Music is a central element of both the story and the world, as you’d expect in a tale about a bard, and it very effectively unifies and accentuates every cavern and town. The load times on my 7200 RPM HDD also seem almost preposterously long for what you get – the world is definitely stylish, but it’s not winning any awards for visual detail that might justify me freeing up SSD space for it.Īll along the way, your adventure is accompanied by great voice acting and an excellent soundtrack featuring some very talented vocalists. One sprawling castle, in particular, was full of minimap quest markers that led to nothing, requiring me to stumble around until I figured out the way forward. It’s often unclear where you can and can’t walk or where you’re supposed to go next. The attempt to replicate old-school first-person dungeon crawlers often makes navigation frustrating in dungeons and outdoor areas. Navigating them wasn’t always as fun as taking in the scenery, though. But the small lore snippets discovered in books, notes, and NPC conversations help the setting come alive even if you have no idea who Tarjan the Mad God is.Įach area you visit has a strong personality and visual style, from the murk and mud of the Skara Brae Below to the wild and snow-covered peaks of the Stennish Isles. It can get a little hard to follow at times as it seems preoccupied with calling back to as many characters and events as possible of the first three Bard’s Tales, which came out in the ‘80s. Set in a picturesque, storybook land that resembles a romanticized medieval Scotland - but with elves and goblins running around - the straightforward but rousing main quest tells a decent tale of ancient sorcerers, kingly bloodlines, and wicked gods. The fact that so much of it is so great made it all the more disappointing that it’s hobbled by technical problems too frequently to disregard them. The Bard’s Tale IV certainly did for the majority of the 50-ish hours I spent delving its dungeons and enjoying its quirky lore and charming voice acting. If you entice me with deep, turn-based RPG combat, clever puzzles, and jaunty, Gaelic folk ballads, you can pretty easily have me eating out of the palm of your hand.
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