They went for a Celtic/Scottish sound, trying to fit with the various human cultures in the game. I still listen to the soundtrack from time to time. As you approach the end of the game, you have to start rationing items like you did at the beginning, not because you haven't found enough yet, but because they're running out! That means you can't just sell all your extra items to the same shopkeeper, because they'll run out of space or money! More importantly, there's a finite amount of items in the game. They have a specific inventory and money just like you do. One of the odd things is that shops aren't sources and sinks. They get more complicated over the course of the game, with stones whose movements are linked, or have specific runes that need to match, etc.
![the bards tale directors cut the bards tale directors cut](https://game-guide.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Bards-Tales-IV-Directos-Cut-94.jpg)
Most of them boil down to a few basic templates, though: moving gears around to activate/deactivate a mechanism, pushing large stones to clear a path or activate switches, bells that need to be rung in the right order, magic conduits that you have to arrange like circuits.and “fairy golf,” where you change direction signs so that fairies will fly around obstacles and end up where you need them to be. It's not just combat and exploration, of course: there are puzzles too. And the leveling system has a lot more skills and branches than can possibly be learned in a single play-through, so you really need to think about how you level up each character and put together skills that complement each other. (I like to explore everything and do all the side quests anyway, but at least I could choose what order to do things in!)Ĭombat is turn-based, and the enemies tend to level up just a bit faster than your characters, so it's very much about strategy rather than reflexes or just getting more powerful equipment. The early part of the game does feel like you're being railroaded, but the Skara Brae underground isn't as linear as it appears at first, and by the time you get out of the city, you have a lot more freedom of movement and a lot more side quests. But there are comedic bits scattered around that feel a bit like the reboot. Your band of adventurers are trying to reverse it where they can and stave it off where they can't. The game mostly takes itself seriously as a story of corruption creeping across the world. On the downside, the NPCs are oddly static, sticking around in one spot with very limited conversations.
![the bards tale directors cut the bards tale directors cut](https://www.konami.cc/bbs/data/attachment/forum/202208/05/221408ja8dd9tbibhz00cl.jpg)
Characters who join your party will sometimes have conversations with each other, and some get along better than others – for personal reasons and for cultural reasons. Each area feels distinct, but part of the same world. The world-building is detailed, drawing from history along with classic fantasy tropes. And the Director's Cut fixes a lot of bugs and polishes a lot of the rough edges. Only unlike MM9, it feels like the world has been filled in more thoroughly.
![the bards tale directors cut the bards tale directors cut](https://fuel-silencers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/460157086-scaled-1024x676-768x507.jpg)
It's got lots of references to the original trilogy, but it feels like a cross between the 2000s reboot and MM9: the look, the size of the towns, skill trees. This is the game that Might & Magic IX was trying to be. The mini-map quest-tracking system is very confusing and does not work well. Similarly, character development stops at around 80% of the story (if you occasionally do side quests) as you are close to lv25 (I finsihed the game at lv27), you can possibly struggle at economy but it swiftly goes away after the mid-game, there isn't really not much to explore or "grind" around the last quarter of the game, which is okayish.ĥ. Puzzles are nice and well-balanced but some are quite annoying.Ĥ. I finished the game with hard difficulty and since the mid-game I basically have not encountered any challenging battle, my team could simply grind through the game, the final boss Yadis took me only 5 minutes without causing any damage to the team. Game suffers a weak prologue partly due to the ugly models and optimization issues (really low frame rates in the city as well as many areas), it really takes time for some players to get used to such graphics in 2022, I guess it was already an issue back in 2019 as I could not even bear it upon its release.ģ. Graphics could in general use some work to be better.Ģ. I would however just pinpoint some issues:ġ. Music, combat and story are simply nostalgic and well-executed. Finally found time to play this game, absolutely fantastic addition to the franchise! It's a must play for old school dungeon crawler fans.