The Bard's Tale Trilogy

Finished BT1, it's not a bad game. In BT2, got to the top floor of Dargoth's Tower and couldn't stand it any more. BT2 is an absolute slog. Every fight sends either dozens of enemies (groups of 20-30+ that take forever to attack each turn) at you or mages that repeatedly summon minions every single turn. In Dargoth's Tower I started seeing joke melee enemies that started 90' from me and didn't move so I had to either waste SP to pull them in or waste 8 turns of my time moving closer to attack them. BT3 might be different but I can't be bothered to play any more of this.

A great classic dungeon crawl that I can just sink time into.

The best Dnd style RPG original game from 1985. Of note it has a complicated and fun magic user system ahead of its time allowing your character to master spells in four classes: conjurer, magician, sorcerer and wizard. Further adventures continue in Bard's Tale 2&3.

Hard to enjoy the scenery when your eyes have to stay focused on a step by step progression on a grid map. Fortunately there isn't much scenery to miss. I would enjoy getting out of town into nature to explore and find other towns, alas you're confined to the singular town and three things to explore: sewer, castle, tower which are all essentially identical in their confusing, disorienting design: just change the color and place the obstacles in different places. If you love solving such things you'll love this. I enjoy the battle system though having everything done but the final tower I haven't felt challenged by it at all. You can change magic classes and obtain all four spell books and all the spells before finishing the first maze. The challenge is the grid like maze and the myriad of traps, teleports and dead ends within the sewer, castle, tower structures - two of which are behind gates you can't access in any intuitive manner. Good luck figuring that out without going online. The bard is quickly able to play all his songs for free but they aren't very exciting buffs, his main go to are the abundance of instruments that do damage like throw fireballs. I'll recommend it for its classic feel but toss out a meh for the overall ride. Also final level of final tower send you to the beginning saying 'you must see further' ai say's it's cause I need the 'Spectre Snare' I'm told you get it after you enter but you must have it to enter. Ugh games should all have multiple ways to solve things so they don't ruin my dinner. I didn't even realize game 2 and 3 were included despite the titles obvious nudge. Two's pretense at land exploration is satisfying despite it being but a football field worth of exploring and nothing of significance changing town to town.

My downvote is based on a few factors that I don't like: 1) Doesn't matter how leveled you are at the end, as enemies just kill you in they hit you. If you are lucky they will only set all your stats to 1 and drain some levels. 2) If you missed a specific, no-way-of-knowing-it-was-important-square on the dungeon map, then you unknowingly missed a mcguffin which will lock you out of the end of the game unless you go back and find it. I don't like these "hardcore" mechanics, and this review if for others who want a more casual experience. Had fun until the final dungeon. Good luck.

Great game with very much need quality of life improvements. Good price, well made, much improved, there was care and detail and love in this remaster.

I love these games. So many great memories and so much time exploring and mapping this game with my friends.

Its great fun customizing and building up your characters and exploring the map. After you get the hang of it, it becomes a bit grindy.

old School feel.

Played for a while on game pass before buying it here. I have no nostalgia for this as I first played it this year but I think its a great game and I prefer this old style of gaming. Its not interactive content like some modern rpgs its strictly speaking a game and you need to learn its mechanics.( which is not that hard tbh).