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

[V_K]

Bad code

About ~50gb of it.

 

[Bohr]

Hasn't been much Fargo retweeting of reviews recently, but there is this one:

But due to a waning PC gaming market and lack of console titles, Interplay went bankrupt and Fargo went into exile. But it didn’t take him long to ninja himself and many others back in the spotlight. InExile has led successful campaigns to produce Wasteland 2 the true successor to Wasteland, Tides of Numenera, and most recently The Bard’s Tale IV.

Bard’s Tale IV is a grueling dungeon crawl that will beat you down. When it comes to PC classic reboots, the brutal difficulty and learning curve is where most of the fun is.

My opinion: InExile games are usually $20 to $30 cheaper at retail and will keep you happy for well over 40 hours or in my case several years.

 

[V_K]

Bard’s Tale IV is a grueling dungeon crawl that will beat you down.

Well, that's not wrong if you consider all the bugs and crashes.

 

[thesheeep]

Bad code

About ~50gb of it.

Code itself is very small (since it is only text).
Most of those 50gb are assets. Somehow those not-too-great textures, models, animations and voice files amount to about the same quantity as Kingdom Come. Go figure...

 

[V_K]

Bad code

About ~50gb of it.

Code itself is very small (since it is only text).
Most of those 50gb are assets. Somehow those not-too-great textures, models, animations and voice files amount to about the same quantity as Kingdom Come. Go figure...

I don't have access to the "autistic" button so I'll just say that it was a very enlightening post.

 

[LESS T_T]

Heh, Eurogamer's Robert Purchese quite liked this: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...arrows-deep-review-a-scruffy-puzzlers-delight

The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep review - a scruffy puzzler's delight
Act accordionly.

An eccentric and charismatic B-movie of a game. The Bard's Tale 4 is an ideal place to puzzle in.


I'm sorry this review arrives late, but The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep is stubborn. Trying to power through it is like trying to solve a great pile of crosswords in one sitting: your brain would turn to mush. You could cheat - The Bard's Tale 4 includes a walkthrough out of the box - but you would rob yourself of the point of the puzzle in the first place. The answer doesn't really matter; it's the process you undergo to get it and the satisfaction you feel when you do that counts. In this way The Bard's Tale 4, one giant collection of puzzles, can be enormously satisfying, but force the issue and you will bang heads with it. It cannot and should not be rushed.

The other important thing to know or remember about The Bard's Tale 4 is where it comes from. This has its roots in crowdfunding, and is not a big budget game with a huge team. Character models are dated and cutscenes are slideshows with filters on, and a variety of bugs (a huge second patch for the game has just been released) forced me to reload upwards of 15 times. This is particularly annoying in The Bard's Tale 4, because saves happen at little pillars and not freely from a menu, meaning you have to redo progress each load.

But what other games do you know that come with a printable Code Wheel for solving puzzles? What other games do you know with a bard hero class powered by booze? What other games do you know with a live-action, evolving story recap when you select 'Continue'? What the Bard's Tale 4 sacrifices in polish it makes up for with personality.

You learn magical songs, for example, to open thorned blockades or knock down walls and discover paths previously off limits. You visit a Review Board to unlock higher tiers of ability, if they allow it, and chat to an NPC called Faryn Bygo there (in other words Brian Fargo, the creator of The Bard's Tale and leader of developer inXile). There's badger racing; there's a farmer who hates adventurers because they always smash the place up (I had just smashed his barrels looking for loot); and there's a writer dreaming up a tale about a world without magic and monsters for his readers to escape to.

But it takes a little while for the game's personality to sink in. It's not the brightest beginning. The Bard's Tale 4 does takes you to some imaginative and beautiful places - pastoral elven realms; twisted, fleshy hell realms - but the opening seaside town of Skara Brae and the sewers underneath it are not among them. The story is codswallop too - I genuinely thought I'd reached the end of the game at least twice before it announced, 'No! Aha! Here's the real baddie,' assuming I cared - although a spritely cast of companions and eccentric extras do their best to lift it (and there are fewer accents I'd rather listen to for hours on end than the Scottish here, which is not, for once, reserved only for dwarves).

The core loop is getting through areas gated off by puzzles, and sprinkled with groups of enemies. The Bard's Tale 4 is first-person when you explore but a chess-like grid when you battle. Your gang occupies one eight-square half of the board, and your enemies occupy the other. Who goes first depends on who charges first in exploration mode, and it can be a deciding factor if and when you whack the difficulty up (doing so reinvigorates combat in the latter stages of the game).

Positioning during battles makes a big difference. Abilities have hit patterns according to the grid around you, and you can't whack enemies stood behind other enemies unless using a spell or an arrow. Governing all abilities is Opportunity, a shared team resource refreshed each turn. All abilities have an Opportunity cost, except those declared Free (very useful) spells, which use mana, although gaining mana often involves Meditating, which itself requires Opportunity. Meditating also requires charging up, or Channeling, but this prevents you doing other things and can leave you vulnerable. There are Stances you can toggle on or off for various benefits too, like counter-attacking or gaining armour, but again, doing so shuts other options off to you. There is, in other words, a lot to think about.

