The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Reviews

I am enjoying it......... don't understand the negative reviews! I ignored them and purchased anyway... I had the original Bards Tale when it first came out (way back when?) and it was the first game I truly got hooked on... spent all October half term in my bedroom, not looking at ladies! Thay being said 30 odd years later I am hooked again..... last 4 hours anyway!

Only played 4 hours so far but I'm liking it a lot. Great game. For those with performance issues, I'm running it on a GTX 1080ti @ 2k resolution, i5 4690 CPU and 16 GB RAM and haven't had a hitch. Looks great and plays even better. Fun and intricate combat, interesting character development, charming dialogue and stories and more secrets and exploration than I expected. Worth checking out for sure! Edit - After some more hours with it, I can say I'm really enjoying it! The little touches in exploration are great - hidden stash of loot here when you play a song, a wall you can bust down with another song leading to a hidden area, a hard to reach spot you can use a grappling hook to get to; they really reward your exploration and keep the variety fresh. There's more skills and loot that you can shake a splintered shillelagh at but they don't overwhelm you with it. Good pieces of loot are actually good and they don't fling you new weapons every 10 minutes! Finally, this needs to be said - the dungeons are stunning, in variety, puzzles and the graphics themselves. The first major dungeon, Alguin's Tower, was a treat to explore and work my way through. Some of the puzzles can be slight brain teasers but are not impossible and well-balanced, and most importantly, fun! The game is really polished for the most part and the systems work great. Finally, the best part is that no two players will build the same party or play the same way. There is so much unique customization that you can develop your playstyle exactly how you like it, with your own choice of weapons, skills and overall synergy between your characters. They did an outstanding job with this aspect, one of the best I've seen in an RPG of this type! And it must be said, the music is spectacular! Gaelic melodies and beautiful singing abound with excellent sound design overall. It's really nice and different from your typical game. This is quite a special gem InXile has delivered to us. I haven't played a dungeon crawler like this one before, it's unique and features more exploration outdoors in large areas than your typical 'crawler does. If you're on the fence I'd say ignore the naysayers and give it a go!

I really don't get why all the negativity here. This games has lots of atmosphere and personality with fairly deep RPG mechanics. I'm really enjoying it so far. I've seen bad reviews solely because the game didn't have 21:9 monitor support WTF?! You're going to thumb a game down solely on that?!?! Or because the game crashed - fair enough but I'm guessing that will be fixed soon (hasn't been a problem for me at all - game runs perfectly on my GTX 970 on ultra settings). Go ahead and buy the game and if it won't load - get a refund and try again in couple weeks. The game's a bit different from the old Bard's Tale. I think that's a good thing. I recently played Bard's Tale I, and it's an ok game and brought back memories of when I played it in the 80's (I'm 44) but guess what - the game mechanics are DATED. Whoda thunkit, a 30 year old game with rough game mechanics? There are less attribute stats this time around, but there are many new skills that the old games never had. I like the skills, they really add to strategic depth of combat. So they streamlined some parts of the game while adding new features. IMHO the RPG aspect is deeper than the old Bard's Tale games, even with fewer attributes, because new things have been added in. I saw another review complain you had to start with a pre-scripted character. Yes, you do, for like 5 minutes, then you can make your own character. Whoopty-effin' do. Some people are seriously butthurt over really trivial things here. Pros: Graphics are not absolute cutting-edge, but are still very nice and varied. Love the new skills system. Lots of character classes and races (if you count the 4 human sub-races, otherwise only 3 races: human, elf, dwarf). I like the 1st person free room vs. grid movement. Lots of atmosphere and quirky charm. Combat is more strategic than original Bard's Tale Games. Legitimate gripes: Not many character portraits/skins. Voice acting is cheesy. But it also has charm and character. Soyboy millennial whiner snowflake/cupcake gripes: There's a lot of initial cutscenes that give some background, but you can skip past them all. The initial tutorial section is linear - yeah get it over soyboy's it's a frickin' tutorial. Your initial party only has 2 people, but you add more later. Pillars of Eternity is like this as well. Again, whoopty-effin' doo. This is like Porsche purists complaining any time there are improvements made to Porsche 911s. It's freakin' ridiculous. Give this game a try, I'm enjoying it!

