It was pouring rain outside and the world was painted in shades of gray, reflected in dirty puddles. Fortunately, on the way the tramp managed to spot a small tavern. “Hello, stranger, come in, there’s room for everyone in the tavern,” he heard from the bartender. I guarantee you cold ale and warm company. And the bard will play us a song that you have never heard, I swear by the prices of drinks, he is a great skill in this matter. So sit down, tired traveler, now this story will begin, and after thinking, he added in an unfamiliar language – Bard’s Tale.
The tale began from distant times, about which the traveler had only heard out of the corner of his ear.
The company was founded in 1983 Interplay, which warms the soul of people who began their acquaintance with the world of computer entertainment in those distant years. This company and its founder Brian Fargo gave the world such masterpieces as Wasteland, Fallout And Fallout 2. But if Wasteland is often heard as the progenitor of everyone’s favorite Fallout, then one of the first works of Brian and the studio is the role-playing game Bard’s tale, far fewer people heard. It was released in 1985 and was a fairly big success with the audience, which is beyond doubt, considering that the game received two sequels, which were also warmly received. But the years passed, the industry changed, and now Fargo became the head of another company, also founded by him inXile Entertainment. A year later, in 2004, the new Bard’s tale was already showing off on the Play Station 2 and XBox consoles. He was tied to his ancestor only at the level of concept, in which the main character is a bard looking for adventures and finding them in unexpected places. Already in 2005, the game was transferred to personal computers, reached a large audience and, perhaps, achieved its not very great, but success. Let’s try to figure out what was so exciting about this game.
Musical mechanics
The picture in the game does not hurt the eyes, in some places you can even enjoy it. This is by no means a breakthrough of that time in the technical field, but even for a port from not the most powerful consoles it is a fairly high level. The locations in the game are very diverse and do not have time to get very boring in 14 – 15 hours of playthrough. Otherwise, this project is played as a strange variation on the Diablo theme, hung with interesting mechanics. If you thought that this was another Diablo clone, you are unlikely to be right, from the brainchild of Metelitsa there is only a top view, and a slightly similar combat system. Without giving the same scope in classes and leveling options, the game remains a hack & slash rpg. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s get to know everything more specifically and in more detail.
After clicking the coveted “New Game” button, we are provided with a visualization of our main character, whose appearance you have no influence on, a choice of difficulty and are offered to distribute skill points. The last two points are directly related to each other. The higher the difficulty level you choose, the lower your character’s initial stats will be
There are 6 characteristics themselves:
–Strength, which is responsible for the damage caused by melee weapons.
–Endurance, increasing the number of health points. This characteristic also determines how hard it will be to knock you down.
–Luck is responsible for triggering various probabilistic events in the spirit of critical damage.
–Dexterity responsible for damage dealt by bows.
–Charisma Charismatic characters get big discounts in stores.
–Sense of rhythm increases the damage of creatures summoned with the help of music.
In general, all characteristics https://bettingsitesnogamstop.co.uk/review/spins-heaven/ are useful for one of the possible paths of development, except that charisma can be categorically neglected if you are determined to use one type of weapon and constantly update it from merchants.
Next, the player is asked to choose one of the perks (a system somewhat similar to Fallout), again all of them are useful to a certain extent, with the exception of the treasure hunter, although it won’t be much useless.
A dead horse is like a gun. Sooner or later it will shoot into the plot.
Melodies and satire.
And so, we are allowed into the world of the game and limited to one tavern. To overcome these kinds of restrictions we need to complete the first quest and undergo training. It is in this mission that such a thing as a music system first manifests itself. In general, everything is simple and straightforward: the bard plays a certain melody, spends mana and summons one of the creatures with its own unique abilities. At first, you have only one rat at your disposal, but as the game progresses, your knowledge of magical melodies improves and you can summon more useful companions. Their number varies from one to four, depending on the musical instrument in your belongings. There are a total of 16 melodies in the game, and each melody also has an enhanced version, but finding them all will be quite difficult. Moreover, even one of the 16 melodies can be accidentally missed if you do not carefully explore all the nooks and crannies of the territories through which we wander.
Collection of songs and small reference book.
Sometimes in the corridors of the plot, and sometimes in various hiding places, you can find good equipment. Here it is divided into several types: directly, Bard’s armor, shield, sword, two-handed weapon, dagger, flail and bow. And, of course, a musical instrument, where would we be without it?. If you can wield a sword, shield and bow without perks (although with them it is more effective), then without taking the perk for handling a two-handed weapon, flail or dagger you will not be able to use them. In his travels, the Bard can find various amulets that will strengthen him, the main thing is to remember that of two items that enhance the same characteristic, the one whose indicator is higher works. And if everything is going well with the role-playing and clothing side of the combat system, then the controls in battle are somewhat specific. The culprit is the auto-lock on one of the enemies, due to which the character hits the wrong enemy that you preferred at the moment, which is annoying, but not so much that the game becomes unplayable.
And since our game is about travel, let’s pay attention to moving between cities. It is implemented in the form of a global map, on which, in addition to the places you are interested in, squads of opponents scurry around, different depending on the stage of the game. And again, they are annoying, because they do not carry any useful function, unless you decide to farm experience at these meetings. Fortunately, they are not so difficult to avoid, and unpleasant encounters can be kept to a minimum.
It’s time to talk about the plot. The ordinary adventures of a traveling musician result in wonderful and, most importantly, interesting adventures. The dialogues are full of irony over game clichés. At the same time, these are not just jokes for the sake of jokes, but quite logical things from the point of view of the logic of people living in this world. In dialogues, although the player is not allowed to choose from a variety of answer options, they leave it up to him to decide to be sarcastic and respond aggressively or respond kindly, almost chivalrously. Sometimes these decisions do not affect anything, and sometimes the choice depends on getting some useful things. Overall, nothing serious, but as they say, a small thing, but nice.
Purple suspension that will prevent you from having fun with magic.
Music also runs through the entire game as a special leitmotif. If we don’t once again recall the bard’s magic of summoning, in which each of the 16 creatures has its own melody, then songs come onto the scene. There are not many of them, about 8, while 4 of them are, in fact, one song in which new verses sound every time. But the text in them is always perky, cheerful and emphasizes the events happening around. And if you know English and play the English version, then with a slight movement of your lips it turns into natural karaoke. For all the sound and music, we have people like Tommy Tallarico, Clinton Bajakian and Jared Emerson-Johnson to thank.
As a result, the game can be assessed very ambiguously. The simplicity of the picture, the questionable decisions of the game designers and the tiresomely large emphasis on combat episodes before the finale obviously do not benefit the project. But a well-crafted story, an interesting magic system, excellent music and sound accompaniment, perhaps outweigh, if not all, then most of the flaws. In addition, 13 years after the release of the game, very few projects similar in style and atmosphere have appeared in the industry. Therefore, for everyone who loves funny and ironic stories, Irish mythology, and people who simply don’t disdain fantasy games, I definitely suggest getting acquainted with Bard’s Tale.
The song is over. A slightly intoxicated traveler went out into the yard and looked at the washed nature, at the dirty puddles in which the blue sky was reflected. The bard’s song did not change anything, the world still breathed according to age-old laws, but he knew that this story would now forever remain with him. And he will be happy to tell it if he happens to find himself again in a pleasant company that treats him to a drink.
