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

Peachcurl

Arcane
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Jan 3, 2020
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It has some good puzzles (but too many of the same type), it has fun turn based combat, pretty unique art style (visual and sound, music). Very weird writing, odd looking characters.

And it's too long. I tend to lose interest when I get into that snow/ice region.

Still, one of the more original works in recent years, despite pretending to be the fourth installments in a series.

It's a good puzzle game, just very very lite on the rpg side.

More of an RPG than certain Codex-RPGOTYs
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
8,268
Location
Kelethin
It is too niche.

Mainstream pleb game = 100000000000 million potential customers
Bugs / Poor release = 10000000 million potential customers
With RPG mechanics = 100 million potential customers
With a party = 500 potential customers
With puzzles = 8 potential customers, and they're not sure.
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,151
So...We reached that point in time where Bard's Tale IV is finally good, then? Can't wait for the time where Tides of Numenera and Underworld: Ascendant will be considered good, cult classic games as well.
 

Antigoon

Augur
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
Messages
366
Why does this game has so little reviews on steam?
They didn't update the original game with that directors cut but created a "new" game on steam. Effectively all reviews from the first year are lost/removed. Pretty sure they were mixed though. Guess they thought starting our fresh would help them.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,532
Location
Bulgaria
Why does this game has so little reviews on steam?
because it flopped and sold extremely poorly.

Ok but why? Is it a bad game? Then why it has over 100 pages on dex? Seems like a good game by sheer publicity here.
It was a glorios mess on release lol,just read the first few pages. Also a lot of pointless filler puzzles. There is a bunch of short poser reviews of the game in here too. Just read some old shit,it is a good thread,funny. Oh and looked like this:

112.png
 

Peachcurl

Arcane
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Jan 3, 2020
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Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,222

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
12,958
Ok but why? Is it a bad game? Then why it has over 100 pages on dex? Seems like a good game by sheer publicity here.
This has been discussed previously: InXile deviated from the formula of the original Bard's Tale trilogy in both combat and exploration, while at the same time heavily "casualizing" the game in almost every respect. The result is an evidently unsuccessful attempt to reach a broad audience that has never played the original trilogy and wouldn't care for it, while also alienating the narrower audience that appreciates Wizardry-likes and might be nostalgic for the original Bard's Tale games. Changes made to combat were seemingly aimed in the direction of making it more tactical, but it's too casualized to hold much appeal for the type of CRPG player who enjoys the tactical combat of Pool of Radiance and similar games. Similarly, changes made to exploration placed a focus on mechanical puzzles, but these puzzles are too simple and repetitive to hold much appeal for the type of CRPG player who enjoys the sort of puzzles found in Dungeon Master and similar games. The Bard's Tale IV was additionally hurt by the agonizingly-lengthy loading times for those without a solid-state drive and reportedly also poor framerates for many with older and/or cheaper computers, though these issues would be less likely to be experienced now than when it was released. Also, the game is burdened with a prolonged, unskippable tutorial sequence in a dreary underground area and generic medieval city before it finally allows you to create your own party and enter the first real dungeon.

The developers were unable to attract the casual gaming audience they were so clearly pursuing. The reasons for this aren't entirely clear, but certainly InXile did itself no favors by wasting money on advertisements attempting to attract people who had enjoyed Skyrim, even though nearly anyone who considers Skyrim a good game would run away screaming at the first real puzzle in The Bard's Tale IV, and not many would be fond of the (rather odd) turn-based combat either. I suppose certain portions of the casual audience might have been interested in either the combat or the puzzles but not both simultaneously. :M
 
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Peachcurl

Arcane
Joined
Jan 3, 2020
Messages
10,572
Location
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the first real puzzle in The Bard's Tale IV
Which happens when exactly?
Going by steam stats, I gave the game 4 hours before getting utterly bored, and didn't find any.
Good question. It takes a while, I think the "tutorial" phase only has some optional stuff and minor block-moving riddles? The large puzzles occuring at high frequency mostly happen once you leave Skara Brae for the first time (e.g., fire stream puzzles, fairy golf puzzles, crystal shape puzzles, larger block-moving puzzles).
 

grimace

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
2,071
Some folks paid more than four whole dollars for this on kickstarter so you could pay $4 to never play it.
 

TheDeveloperDude

MagicScreen Games
Developer
Joined
Jan 9, 2012
Messages
602
It is too niche.

Mainstream pleb game = 100000000000 million potential customers
Bugs / Poor release = 10000000 million potential customers
With RPG mechanics = 100 million potential customers
With a party = 500 potential customers
With puzzles = 8 potential customers, and they're not sure.
with turn based combat = 1 potential customer, and he is not sure
 

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