Kickstarter-backed nostalgia-fests have to walk a hard line. Get too nostalgic and you have a game that’s nearly incomprehensible to gamers that think Halo is old school–especially for the Bard’s Tale series, which began back in the 80s. Get too modern and you upset all the fans that backed you in the first place. And then there’s the matter of actually delivering the game versus spending a near-decade selling spaceships and spinning your wheels, not that I’m naming names. The Bard’s Tale IV manages this tricky feat with the acrobatics and derring-do of your average (if always overpowered) bard. And, more importantly, the game is actually out.
The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep
Developer: inXile Entertainment
Price: $34.99
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Mac, Linux, and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
There’s a nicely-animated cutscene bringing us back–or introducing us, if you didn’t happen to be around in 1985–to the world. There were gods that clawed through a rift in the world and turned apes into intelligent apes to be their worshippers. You can guess who the apes are, right? The elves and dwarves fought against them and drove them back, but gods can’t be killed, so they spend all their time plotting and influencing and whispering, trying desperately to get back in. Three times, they’ve talked an evil human into doing their bidding. Three times they’ve been driven back by ragtag unproven heroes.
As a sidebar, at some point, someone has to go “Maybe we should put together some professionals to deal with this recurring issue,” right?
Evil is rising again and that brings us to the dirty streets of a very Scottish-feeling city called Skara Brae. In terms of overall dirtiness, it’s a lot like The Witcher, but more Braveheart, so the unwashed peasants all have thick Scottish accents and the music is a lovely mix of the sad and Celtic.
From the beginning, things are bad. The Temple of the Swordfather is persecuting Adventurers for allying with old races like the elves and dwarves. We are, naturally, an Adventurer, and it isn’t long before we’re going to be persecuted for our trouble. This sets the stage for the game and also provides a lot of flavor. You spend a lot of time skulking around shadows, dodging tough fights, and trying to find ways around trouble.
If you’ve grown up with RPGs that tailor themselves to you on the fly, the combat is going to be a bit of a kick in the face. Encounters are refreshingly fatal. Sometimes that high-level monster notices you and, boom, dead. Sometimes a group of enemies swarm you and, boom, dead. If you manage to set up a good ambush, you wind up in a grid and turn-based combat system recognizable to those that love games of this particular vintage (or reboots like Legend of Grimrock) where there’s plenty of time to think, but also plenty of time to overthink and get yourself in trouble.
Races and classes are also refreshingly classical: Bards do buffs and debuffs and drink a lot. (No, really, it’s integral to their class to be wasted). Practitioners are the spellcasting class and can specialize into Wizards and Sorcerers and Conjurers and finger-wagglers of all sorts. Fighters hit things really hard. Rogues do traps and stealth and ambushes. Humans have various flavors with unique bonuses. Dwarves are stubborn and sturdy. Elves are intelligent and magic. Trows are sneaky and mischievous.
That said, there is some room for customization in the skill trees and crafting. I built a rogue around critical hits and lockpicking, but I also could’ve built her around hitting things with giant swords or making concoctions. Wizards can do different styles of magic with their own strengths and weaknesses. Bards can drink. Whoo, boy, can they drink. Fighters hit things, of course, but how they hit things is left up to the player.
While there is a tutorial, many of the systems aren’t carefully explained. I know, the horror of an RPG that requires reading skill descriptions and doing a little light math. It’s also possible to screw things up, if not fatally, then painfully. Maybe you should’ve worried more about armor than drinking, but then again, what fun would that be?
The Bard’s Tale IV captures what is one of the real charms of dungeon crawls, be they tabletop or otherwise: The plotting. Rather than barreling through trying to kill everything in sight, you have to watch an opponent and think about what you’re going to do. You may have a ballpark idea, but can’t be sure how an encounter will go. An item in a treasure chest could be life-changing armor or could just be some boring crafting materials. You never know what you’re going to find.
That said, there have been some issues, and you can read all the dirty details and patch roadmap here. Whether that fills you with outrage–as it does many on the Steam forums–or ennui–as it does me–depends on your particular orientation. I have noticed the loading times but otherwise haven’t noticed anything that makes it unplayable. And if it does well, Brian Fargo is apparently going to try and buy back Interplay, so there’s that.
The Final Word
Ultimately, The Bard’s Tale IV is a very good game, but it’s an old school launch in both senses: Games used to come out this buggy or even worse (if you can believe it, Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines killed three video cards at the publication I used to work for!), but they also used to be this deep and detailed. It might be worth waiting if you care about technical issues, but I had a lot of fun with it.
MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