This is the first RPG I've played through to the end in...I don't know how long. Perhaps it's the nostalgia factor since I played Bard's Tale 1 and 2 on the Commodore 64 decades ago; but I enjoyed this story, the turn-based combat was fun, and crafting the "A-Team" with a perfect set of skills for epic combat interaction was a blast! Voice acting and music I thought were both great. I usually despise puzzles in games, and this one could have used at least 50% fewer puzzles, but even that didn't spoil it for me. (Though, really, who would put puzzles in every corner of the world???) I only had to cheat (look online) for the answers to a few. It's not really an "open world" game, so I don't think I'll be doing any replays to see what I might have missed. The story is linear and the guardrails are visible clearly. Maybe it wouldn't be worth the full price for anyone who didn't play the old Bard's Tale games; but I don't regret parting with the money.

This game is sadly a shadow of itself and what it could be. I was really excited for it but after playing the starting part of it I realized that it is really shallow. The game allways teases what it could have been but the excecution is just mediocre. My main negativ points are: 1) Puzzles. The game is more of a puzzle game instead of a dungeon crawler with secrets. There are plenty of puzzles, but these are done very poorly. They are way to simple or can be brute forced (cog locks). I don't mind puzzles if they are done good. See "The Talos Principle" for a very well made puzzle game. 2) Exploration and finding secrets: The game is very linear, at least for the beginning. There aren't really that much hidden secrets to find and if you find a secret chest, it often contains underwhelming loot. This is a problem with the randomized loot system. In a game like Legend of Grimrock you could find some cool gear and stuff and it was allways helpfull, but not randomized. Here you find a chest and it contains only 12 coins (which is nothing in terms of economy). Another example is the spell which lets you find hidden treasure. You have to activate it near a graffitti sign. Most often the "hidden treasure" is right next to it disguised as a stone. Not really interesting. 3) Combat: This is the part wich I actually liked. But again the game doesn't go the whole length. You have a set amount of actions per turn which you can freely distribute among your party members. You can lern severall skills (active abilites in combat) but can only equip 4 at a time plus one trinket skill per character. It seems like some sort of Trading Card Game in which you build a deck out of all your abilities. Nice idea, but soon you realize that you will allways use the same skills and switching them at the start of combat is not an option, you have to do it beforehand and you can't save different "decks". And then there is the fact that combat is not that often, which would be fine, if the system was deeper and the combat more meaningfull. If every encounter would take longer and you had a more complex system. As it is now combat should me more often or the system much more cmplex and therefore every encounter memorable. 4) Elfen Puzzle weapons: These weapons can be seen as a symptom what went wrong with the game. The idea behind it is great: You find these artifact weapons which will unlock more puwerfull properties as you solve puzzles on the weapon. Sounds cool? But these puzzles are really boring and easy. You start with the pommel which in all my experience just make you turn a wheel in one direction till the symbols match. Yeah, like analog clocks with a turnable ring around it. This is no puzzle. The next puzzles on the grip is some kind of match the lines from A to B or these push puzzles where on space is empty and you push the parts around till you have finished the "picture". When you finish one puzzle you have to insert a certain elfen gem, which you can just test everyone till you find the fitting one. Lastly you will be given a hint into which elfen shrine you have to put this weapon. These shrines are scattered all over the world. It would be more interesting if you would have to solve actual riddles, perform some kind of rituals on specific locations to imbue the weapon with power. Something like that. From what I have read these weapons even fully upgraded are not better than loot you find. All in all the sum of mediocre parts doesn't make a good game. I kept playing with the idea, that soon the game will be as good as it wants to be. The potential is there, it is just not filled with interesting content. I wrote a much lengthier critique on the game here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/566090/discussions/0/1733213724911570135/

Overall, I'd only recommend this game to people who already enjoy this style of game; like myself. Otherwise, I wouldn't suggest it to anyone. Pros: Great music Great settings Combat is exploitable in the late game Puzzles are fun Fully customizable skill trees, you get to choose how each character plays, and can reset any character at a low cost. Elven weapons are a nice touch. Secrets everywhere in the map. I like the goofy puzzle wheel of items Cons: Combat is exploitable in the late game. (Two mages on your team mean that if you fight an enemy mage, you have infinite turns as long as the enemy still has mana) Puzzles are the only challenge in the late game, as combat turns into rocket tag (whoever goes first generally wins). Other than the fighter and the mages, you only need 1 of each class to experience all of their skills. Gear doesn't scale with you. It just stays at a certain point, and you're just looking for which one has a +1 over your current gear in the late game. Bugs, good lord are there bugs everywhere. To the point where I've just quit the game for a couple days. Do not initiate combat diagonally, while on the 2nd floor of anything; you will soft lock the game. There's a group of enemies near Sentry tower that keeps respawning, if you kill them again, the game crashes. The game seems to have an issue with initiating combat diagonally, in general. Three late game quests are the exact same thing, just in different zones. "Oh no, you can't kill x, you need y item, then kill z." Which is two quests in it's own, padding the play time.

