[The Bards Tale] I, II, III - anyone play it?

[TheLe]

[imager]http://www.abandonia.com/games/930/download/images/games/Bards%20Tale%20II,%20The%20-%20The%20Destiny%20Knight4.png[/imager]Has anyone finished the original Bard's Tale I, II, or III?

I am trying to complete Bard's Tale I right now, but I am getting my butt handed to me.

I have 1 Warrior, 1 Paladin, 1 Hunter, 1 Bard, and 2 casters.

I had a Monk rather than Hunter, but he was getting his butt whipped left and right, even though he had L0 AC.

Right now I am trying to finish the game in Mangar's Dungeon, but it's rough. My entire party got STONED last night in the 3rd level -- took me 2 hours to scrape enough gold to de-stone and resurrect them. Sheesh!

On the other hand, I am looking very forward to finishing this so that I can get started on Bard's Tale II (where we have Archmage classes). And I've only played Bards Tale III for about an hour some 15 years ago.

~Le

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Started off with BT3. The problem was they kind of expected you to put a party into the game from BT1&2. Otherwise you have to spend a ton of time grinding away to get to the level to go to the main quest. So I spend weeks working my characters up, my monk got to the point where her hand strikes were like small nukes, only to still not be able to go to the main quest area and not die in the first encounter. So I quit the game out of boredom.

 

[Lockridge]

I played these many ago on my Commodore 64 and just a few years ago on my PC after downloading them in a format my PC could play. I think these are lots of fun but the problems you are encountering are part of the design.

The game requires you to play repetitively in order to do things like gain power and resurrect. If you try to move too fast by entering the dungeons when you aren't ready you will die. To be honest, when I played a few years ago I used cheats (gasp!) to make the game play go by faster. After all, I wanted the experience of playing the nostalgia games without the seemingly endless similar combats. I remember being forced to remain in the main city taking on lower level enemies for a very long time before I could venture into a dungeon and last beyond a few minutes.

Your post makes me want to play again but I'm not sure I would without the cheats to save me time. Reminds me why I stopped playing World of Warcraft. It required you to spend time mindlessly increasing your skills. I'm all for a realistic world but spending hours pounding a stone (oh, and searching for said stone) in order to increase my mining/smithing skills was just not fun especially when your free time is very limited.

Enjoy the games though! Everyone who considers themselves a CRPG player should try them - they might find that these old games still hold a lot of fun (and sometimes more fun than some modern games.

 

[Lockridge]

Started off with BT3. The problem was they kind of expected you to put a party into the game from BT1&2. Otherwise you have to spend a ton of time grinding away to get to the level to go to the main quest. So I spend weeks working my characters up, my monk got to the point where her hand strikes were like small nukes, only to still not be able to go to the main quest area and not die in the first encounter. So I quit the game out of boredom.

Actually, I played BT3 first as well several years ago. What you describe sounds like my first time playing it. It seemed to be a bug.

Maybe someone else could shine some light on it but my experience was that BT3 started you with a beginner dungeon. When you enter you are low level. When I finished the dungeon and went to the old wizard guy for my level he just gave us each 1 or 2 levels.

When I then went on to the main quest I was getting my butt kicked every time. A friend however told me that when he completed the intro dungeon, the old wizard gave his party several dozen levels all at once. I don't remember the levels but when you complete the intro dungeon you are at level 10(for sake of arguement). His characters were put up to level 30? in one shot.

I played again from the beginning and then went up many levels at once just like my friend's. I seem to recall that the only difference was that I had entered the old wizard's home with a monster in my party. Perhaps this caused some sort of non-leveling bug.

PS. Wasn't there going to be an old-school remake/sequel of Bard's Tale? Not the mass market one that was released a few years ago but one that looked very similar to the old games. I had downloaded a demo for it but its gone now and I don't remember the name of it.

 

[TheLe]

Your post makes me want to play again but I'm not sure I would without the cheats to save me time. Reminds me why I stopped playing World of Warcraft. It required you to spend time mindlessly increasing your skills. I'm all for a realistic world but spending hours pounding a stone (oh, and searching for said stone) in order to increase my mining/smithing skills was just not fun especially when your free time is very limited.

It's actually a fun and mindless game. I get online and use the walkthroughs quite a bit, so puzzle solving isn't a problem for me. My problem is when I ran into "99 Berserkers". My God that was painful (I just eeked by with only of my party members dying).

The PC version also came with the "Z" key, which gave you a free stone golem to help your early level party.



`Le

 

[Lockridge]

It's actually a fun and mindless game. I get online and use the walkthroughs quite a bit, so puzzle solving isn't a problem for me. My problem is when I ran into "99 Berserkers". My God that was painful (I just eeked by with only of my party members dying).
`Le

99 Berserkers!!!!!! I don't recall running into that much of anything. My memory may be foggy but that sounds like a system maximum. My paranoid mind is starting to wonder if you might have an "altered" version of the game. Like I said though - its been a while. I would think the system would just give you less numbers of a stronger enemy.

 

[dshai527]

99 Berserkers is nothing, wait until you get to the endfight in BTIII. If more than just your thief survives it will be a miracle. I played each game and started a new party for each and never felt bored. These rate, at least for me, as three of the best games ever made, thought 2 is my favorite. BT2 is the most fun the first time you play it as most of the game is centered around finding the Dream Spell (at least that is what I think it is called) and once "you" know it "you" know it so later parties don't have to adventure for it, they can just cast it when they hit level. Ah great times.

 

[kyloss]

The 99 berserkers is in one room and it is best avoided. I had the original many years ago and the clue book for it was entertaing to read, it was written as a diary of a previous adventure group that had failed at the very end. and it mentions that room as a specific spot to avoid.
very very fun game.
And remember Roscoe is your friend and the mad good if i remember is Mangar or something like that. oh and an old trick, if you start a bard song right before you get a drink for your bard its like getting an extra song for free.

 

[TheLe]

The 99 berserkers is in one room and it is best avoided. I had the original many years ago and the clue book for it was entertaing to read, it was written as a diary of a previous adventure group that had failed at the very end. and it mentions that room as a specific spot to avoid.
very very fun game.
And remember Roscoe is your friend and the mad good if i remember is Mangar or something like that. oh and an old trick, if you start a bard song right before you get a drink for your bard its like getting an extra song for free.

Yeah, the 99 Berserkers is in the game, inside of Harkyn's Castle. It was actually "Legions of Baron Harkyn [4x99 Berserker]"

It was ugly.

I don't have any problems with Bard Songs because my bard is wielding the BARDSWORD, which allows for unlimited Bard Songs. However, that is an excellent tip for starting parties.

`Le

 

[Grog]

I remember it being extremely difficult to recover hit points (were there healing spells? I can't remember) and spell points in these games, and that kind of annoyed me. Also, it was completely pointless to have a warrior in the party, because once a hunter got to a high enough level, they had a 99% chance to get a critical hit on every attack, and a critical hit was an instant kill. So it was a little irritating discovering that I'd wasted so much time leveling up my warrior when I should have just made two hunters instead.

I did like the puzzle-solving aspect of the game, though. I remember working with my friends to solve the puzzles in Arborea in BT3. Good times.