Characters will automatically equip items they buy, if they don't already have an item of the same type equipped. Garth's Shoppe gained a few new interface tweaks, as well. It's always annoying when you're halfway up Mangar's Tower and your Flame Horn suddenly disappears! The remastered version gives them a countable number of charges, just like in classic Bard's Tale 2 and 3. In classic Bard's Tale 1, usable items like wands and instruments didn't have a fixed number of charges they just had a 1/64 chance of randomly disappearing when used. So, the total ends up being more like 70-80 items! The party can carry 40 items, in addition to everything the members are wearing. No more trading items from one member to another, and no more pooling your gold to buy spells or healing. Your party has a single, unified inventory and gold stash. This is one of the biggest improvements, in my opinion. The remastered version gives you party control similar to the original Bard's Tale 2 and 3, where you can place a special member anywhere in the party order, or have two special members, or even forget the NPCs and keep 7 party members.ĭid I mention that party members can be male or female now? Score one point for gender equality! Inventory Management The Special slot was always in the front of the party, which is fine with a Red Dragon or Thor, but not so useful when you summoned a mage. The original version of Bard's Tale 1 gave you seven party slots, but one of them was the "Special" slot which could only be occupied by an NPC or friendly monster. That said, there are several game play changes which are worth mentioning. So, if you mapped the originals years ago on graph paper like I did, your old maps will still work. The maps are also almost exactly the same as the originals. You crawl around the cities and dungeons by moving from one 10'x10' map square to another. The general game play is very similar to the classic Bard's Tale games. The music even changes depending on whether your Bard is using a mandolin, flute, or drums! Game Play Changes In the remastered version, the songs are more MIDI-quality and are pleasant enough that I played the entire game with the volume turned on, and never got tired of it. In classic Bard's Tale (at least, the DOS version) the music quality was poor enough I always ended up playing on mute. The sound has improved even more, in my opinion. When you cast Trap Zap, lightning bolts shoot out from the party and sparks fly from the traps as they're disarmed! (Pro tip: you can use this effect for a brief flash of light in darkness zones.) Traps appear as glowing swirls on the floor, and spinners appear as a shadowy vortex stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Down in a dungeon, if Locate Traps or Second Sight is active, you can now see the traps and spinners. Buildings cast shadows on other buildings, most noticeably at dawn and in the afternoon. The lighting effects gained a lot from the 3D engine, too. The walls inside Mangar's Tower even have a little movie sequence in them, with various skeletal creatures and even Mangar himself appearing to look at you from the walls. In the dungeons, the walls have been redone, looking different for each dungeon. Mangar himself looks at you from a small animated rectangle in the walls of his tower. And there are portcullises which open when your party steps under them. Buildings like the Adventurer's Guild and taverns have signs that extend out over the street. Mangar's Tower is a five-story black monolith that looms over the southwest corner of Skara Brae. Buildings have different shapes, some one-story and some two-story. They're generally similar to the originals, but much, much better. The building and monster images have all been remade. The party is still limited to square-based movement, but the city/dungeon view is fully 3D and even allows a limited amount of mouselook to get a better view of your surroundings.Īs for the graphics, they're very well done. It's similar in layout to the originals, with a party listing, a 3D city/dungeon view, and an output area showing the latest adventring and combat messages. The remastered Bard's Tale games all share the same basic UI. Bard's Tale 2 and 3 will be covered in future posts. The information on this page mostly pertains to Bard's Tale 1. Now that I've played it and been able to compare the new version to the original, I'm happy to bring some of my thoughts to the rest of the retro-gamers out there, plus anyone who is discovering the series for the first time. So, when InXile announced a remastered version, of course I had to get it. In fact, it was one of my first introductions to the world of computer role-playing games. I've been a fan of the Bard's Tale series since way back in the 1980s.
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