the entire BT trilogy to pretty mediocre when I played through it a year or so ago, but I enjoyed it enough. I thought the remaster had an excellent automap... it even notes information on fixed encounters and text messages that occur on each square. What don't you like about the map?

My bad, just noticed the Journal's map, i was refering to the automap during the exploration mode which is barely readable but the Journal's automap is pretty good.

It's not bad, i checked a few classics recently (EotB 2, DM, Chaos Strikes Back, Dragon Wars PC and amiga) and i'll either go on with BT 1 remaster or play Dragon Wars (the PC version, amiga emulation is a chore)

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

They never fixed the DW amiga for emulation? That sucks. I'd take a remaster like TBTT. And.... a construction set.

FARGO!!!!!

 

[Darth Canoli]

They never fixed the DW amiga for emulation? That sucks. I'd take a remaster like TBTT. And.... a construction set.

FARGO!!!!!

I don't know about that but I never tried amiga emulation before and i can't be bothered with it.

Plot twist!
I just found a link for a already configured Amiga DW version (gamesnostalgia) working on recent windows (works for win 8).

The PC version is ugly as sin, it looks like a calculator game.

The early beginning is way harder than Bard's Tale 1 though, looks like a hardcore Dark Sun...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Its a great game. Keef the thief on the other hand.... eh... it takes some getting used to. I'd play these two back to back.

 

[Darth Canoli]

The loot, special abilities and really well designed spell-casting classes makes BT 1 enjoyable, also, i never liked much this kind of early combat design but it certainly beats everything else from that era, aside from Gold-box, M&M and Wizardry.

RoA (and worse RoA HD) & BaK combat comes to mind and even worse, early ultima and Darklands...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Early ultima like akalabeth, 1 & 2?

U3 was simple as was u4. U5 was kind of cool. I can't recall u6 and 7 so I need to watch a vid. As much as I like nostalgia, I'd like a more updated version of the ultimas using 1 engine but with animated rouge-like gfx (or Joshua steele). I'd say 32x32 or 64x64 pixels. Not all mobs need 16 frames of movement but an actual attack frame like goldbox and others would be nice. I don't need it to go all POE or shit like that.

I'd like a little more to do in the games as well. Naturally, since the story implies the avatar since akalabeth then a decent transfering system.

I wonder what an Ultima would be like in full bardstale mode. So.. BTCS or that other Bardstale maker? Fargo won't add one to the remaster.

you barstard.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Since the initial hype has surely died down by now, would anyone still recommend this remastered trilogy? I'm not sure how I feel about these new graphics, and the addition of an in-game map seems like a big change. I was thinking of using Grid Cartographer with the original, but lots of oldfags swear by the graph paper approach, and if I'm playing a game like this, I think I'd want to get as close as possible to the original experience.

 

[Rincewind]

I was thinking of using Grid Cartographer with the original, but lots of oldfags swear by the graph paper approach, and if I'm playing a game like this, I think I'd want to get as close as possible to the original experience.

I very strongly recommend to map old school grid-based dungeon crawlers fully manually. Auto-mappers like gamelink in Grid Cartographer, The All-Seeing Eye, and Gold Box Companion are cool and technologically very interesting, but they take away a huge portion of the game experience, namely exploring, mapping, and navigating the dungeon using your maps and notes. To me, playing such games with automapping would take away 80% of the fun, if not more.

Note that I said "fully manually", which is not necessarily on graph paper with a pencil. Grid Cartographer, Excel, or some other tool is fine as long as you're mapping the dungeon square by square yourself. My preference is definitely such tools over graph paper, much easier to make changes if you screw up, etc.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I noticed there was a new (?) dungeon crawler on Steam where the overhead/overland perspective as you navigate and move about the dungeon is graph paper squares then it switches to another more traditional view during encounters. It got positive reviews and seemed like a cute idea. Anyone here play it? It was obviously developed by an old school fan who loved mapping his own dungeons.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Since the initial hype has surely died down by now, would anyone still recommend this remastered trilogy? I'm not sure how I feel about these new graphics, and the addition of an in-game map seems like a big change. I was thinking of using Grid Cartographer with the original, but lots of oldfags swear by the graph paper approach, and if I'm playing a game like this, I think I'd want to get as close as possible to the original experience.

I thought Part 1 of the remastered trilogy was great, and it had a reasonable difficulty and game length so I highly recommend revisiting this old classic. Part 2 wasn't as fun and I understand the difficulty ramps up considerably mid-game and I heard it's longer. Same mechanics as Part 1 but opened up more to a larger game world. The only reason I didn't finish it was because I lost my saves but I might have given up anyway due to that difficulty spike & the greater length (I'm good for about 30-40 hours these days in a game then I need to say goodbye). Part 3 was fun but then I encountered overuse of time traveling elements in so many different dungeons in so many different eras that it got tedious for me so I quit. I still have the save and may continue someday but likely not. I didn't map my own dungeons and used the QoL features.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Note that I said "fully manually", which is not necessarily on graph paper with a pencil. Grid Cartographer, Excel, or some other tool is fine as long as you're mapping the dungeon square by square yourself. My preference is definitely such tools over graph paper, much easier to make changes if you screw up, etc.

I think I will go ahead and do that; I've been using Notepad rather than a real notebook for the Ultima games so far (and felt no need to map the dungeons in those games) so it should be somewhat familiar. At this rate these old games are gonna make me get two monitors.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The remaster has an oldskool mode without automapping FYI.

 

[octavius]

Since the initial hype has surely died down by now, would anyone still recommend this remastered trilogy? I'm not sure how I feel about these new graphics, and the addition of an in-game map seems like a big change. I was thinking of using Grid Cartographer with the original, but lots of oldfags swear by the graph paper approach, and if I'm playing a game like this, I think I'd want to get as close as possible to the original experience.

