JarlFrank said:
So how does it compare to Might and Magic, Wizardry and the Goldbox games? Better, worse, similar? How's the difficulty?
Less difficult than the Wizardry series, simpler mechanics, and overall, a solid CRPG series that doesn't mince too many words with what you have to do. For example, it doesn't have the kind of job system that Wizardry can bother you with. Classes tend to remain static, though later titles (II and III) mixed in a few more options for mages (Chronomancer, Geomancer, etc..).
Bard's Tale I was the most straightforward one featuring colored graphics standing in for dungeons and creatures. That was one of its biggest selling points over Wizardry, the bells and whistles. Difficulty-wise,from the party perspective, it was easy to put together a party and die early in the game. Not as brutal as MM1, though, with its spread of buffs and heals with its magic classes. For example, you didn't need gems to cast spells, only points, which greatly reduced the need to hoard anything extra above the basics and were restored at an inn. Storywise, standard "kill the evil wizard" story. Spell system relied on entering a four letter code to cast what you wanted.
Bard's Tale II added in an overworld map and six cities, though the wilderness was just one giant plain and the cities were basically identical to each other outside of names, roads, and the dungeons they featured. Relatively easy to get into (a beginner's dungeon was provided that you could grind through to get up to a decent speed), but the Death Snares were new. These were riddles at the end of specific dungeons hiding part of the "Destiny Wand" you had to recover. Failure to figure out the trap in time kills everyone. Not sure if this is the one that introduced spinners.
Bard's Tale III was, as others pointed above, probably the best in the series both storywise and bells and whistles like. Copy protection was handled with a code wheel (you can find documentation that defeats this if you're getting into it today) and it featured different dimensions with unique monsters, riddles, and a much stronger story than the previous two. Later, combat pit you against hundreds of monsters (the limit was 99 monsters per group, with multiple groups possible in each encounter). Visit Hiroshima and fight SS soldiers on top of everything else later in the game. Thief was also improved in this title, though not necessarily needed to win the final battle (despite being called Thief of Fate). My favorite one of the series.
All three games shared these aspects in common:
1) Sandbox grinding - dungeons could be revisited and cleared out over and over again making leveling relatively easy. Monsters do not automatically scale.
2) Pretty graphics - well, at the time at least, that was a huge selling point over Wizardry's wire-frame dungeons and crude monster visuals. I kind of preferred Wizardry's artsy boxes over the folding album covers Bard's Tale came in, though.
3) Bard brought sound - the Bard's use in all three games was as a useful utility character, at least that's what I used him/her for. As long as they had something to drink, they could give the party decent buffs that were useful early on.
4) Easy to jump into - Wizardry excels at giving the player tons to work with and think through with its class options and party makeup. On the opposite end, the Bard's Tale series keeps things relatively simple. Once you settle on a decent party (two or three fighter types, two mages, one bard, thief), it's pretty much all you will need throughout the game (with the exception of III in which specific mage classes required a little grooming).
Blackadder said:
As for the mobs, I have only one thing to say: 99Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers will your stalwart band choose to F)ight or R)un?
ZZGO FTW
Azrael the cat said:
Incidentally, I've never heard of this 'Dragon Wars' thing, yet I considered myself to have grown up with the Wizardry/Bards' Tale era. Is it worth tracking down? Is it still a blob-crawler, or more like RoA? I know nothing about it and am now seriously intrigued. Yes, I'll obviously wiki/google it myself, but some Codex review/feedback would be nice if available.
This was supposed to technically be Bard's Tale IV, but was transmorphed into Dragon Wars instead. More like a blob-crawler, like the previous Bard's Tales, but with improved mechanics/graphics. I didn't too much care for the bar graph interface they implemented, but the skill system, automap, and the story were solid enough to make it a winner for me. Casting chained dragons as nuclear weapons under lock and key was a nice twist on the usual fantasy.
I thought it was harder to get into than the Bard's Tale series as it was easy to get lost in its world and end up with a garbage build, even if you transferred characters from the Bard's Tale series (not as useful as one might think in this case). While magic flowed freely in the Bard's Tale series (leveling up gave you complete access to a particular level of spells), you had to find the spells you wanted and learn them in Dragon Wars in addition to having the requisite skill type.
This is the one that started using the whole 'paragraph' system that was also seen with Wasteland and a few other games, but you can find them out there if you really want to try it out. Box art was also done by Boris Vallejo if you are a fan of his work. The game also seems to have fallen out of copyright so you can snag it here along with the requisite docs:
http://www.djgallagher.com/games/pc/dra ... nloads.php
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