Game News Bard's Tale 2 Remaster Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: inXile Entertainment; Krome Studios; Michael Cranford; The Bard's Tale Trilogy

Krome Studios' remaster of the original Bard's Tale has surprisingly turned out to be one of this year's most well-received RPG releases. Many of our users are saying it's the best game inXile have ever produced, and we're already excited to think about what Krome will do next. In the meantime though, it's onward to The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight. Originally released in 1986, Bard's Tale 2 was a larger and more complex game than its predecessor, featuring new mechanics and an open world with multiple cities. However, its reputation in later years was overshadowed by a notoriously high difficulty level and controversial real-time puzzles. Maybe that's why Michael Cranford himself was brought in to introduce the game in the launch trailer.

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Owners of the remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy pack received the second game as a free update today. The announcement post includes an extensive changelog. Krome really are doing fantastic work here. It'll be interesting to see how they tackled the original game's difficulty issues.

 

[Urthor]

I congratulate the developers on making the first successful release of a Bard's Tale game this year

 

[BEvers]

And there it is

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Beyond the Bard's Tale, as was told,
An epic quest will now unfold
And in the quest, before thy sight,
A mortal man becomes the Knight.
Of wounds this many can never die;
His lips will never voice the cry
Which doomed another, ages gone
Who is now trapped as evil's pawn.
Of puissant might and matchless brawn
The Knight's fierce fate is plainly drawn
Upon the tome of life, in fact
And in this power lies the pact.
So seek the wand, and face the snare
Yet in no way can you prepare
Zanta's wrath and endless guile-
Now try the quest, friend...for a while.

 

[slowtard]

But… wasn't this was supposed to be Burger Bill's job? What happened to…

JESUS QUINCY JAMES!! What has happened to Burger Bill?!?



Just cut it like they said. Just cut the whole thing.

 

[MicoSelva]

Great news. Hopefully we will see a similar remaster of the Gold Box games some day.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Great news. Hopefully we will see a similar remaster of the Gold Box games some day.

I would sperm myself

edit: oops, too late. Just did a little thinking about it

 

[Arthandas]

I never played it, is the trilogy really that good?

 

[Bohr]

And there it is

100% outsourced game outperforming 75% outsourced game. Guess there's a lesson for Fargo there, perhaps he should become...

It would have been crazy to stick with the same business model if a number-one hit wasn't getting us anywhere. There were people making decent money on games in the late '80s, but they tended to be one- to two-person teams, and there was no way I could make decent RPGs with so few people. So I became a publisher to change our model

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Seems Wizardry, ULTIMA, Might & Magic, and Phantasie spawned a lot more successes or clones. Wizardry and Phantasie gobbled up into many JRPG games. ULTIMA & MM stood on their own for quite a while.

Bardstale.... take out the Fargo and what’s left? I can only think of a handful of pre- and post BT-elements.

Maze Master
Swords & Serpents
Wasteland
Centauri Alliance
Dragon Wars
Fountain of Dreams
Escape from Hell

Maybe there’s more before nostalgia kicked in and we got
BTCS
Devil Whiskey
....
Bards tale Builder
Silver Sword

What am I missing?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Surprise surprise... it fucking froze 3 times before loading and then IT FUCKING FROZE!

I guess my laptop is utter fucking shit. It can run legends of grimlock, wasteland 2, vaporum but this...... FUCKING THIS ..... it refuses to run.

Going to have to haul this sack o shit to the library and what update my video drivers or some shit? This is fucking ridiculous for Bardstale. The fucking idea it’s almost 1/2 a gig seems fucking ridiculous to.

FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

 

[MurkyShadow]

Great news. Hopefully we will see a similar remaster of the Gold Box games some day.

This would be most glorious. And I think the gold box games have a good foundation for remastering.
I have been revisiting Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds and was positively surprised about
how well they are still holding up, mechanics wise, but also interface and graphics wise. There are games
that have aged far less well. Or you've got a harder time getting back into it.

 

[Darkzone]

Great news. Hopefully we will see a similar remaster of the Gold Box games some day.

Especially for the Dark Sun and the Buck Rogers Gold Box games.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Don’t you like the outdated pixelated gfx? I can see it now a 1 gig version of POOLS with fancy ass menu and smoothing of the graphics. Same will happen with EOB.

All I need is an ever evolving free ware of:

GOLD BOX COMPANION
ALL-SEEING EYE

And maybe if this group worked on some upgrades:
Dungeon Craft

 

[Zeriel]

Seems Wizardry, ULTIMA, Might & Magic, and Phantasie spawned a lot more successes or clones. Wizardry and Phantasie gobbled up into many JRPG games. ULTIMA & MM stood on their own for quite a while.

Bardstale.... take out the Fargo and what’s left? I can only think of a handful of pre- and post BT-elements.

Maze Master
Swords & Serpents
Wasteland
Centauri Alliance
Dragon Wars
Fountain of Dreams
Escape from Hell

Maybe there’s more before nostalgia kicked in and we got
BTCS
Devil Whiskey
....
Bards tale Builder
Silver Sword

What am I missing?