I'd play the legacy versions (bug fixes, but original game play AFAIK) of the remasters and Grid Cartographer or something like it.
Using software instead of pen&paper has the added advantage of the maps being easier to keep and to share with others.

 

[octavius]

I thought Part 1 of the remastered trilogy was great, and it had a reasonable difficulty and game length so I highly recommend revisiting this old classic. Part 2 wasn't as fun and I understand the difficulty ramps up considerably mid-game and I heard it's longer. Same mechanics as Part 1 but opened up more to a larger game world. The only reason I didn't finish it was because I lost my saves but I might have given up anyway due to that difficulty spike & the greater length.

Hmm...in the original versions BT1 had a very significant difficuly spike in the last 2-3 dungeon (or tower) levels, while in BT2 things eventually became too easy combatwise and you got this weird situation where the monster always had initiative but never hit.

 

[BruceVC]

Since the initial hype has surely died down by now, would anyone still recommend this remastered trilogy? I'm not sure how I feel about these new graphics, and the addition of an in-game map seems like a big change. I was thinking of using Grid Cartographer with the original, but lots of oldfags swear by the graph paper approach, and if I'm playing a game like this, I think I'd want to get as close as possible to the original experience.

Its so coincidental but I am seriously thinking of playing the new BT trilogy now once I have finished with Disco

I am glad Darth Roxor mentioned you can play it with " old school mode " because I think that is what I will do

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I didn't try legacy mode; so can you kill mangar over and over again? I did that on DOS and grinded that until my levels weren't readable. I'd say I had more nostalgia with 1 but 2 was good and 3 wasn't terrible. There were bugs in 3 but I finished it several times on DOS anyway. I really enjoyed the c64 version.

Maybe something I thinK was missing from the remaster was other platform versions to unlock. Playing appleII, Mac, c64 etc version but with the increased speed and zilch loading times. Unlock the animations maybe. Oh well, there are emulators. You miss out on the TRANSFER from other games like Wizardry and ultima III (did that on c64 bard's 2). Bard 1 on appleII you could do a wizardry transfer I believe. Bard 3 i don't recall other transfers. I don't think dos had the other game transfers. It was neat shit to transfer you veteran characters from not just another game but another game company. It was like DAMN MAN!

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I thought Part 1 of the remastered trilogy was great, and it had a reasonable difficulty and game length so I highly recommend revisiting this old classic. Part 2 wasn't as fun and I understand the difficulty ramps up considerably mid-game and I heard it's longer. Same mechanics as Part 1 but opened up more to a larger game world. The only reason I didn't finish it was because I lost my saves but I might have given up anyway due to that difficulty spike & the greater length.

Hmm...in the original versions BT1 had a very significant difficuly spike in the last 2-3 dungeon (or tower) levels, while in BT2 things eventually became too easy combatwise and you got this weird situation where the monster always had initiative but never hit.

I don't remember struggling much with combat even near the end in BT1 Remastered. It was some of the hidden areas you needed you find through mapping that I found the trickiest. I think I got the impression that BT2 got more difficult from a codex post or two, and, of course, Burger Becky who claimed the developer delivered an unbeatable game. But tbh up until I lost my save, BT2 Remastered didn't seem more difficult than BT1 IIRC. I was maybe about 1/4-1/3 of the way in when I lost my save. BT3 had one difficult encounter that I couldn't seem to beat; one of the bosses that kept whisking me back with some kind of wind attack every time I tried to close in with the kill. It was the tedium of the dungeons that I found difficult to handle.

 

[Old Hans]

one of the bosses that kept whisking me back with some kind of wind attack every time I tried to close in with the kill.

is that the boss you need a thief to sneak up every round and backstab him? I still remember that fight after all these years.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

one of the bosses that kept whisking me back with some kind of wind attack every time I tried to close in with the kill.

is that the boss you need a thief to sneak up every round and backstab him? I still remember that fight after all these years.

Probably. And every fucking time I sent my thief a'creepin' behind his back, I got the "your thief has failed to backstab" message or something like that. Every time. Maybe the trick was to just persevere and do it at least 100 times until you succeeded. Or maybe I had a bugged early version of the remaster. I think I tend to give up any single boss battle, in any game, after an hour or so if I don't defeat it.

Edited: Now that I think about it, it might not have been that boss you're talking about because wasn't it in the end-game where you needed the backstab? This was about half-way in, and the big problem was that I couldn't get within 10' to launch heavy melee attacks (I think ranged attacks were ineffectual)... I kept getting blown back.

 

[Daemongar]

one of the bosses that kept whisking me back with some kind of wind attack every time I tried to close in with the kill.

is that the boss you need a thief to sneak up every round and backstab him? I still remember that fight after all these years.

Probably. And every fucking time I sent my thief a'creepin' behind his back, I got the "your thief has failed to backstab" message or something like that. Every time. Maybe the trick was to just persevere and do it at least 100 times until you succeeded. Or maybe I had a bugged early version of the remaster. I think I tend to give up any single boss battle, in any game, after an hour or so if I don't defeat it.

Edited: Now that I think about it, it might not have been that boss you're talking about because wasn't it in the end-game where you needed the backstab? This was about half-way in, and the big problem was that I couldn't get within 10' to launch heavy melee attacks (I think ranged attacks weren't ineffectual)... I kept getting blown back.

I'm thinking there were some hard wired encounters in BT3 to make the game more interesting. This may be the case, but it's been a long time since I completed BT3. I do remember a group of mages in Ice Keep which pushed me back, cast petrification spells, and called you "Chicken!" if you retreated.