- [T.J.] If you entice me with deep,
turn-based RPG combat, clever puzzles,
and jaunty Gaelic folk ballads,
you can pretty easily have me
eating out of the palm of your hand.
The Bard's Tale 4 certainly did
for the majority of the 50-ish hours I spent
delving its dungeons and enjoying its quirky lore
and charming voice acting.
- You been in my dreams seven nights now,
and each one with the same end.
- [Narrator] The fact that so much of it is so great
made it all the more disappointing
that it's hobbled by technical problems
too frequently to disregard them.
- [Character] Thus, children, shall the Swordfather smite
all who befriend the old races.
- [Narrator] Set in a picturesque storybook land
that resembles a romanticized medieval Scotland,
but with elves and goblins running around,
the straightforward but rousing main quest
tells a decent tale of ancient sorcerers,
kingly bloodlines, and wicked gods.
It can get a little hard to follow at times,
as it seems preoccupied with calling back
to as many characters and events as possible
from the first three Bard Tales,
which came out in the '80s.
But the small lore snippets discovered in books,
notes, and NPC conversations help the setting come alive,
even if you have no idea who Tarjan the Mad God is.
All along the way, your adventure is accompanied
by great voice acting and an excellent soundtrack
featuring some very talented vocalists.
♪ Forever looking homeward ♪
♪ But never going home ♪
- [Narrator] Music is a central element of both the story
and the world, as you'd expect in a tale about a bard,
and it very effectively unifies and accentuates
every cavern and town.
Banter between the handful of recruitable party members
is plentiful and often pretty funny,
reinforcing the welcome lighthearted undertone.
- [Character] Drinking honey, so I can become a bear.
- [Narrator] These help break up dour dungeon crawls
that take you to various dark pits
where bones stick out of the walls
and everything wants to kill you.
When that cornucopia of fiends
does come for your blood though, you're in for a treat.
The turn-based combat system is deep and dynamic,
with a strong focus on positioning
and room for all kinds of different party builds.
Everything is laid out on a grid
and specific abilities can only target
specific opposing squares,
based on where the attacking character is standing.
It all really clicked for me when I realized
my spellcaster's Levitation spell,
which can relocate any friend or foe
to any other square for only one spell point,
was actually one of the powerful abilities I had.
Each battle felt like an exciting puzzle to be solved
using clever movement and making the most
of my limited action points.
(mage chanting)
And it felt appropriately challenging from beginning to end.
Rarely did I face a fight that was a total cakewalk
and only a few times did the difficulty spike to the point
that it felt irritating.
The dungeons and overworld also maintain a great balance
of combat and puzzle-solving, switching gears regularly
so you're rarely forced to do one or the other
long enough to get bored with it.
Some of the puzzles are a bit overused though.
I was definitely tired of these fairy mazes
after I'd done about a dozen of them in the same area.
But others are memorable and rewarding brain-teasers
that often require you to really study the environment
to find a solution.
It's really a shame that for all the reasons to recommend it
Bard's Tale 4 is so often bogged down with technical issues.
Its attempt to replicate old-school dungeon crawlers
often leads to frustration navigating the narrow corridors,
when it can be unclear where you can and can't walk
or where you're supposed to go next.
The load times seem almost preposterously long
for what you get.
The world is definitely stylish
but it's not winning any awards for visual detail.
I also ran into fairly regular hitching,
unexplained frame rate drops,
and a couple crashes to desktop.
At its roughest edges, the Bard's Tale 4
shows its retro revival roots in some not-so-positive ways.
It may not be special enough for me
to easily overlook these technical shortcomings entirely,
but it's an RPG that's brimming with enjoyable,
challenging fights, elaborate and entertaining puzzles,
and plenty of visual and musical flair.
And that was more than enough to keep me
humming along contentedly to its tune more often than not.
For more RPG reviews, check out Valkyria Chronicles 4,
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition,
and Dragon Quest XI.
And for everything else, stick with IGN.