Combat is like another of the game's puzzles, really, and as your powers broaden, your tactical options open. A strategy I leaned on a lot towards the end of the game, for example, was for my bard to drink booze to gain enough spell points to play Falkentyne's Fury, which curses all enemies to take damage the next time they're hit (for good measure I also have an ability which automatically slings my empty bottle at an enemy for damage), then move a mage forward (reducing their next spell cost by one because of some magical shoes) and cast a cone of fire over the enemies in front of me, triggering Falkentyne's Fury, setting enemies on fire, and adding another detonating mage debuff to the mix. Then I used the mage's dagger attack to retreat to the back row - and potentially steal a point of mana (a bladecaster ability) - and set about slinging arcane bolts which ignore armour. This triggers yet more detonations and applies more mage debuffs, and the effect cascades destructively around. There are more flourishes involved but you see what I'm getting at: combat can be a satisfyingly thinky affair.

The archetypes themselves are typical of RPGs - rogue, fighter, mage - with a nice spread of familiar abilities, but it's the bard which stands out. Hands down, the best bard I have played in an RPG is in The Bard's Tale 4 - and with a title like that I'd jolly well hope so. The drinking mechanic is inspired. When you drink, a stack (or two) of drunk is applied to you, and there's only so much you can take before you pass out. The best part about this is there are instruments which require a certain level of drunk in order to trigger a secondary song effect, so the game entices you to court inebriation. You don't have to play as the prebuilt bard Melody, by the way - you can create any character you like - but she's well voiced and, well, when in Skara Brae...

But puzzles are the game's bread and butter; they're everywhere. There are doors opened by connecting spinning cogs, doors opened by rotating discs with patterns on. There are giant blocks to slide onto pressure plates, sometimes on the ceiling, and tunes to ring out on bells according clues found around you. There are sudokus and logic puzzles, whole halls of hellish re-wiring (more engrossing than it sounds). There's Fairy Golf. There are even puzzle weapons which gain power the more puzzles on them you solve.

The Bard's Tale 4 uses these to strongest effect inside elaborately crafted dungeons - great imaginariums of colour and spectacle and otherworldly delights, with traps, floating imps and talking walls. Exploring them is like being in The Labyrinth with David Bowie, may he rest in peace - each new area a conundrum for you to solve. My favourite of these was the bizarre and eerie Mangar's Lair, where the chambers at the top and bottom of one staircase kept changing - at one point it was just one giant eye staring at me. Apparently it's entirely optional, Mangar's Lair, and not on the game's critical path; I don't know why inXile would want anyone to miss it - it's exceptional! And there are more of these optional places of wonder dotted around the world. I urge you strongly to find them. They're the game at its best and I regret passing some by.

But puzzles bog The Bard's Tale 4 down too. In outside areas they can become a pain, blocking every door and every little bit of progress. It can feel like inXile artificially lengthening sections for the sake of a long adventure - and it is surprisingly long at over 30 hours - and it wears you down.

Exacerbating the issue is a general lack of finesse. There's no fast-travel apart from between settlements at standing stones, for example, so you're forced to navigate twist-turny pathing as you traipse back and forth between objectives, and the compass isn't much help. Turning pieces clockwise or anti-clockwise can be awkwardly fiddly which, the umpteenth time it happens, begins to grate, and not being able to automatically sort your inventory is a nuisance. It all sounds trivial but in an already long and winding game these annoyances build up.

This is where I urge you again not to try and force The Bard's Tale 4. This is where, after a handful of crashes and having to redo progress (which was admittedly quicker when I already knew a puzzle's solution) I clashed heads with the game. I had to turn it off and walk away, and I'm so glad I did, because returning to it a day or two later made me see things anew. I began seeing The Bard's Tale 4 not as an RPG to gorge on but to snack on - a daily crossword of a game.

It is an ideal place to return to puzzle in. There's no urgency, no tension; it's peaceful and relaxing, and accompanied by the most beautiful Gaelic soundtrack I've ever heard in a game. A whole album was specially commissioned for The Bard's Tale 4 and it is enchanting, from melancholic air to jaunty jig. This, mingled with the game's easy-going fantasy and pretty scenery, makes The Bard's Tale 4 exactly the game to play in the evening to unwind.

If there's such thing as a B-movie game, The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep is it. I don't mean it detrimentally, because although it's scruffy, it has bags of charisma, and by not trying to please everybody it revels in being different. And being different in a world of so many spectacular role-playing games means everything. If you don't like puzzles, I hope I've made it clear you should probably avoid The Bard's Tale 4, but if you do - if you take pleasure in a mental stretch - then there's an awful lot here for you.