I think the front and center "Bard" element makes the series not very popular in terms of successors, while mechanically its really solid and fun. It's kind of ironic that that's what they push so heavily with the new game. Which I understand, you have an old franchise, you want to focus on what makes it distinct, but I don't really get the feeling that most fans are obsessed with the celtic bard stuff.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The Celtic seems more in-line with the BT4. I mean good god he went balls to the wall to get actual full length music from artists for that type of music. I’ll assume Celtic.

Honestly, any more reboots like this and should I expect them to only run on gen10 corei7 or will it be something new from our friendly neighborhood alpha centsurians?

I feel like I brought a vic20 to a modern computer party.

I’m just bitching because I bought it and can’t play it.

 

[Zeriel]

Are you talking about the remaster or the new game? Because the remaster works for me on my now near-9-year-old PC, I'm pretty sure it would work on anything that isn't complete 15 year old Celeron trash.

 

[taxalot]

Are you talking about the remaster or the new game? Because the remaster works for me on my now near-9-year-old PC, I'm pretty sure it would work on anything that isn't complete 15 year old Celeron trash.

I'm betting it runs on 15 years old Celeron trash.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe I have a demon virus in my Lenovo machine. Fuck if I know. It ain’t working. And I mean the trilogy remaster. But to be fair there’s no way in hell BT4 would work on it either.

 

[Martyr]

Maybe I have a demon virus in my Lenovo machine. Fuck if I know. It ain’t working. And I mean the trilogy remaster. But to be fair there’s no way in hell BT4 would work on it either.

in order to help you, you'll need to tell us in which way the game doesn't work.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

From locking up to freezing and music still playing. Sometimes you can still access the menus be the image is frozen.

No gambling for me unless I play

At least here I can split and double down.

Ok, the newest patch is gog downloaded. Fresh install...

Game installed hit shortcut.

Barely loads up InXile screen... FROZEN.

Attempt 2
Barely makes it past that .. bard plays his diddy but screen is black.

Attempt 3
Screen freezes while the panorama is starting to move but music plays.

Attempt 4
I manage to get to the menu settings and put everything to the lowest...
click out freezes playing music.

Attempt 5
I turn off all sound
Try to enter bt1 or 2
Freezes

Attempt 6
Make it in game where storyteller at bar tells tale.
Try to get to next part but freezes.

Attempt 7
Make it in guild load up Ateam
Try to leave freeze
Etc etc etc

 

[Dehumanizer]

Virus? Ancient Windows (e.g. XP) with ancient drivers? Some hardware problem?

Although, any of the above should give you problems with most games, not just this one...

Or are you using WINE on Linux?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Windows 10. I have the latest ie and windows edge. I’ll pull out what specs I can with my Luddite skills.

According to speccy
SUMMARY

OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows 10 home 64-bit

CPU
Intel core i3 4030U @ 1.90GHz. 35 •C

RAM
4.00 single-channel DDR3 @ 798MHZ (11-11-11-28)
Total memory slots 2 (1 used)
On boot 56% is used.

Motherboard
Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768 60hz)
State: enabled, primary
Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel

Intel HD Graphics Family (LENOVO)
GPU CLOCK 997 MHz

Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000LM034 HN-M101MBB (SATA)

Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVDRAN GUX0N

Audio
Conexant SmartAudio HD
Playback device
Speakers (as above same smart audio)
Recording device
Microphone (same smart audio)

Most of the breakdowns go into manufacturer, version, model etc.

I bought this LENOVO laptop in 2014 and it had windows 8. I did the free upgrade to 10 when it came out.

Last time I hooked it up to the Internet was may 2016. I heard some people had problems with updates about a year back and their older programs failed. I felt I was in a sweet spot since my Dungeon siege I & II was working but the hellgate London is still a damn nightmare (I’m using the latest revival patch but god it’s fucked).

Annoyed that Diablo the hell doesn’t work, nor Hellfire awake mod).

Belzebub works ok. Diablo 2... it’s screwed so maybe I should look here to see what I need to get it working.

Brutal doom, I get the base package to work but for the most part I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.


So, I download various shit at the local library (2hour max time) via their computers and my thumb drives. Take the DLs home and scan them then dumb the shit to various 4-5 4T portable hard drives. Then I shut the computer off. Rinse and repeat month after month.

That’s about the biggest hard on the computer gets until something interests me ....like the trilogy which don’t fucking work.

 

[MurkyShadow]

RAM
4.00 single-channel DDR3 @ 798MHZ (11-11-11-28)
Total memory slots 2 (1 used)
On boot 56% is used.

If I read this right, please correct me if I'm wrong, you have 4gb of RAM?
With 56% used you'd be left with about 2gb free. I'd say that's where the problem might be located.
As I read it the minimum requirements say you need 4gb RAM. Add to that the intel integrated graphics
sharing the RAM with the system, you might just be out of luck.

edit:
As only one of two memory slots is used, upgrading your ram is an option you have left.
That means, if you think this is a system still worth investing something in.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I’d have to look on how to do that and the cost. I’ve never opened up a laptop before and looked under the hood. I have been thinking of just buying a new laptop in the i7 range. I wonder where you even put the expansion in on a laptop.

Youtube time I guess.