Bards can drink alcohol to use abilities, magic users need to acquire Spell Points, and everyone taps into the limited “Opportunity” resource for certain abilities. The key to combat is balancing the resources available each turn. Characters have a limited amount of abilities that can be equipped, so players must choose which ones to utilize in battle. Combat takes place on a 4×4 grid in turn-based fashion. The developers were inspired by Hearthstone‘s gameplay, and it sure shows. Solving puzzles is easily the best gameplay element of The Bard’s Tale IV.Ĭombat is nowhere near as interesting, but it’s not awful. These aren’t always very clear, and color is sometimes a factor (shoutout to my colorblindies), but others are intentionally obtuse with hints excellently strewn about. Sure, moving-block puzzles are nothing new, but the game quickly introduces more interesting designs that keep the player on their toes. As a whole, the environments provide a stark contrast to the character models and prove that there are certainly talented artists on the team.Įxploring these worlds can be a blast, thanks to the often inventive and exciting puzzle designs. Maybe the point of Skara Brae is to make the player want to get the hell out as soon as possible, just to see something more beautiful. I do want to point out that while Skara Brae and the character models are quite unimpressive, many of the environments are anything but. Though again, many of the character models look ugly and have lifeless animations, creating a juxtaposition between what the player sees and what they hear. The writing is witty and often funny, and the lines are delivered well. It seems small, and it is, but it’s just a constant frustrating oddity. Instead of giving the player their choices, they must hit Continue (which stops the NPC’s voice track), and then the choices show up, and then they choose the desired option.
This isn’t an issue when they are speaking on their own, but it makes the back-and-forth feel so bizarre. For whatever reason, the player must hit “Continue” after everything an NPC says. Even the idle animations are poorly constructed, with poses not perfectly looping and jumping from one position to the next. Everyone just stands still in their NPC pose, waiting for the player to come up and speak with them. NPC models look like garbage and no NPC is ever moving around. While the combat and puzzles are interesting enough in their own right, starting in the dreary grey and brown town of Skara Brae is so…unimpressive. This is absolutely not true with The Bard’s Tale IV. Sure, I’d love to save the world from the biggest baddie who has come from somewhere to ruin everything, but you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s worth slogging through the muck and the mire of The Bard’s Tale IV to do so.Ī lot of games will put their best act up front, especially long RPGs.
The framerate is all over the place, and bugs are constantly rearing their ugly head to impede or altogether halt progress. Well, I can’t say this is a tale worth hearing right now.
LEVEL CHARACTERS IN THE BARDS TALE SERIES
So naturally, I became interested in this Kickstarted renaissance of a series based on bards and their tales. Man, I was really excited when Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn offered a bard class, even if it was just a singing archer. I’ve never played the previous Bard’s Tale games, but the bard class has always been my top choice whenever it presents itself. So let’s just call it The Bard’s Tale IV for now. Every time I go to type it out, I inevitably forget about that little subtitle. But in my Steam library, it’s just The Bard’s Tale IV. On the Steam store page, it lists “Barrows Deep” at the end. I’m confused as to the actual title of this game.
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