Such obvious love and care poured into this. The environments and music cavort together to produce a quirky, unique and totally absorbing hideaway to gawk at and listen to. Loadsa secrets, skills, spells, drunk Scots, tartan and potatoes. Beasties abound and combat is a madcat explosion of skills and effects of real variety. I've laughed, run away, hidden, been stumped, stopped to listen (how often does that happen in a game?), passed out, nearly died, actually died, and made a lot of sandwhiches. With cabbage (really devs?) Released a little early, it has a few bugs and missing features. Running like the morning after 8 pints and a deep-fried kebab, it staggers but has a head full of great memories and good times. A wee beauty.

I love this game, its got a fair load of bugs and technical issues (which are mostly getting resolved by the day) and character models and textures may be ugly as sin but that doesnt detract from the rest, even though i'm playing it on low settings. This game has something not a lot of other rpgs i played have, and that is a heart and soul, you can tell the devs really poured it all on to the making of this and it shows in the level design, the puzzles, the music, atmosphere and overall feel of the game. I felt like i should drop a positive review because this game absolutely does not deserve its current mixed reviews, thanks inXile for the adventure.

I am 21 hours in.And I must say I absolutely love this games.Yes the game had its issues on release day.(Crashing,Framerate Drops Etc...)However I was able to over look all of those thing and enjoy the game.The game is fully voice acted for one.It tells a wonderful fanastical story.Its paced very well.It boost it self with an aray of very Colorful and animated characters.Each with there own hidden agendas and circumstances.I will write another review in about a week.But this game isn't one to miss.It is a hidden jewel that must not be forgotten.

This is actually a really cool game. The ambience, music, setting, etc. is beautiful. There are some performance issues but nothing that can't be dealt with. In 20 or so hours of play I encountered one incident of having to reload a save due to a bug and 1 fatal error (resulting in again, reloading a save.). Not great, not unplayably bad. The main reason I can't recommend this game is, despite its unique combat system and beauty and depth and storyline and and the rest of it, and the glorious feeling of nostalgia, after a while, it feels like you're playing Frustrating Puzzle Simulator. Now don't get me wrong. I like puzzles. And some of the puzzles in this are quite clever, and good. Unfortunately, it seems that they decided to just use the same ones over and over and over and OVER Ragequit #1: There's a puzzle involving a flying wisp and turning totems. You are introduced to this puzzle gradually and it becomes increasingly complex. It was very satisfying working through the various iterations of this puzzle. The first time. Even the second. But two zones later, you're still seeing these wisp totems. Same thing with the door-gear-cogs. Cool idea, ridiculously over-used, throughout the game. Did I mention spinning runes? Pushing blocks onto things? Yes, over-used, throughout the game. The problem is that most of the puzzles aren't very intuitive. There's no clear objective of what you're trying to achieve. Do I want to match all these symbols? Do them in a sequence? Oh wait, reverse the sequence for seemingly no reason whatsoever but just because we can? Or also fun, game says "read this book" and that book doesn't say anything, it actually meant to read this other book.... Like I said, don't get me wrong. A few good puzzles to solve as you go, is great. But this game shoves puzzles down your throat at every turn. Consider entering a tower and fighting your way through it. Commence rotating energy thingies to open doors. Fine. Some cant be rotated, ok fine. Rotate thingies on floor, open doors. OH LOOK thingies are on wall now. Ok no problem, rotate thingies on wall and floor. Next room. Same crap again. Now they're on the ceiling. Seriously? Enough already, i want to go fight the things and kill them and get the loots and proceed with the quest. EVERY SINGLE ROOM YOU STEP IN, THROUGHOUT THE GAME, in EVERY SCENE, HAS crap for you to push, pull, rotate, match, etc. Lets play match the constellation. Lets play push the blocks onto things. It just got old. A lot of the stuff in this was great from an exploratory sense, I loved the exploration abilities, the combat was unique, and the skill system - all of that was great. But I spend about 75% of my time rotating blocks and putting buttons, and I finally got fed up with it. Its a shame, I'd really like to see the rest of the game, but enough is enough.