The Bards Tale Remastered by Krome Studios for Inxile review by George Fyvie
After waiting over 20 years since first playing the Bards Tale on the ZX Spectrum, and saving up for what seems like forever, posting uncounted numbers of newspapers to get be able to afford an Amiga to play Bards Tale 2+3…. Its Finally here.
There was a shaky start – this was another kickstarter, by inxile actually aimed at producing the Bards Tale 4 in a completely different format, but the Bards Tale Trilogy Remastered was going to be an add on perk (The Bards Tale 4 is due out anytime!). After a lot of problems with Olde Skull (creator of the Bards Tale 3) who were originally lined up to create the Bards Tale Remastered, the backers pushed for a date time and again for releasing the Bards Tale Remastered. Inxile listened and brought in Krome Studios to save the day, and what a day they saved!
The Bards Tale Remastered is a very colourful, easy to play foray back into the dungeon dwelling depths of the past. There are a few changes (no more grinding against Harkyn’s legions of 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers and 99 Berserkers. Once you kill them once they don’t reappear so the grind is slightly different. All the rest of the puzzles are in the same places though, so dust off those maps.
Gameplay has an inbuilt map and (Yay they listened!) a save function for when you are travelling – no more getting killed and zapping back to the guild for a save point.
It’s fast, and very beautiful – a blast from the past. After 3 days of grind, I was ready to take on Mangar himself…. despite losing a few of the party, he went down…. like a thing falling down very hard.
Character Creating is the same simple method, of choosing a race, class and random stats then name your Character.
A very easy game and very addicting fun.
Roll on the next release (hopefully next month) of the Bards tale 2 – this one I never completed, so I am eagerly awaiting it!
Well done INXILE – one for the fans here!