 

[Zombra]

Nice to see a reviewer who actually played to the end!

 

[TT1]

Nice to see a reviewer who actually played to the end!

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

There's an optional 99 wave battle apparently, I never found it but some folks in my twitch chat mentioned it.

4 stacks of 99 berserkers 99 waves of 4 berserkers

 

[thesheeep]

How long did that take?

 

[theSavant]

99 waves @ 4 berserkers?? Sounds a bit weird and unspectacular. I'm thinking of it like this: if you get the first attack in every wave, you may eliminate these 4 berserkers with your larger party before they can even land a hit. And the same thing happens every wave. Would probably be different if there were 6-8 berserkers on the battlefield, so they could land some hits too (and then 99 berserkes would be more challenging than 396 berserkers).

But then again, I'm just speculating...

 

[Gord]

99 waves @ 4 berserkers?? Sounds a bit weird and unspectacular. I'm thinking of it like this: if you get the first attack in every wave, you may eliminate these 4 berserkers with your larger party before they can even land a hit....

I don't think you would, since the next wave will not necessarily start with your fresh turn again. Rather it will likely happen that it's still your in-progress turn, including your reduced opportunity and abilities on a cool down .

 

[fantadomat]

LoL that look tedious at best....it could crash at any time .

Also i just reinstalled the game,fuck fargo for not fixing the stupid quest retroactively!

 

[Belegarsson]

Uhhh guys, I can't seem to damage Tarjan and the null at all even though one of my characters already has the hunger sword equipped, am I and missing something here or is it a bug?

 

[Sinatar]

Uhhh guys, I can't seem to damage Tarjan and the null at all even though one of my characters already has the hunger sword equipped, am I and missing something here or is it a bug?

The hunger sword has a special attack, you gotta use that.

 

[theSavant]

Also i just reinstalled the game

Wouldn't it be better to wait a few more days? Last week they said Patch#3 should be there in 10 days, which can now only be 2-3 days away.

 

[fantadomat]

Also i just reinstalled the game

Wouldn't it be better to wait a few more days? Last week they said Patch#3 should be there in 10 days, which can now only be 2-3 days away.

Too late,i am already half way though .

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

How long did that take?

About 40-45 minutes, on hard difficulty.

99 waves @ 4 berserkers?? Sounds a bit weird and unspectacular. I'm thinking of it like this: if you get the first attack in every wave, you may eliminate these 4 berserkers with your larger party before they can even land a hit. And the same thing happens every wave. Would probably be different if there were 6-8 berserkers on the battlefield, so they could land some hits too (and then 99 berserkes would be more challenging than 396 berserkers).

But then again, I'm just speculating...

When you finish off a wave during your turn, the next wave arrives during that same turn, meaning you do not regain any action points "opportunity" already spent and cannot reuse skills already used in that turn (some skills have a longer cooldown, too).

That said, one of my fighters had the skill that uses a shield to put the fighter into a stance that increases armor value, had equipped a buckler which makes that stance last for the entire battle (unless cancelled), and had the skill that extends the stance to all allies in the same or adjacent columns (though this last skill needed to be re-used every 3 turns or so). Also, both my mages practitioners had cure spells (2 spell points) and would gain 2 spell points a turn without meditation or 4 spell points with meditation. So I was never in any real danger; it was merely a test of endurance.

Those columns of fire seen in the above screenshots were the result of a special skill provided by a unique staff that one of my practitioners had equipped. That unique staff allows for the occasional placement of a fire column in one square of the battlefield and each fire column lasts for the duration of the battle, meaning I was able to place fire columns in all four squares where the enemies were appearing (and could have added them to the other four squares just for the laughs). The fire doesn't cause damage until the end of the enemy's turn, but this damage was sufficient to kill anyone in waves 1-66 (enemy power increased at wave 34 and again at wave 67) even if they were at full health.

 

[theSavant]

No news or posts about BT4 for a whole day...



back to the dead it goes...

 

[Urthor]

Kingdom Come Deliverance vs Pathfinder Kingmaker is going to be a very interesting game of the year vote IMO

 

[Bohr]

No news or posts about BT4 for a whole day...



back to the dead it goes...

At least the Grimoire threads are always there for blobber fans, I guess. But yes, it's dead Jim.

 

[theSavant]

whouw... Pathfinder Kingmaker is really pulling ahead

 

[dragonul09]

Kingdom Come Deliverance vs Pathfinder Kingmaker is going to be a very interesting game of the year vote IMO

Why would anyone sane vote for KCD, at least Pathfinder puts up a decent difficulty, KCD was trash easy from get to go and it's still is to this day. KCD is Oblivion 2.0 and anyone who thinks that game represents incline should be punished by sniffing Hillary's Clinton diaper, that should teach them.

 

[V_K]

 

[dragonul09]

Trash game for trash people.