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

[trancejeremy]

I was a big fan of them when I was a kid. My best friend at the time had an Apple II, but I had a C-64, and he had all these cool RPGs (Ultima and Wizardry most notably). The Bard's Tale was really the first really good RPG.

Anyway, I actually finished them all. I beat the first on my own, but used hint books for the other 2. Just a matter of patience and mapping.

 

[ephemeron]

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 remember (with disturbing clarity) using the 396 Berserkers as an XP factory. Once your front-rank fighters are tough enough to not get killed in one round, it's easy. Tell the front rank to attack, the bard to use his Fire Horn on one set of 99 Berserkers, one spellcaster to cast REST, and the other spellcaster (or two -- I usually went with a third spellcaster instead of a thief-type) to cast MIBL, then go and have dinner. Come back, repeat the same orders, find something else to do while the C64 churns through the second round. Two or three rounds was usually enough.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I remember that I really had to rely on the Bard's horn of blasting, or whatever his magic item was called, to stand a chance in the first part of the game.

 

[darkseraphim]

I used to play these all the time in the 80s.

The Harkyn Legions, if I remember correctly, were supposed to be bypassed by some disguises you find on the castle's ground level. Running into them was supposed to be punishment.

I used to farm them by having 3 L0's in front defending, and 3 casters in the back casting Mind Blast (I believe)? Some spell that hit all monsters. Watching 396 x 3 combat messages scroll by was amusing. Nice levels though.

 

[Keldryn]

Bard's Tale III was one of the first games that I had for my C64, back in 1989. It was the first computer RPG that I'd played (unless you include NES games like Dragon Warrior/Quest), and I loved it.

However, there is no way that I could tolerate playing it today. The sheer tedium and repetitiveness would drive me insane. Everything was repetitive. Repetitive combat, repetitive graphics, repetitive palette-swapped monsters, repetitive mapping... ugh. I can't imagine having fun with that type of game anymore.

They were great games for their time, but I eventually came to the conclusion that these type of RPGs don't really require any skill whatsoever, and are basically exercises in patience. Classics, yes, but not timeless.

 

[Mrikendor]

[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.

...

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

I played BTII 20 years ago this summer. Had a blast but never finished it. It was sharing time with Ultima IV on my Commodore 64. Ultima IV won out, but BTII was a lot of fun. Maybe I'll see if I can dig up a PC version so I can finally finish it.

 

[TheLe]

Once again, I got my ass royally handed to me in Mangar's Tower last night. I think I may drop my Hunter in favor of another Warrior or Paladin. Monster spells are hammering me badly, and the Hunter has far fewer hit points than the others, and worse AC due to armor restrictions.

`Le

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I used to farm them by having 3 L0's in front defending, and 3 casters in the back casting Mind Blast (I believe)? Some spell that hit all monsters. Watching 396 x 3 combat messages scroll by was amusing. Nice levels though.

I remember almost nothing about these games except MIBL, MIBL, MIBL.

Man, I demolished everything with that spell.

Hunter sounds familiar, too. Pretty sure I had a decent Hunter in my group.

 

[CarlZog]

Last year, while cleaning an old box of papers I found my graph paper maps from BT2. A couple friends and I were obsessed with this game for several months in around 1989. Played on a C64. At the time, we had no idea how far along we were, but after finding the maps I looked up a walkthrough online and discovered that we'd barely started!

The only thing that even got as far as we did was our discovery that by swapping out the floppies (save disk and the play disk) and the saved characters in the right way, we could duplicate magic items. We equipped ourselves with nearly a dozen cold blast wands, as I recall. And still got our butts kicked!



Carl

 

[TheLe]

Last year, while cleaning an old box of papers I found my graph paper maps from BT2. A couple friends and I were obsessed with this game for several months in around 1989. Played on a C64. At the time, we had no idea how far along we were, but after finding the maps I looked up a walkthrough online and discovered that we'd barely started!

The only thing that even got as far as we did was our discovery that by swapping out the floppies (save disk and the play disk) and the saved characters in the right way, we could duplicate magic items. We equipped ourselves with nearly a dozen cold blast wands, as I recall. And still got our butts kicked!

Carl

It's pretty easy to duplicate stuff now. Once I find the blade that causes stoning, I am soooo gonna dupe it!

`Le