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The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut |OT| Retuned for a Better Pitch

Dancrane212

Dancrane212

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,962
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Platform(s): Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Release Date:
August 27th, 2019​
Genre: RPG
Price: $39.99 USD
Player(s): 1
Format: Digital/Physical
Developer: inXile Entertainment
Publisher: inXile Entertainment (Physical release: U&i Entertainment)
Size: ~29 GB


FAQ
What is The Bard's Tale?
"The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut is the triumphant return of one of the most iconic RPG series of all-time. Delve into a tactically rich combat system that rewards creativity, solve puzzles to gain treasure and advantages, and discover a beautifully crafted world."

How does it play?
You traverse maze-like areas from a first person perspective, fighting monsters in turned based battled and solving puzzles in order to progress and grow your party.

Do I need to play the previous games?
No, but if you wish to play them the original trilogy remaster is included in the The Bard's Tale IV for the first week of release on Steam.The games are also on Xbox One and PC through Game Pass as well.

Xbox One X and PS4 Pro Support?
It's listed as an Xbox One X Enhanced title, but we're still waiting on specifics and confirmation of PS4 Pro support.




What's different in the Director's Cut re-release?
At a high level: "The Director's Cut brings more character customization options, new items, new enemies, revised UI, and a free expansion dungeon".

Detailed breakdown is available here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/the-bards-tale-iv/posts/2418144

I own the original version of the The Bard's Tale IV. Do I get this?
Yes, this is a free upgrade for existing owners of the game.

Game Pass?
Yes, you can play the game on either PC or Xbox One if you are a member of either Game Pass service or are a Game Pass Ultimate member.

Play Anywhere?
Yes. Buying the game digitally on the Windows 10 store gets you the game on Xbox One and vice versa. Saves and achievements can also be shared between the two platforms.

Media
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Reviews
Metacritic (PC)

Darkstation 4/5
Anyone who did not pick up The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep when it was released in 2018 missed an amusing and well-crafted RPG, a definite high point in a storied and popular franchise. With some minor interface and gameplay tweaks and the addition of some new quests and significant additional areas to explore, the Director's Cut makes a good case for itself and the game includes some nostalgic bonus content and some behind-the-scenes features as well.
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Links


Playstation
GOG
Xbox/Windows
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xir

xir

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,548
Los Angeles, CA
been waiting awhile to play this, on game pass yet? liked the ACG review from last year, wish the combat was more like Grimrock though
 
Lowblood

Lowblood

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,174
I kickstarted this, but this'll actually be my first time playing it, wanted to wait for the console release. Will be great to finally play it.

I've been going through the classic trilogy via Gamepass over the last week, just entered Mangar's Tower in BT1. I've actually been playing this game on and off for, oh, nearly 30 years now, but this is the furthest I've gotten. Kind of the ultimate backlog title for me. I'll probably start BT4 when I clear the first game, and just play BT2&3 at my leisure.
 
ghibli99

ghibli99

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,699
texhnolyze said:
Still installing...

Any first impressions? How does it run technically, at least?
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980 Ti 1440p here... framerate is high @ ultra (I'm getting 70-120+), but there's still quite a bit of stutter here and there looking/moving around. I honestly haven't touched this game since the original launch, so I don't know what's changed, but first impression is that it runs way better than I remember (which again, could be the case for a while now, but I'm only noticing it today w/ the DC update).
 
Kilgore

Kilgore

Member
Feb 5, 2018
3,538
The game is prettier than I expected but some text are tiny (on Xbox One) :(, I'm enjoying it so far.
 
IlGialloMondadori

IlGialloMondadori

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
5,495
The game in its original state was the definition of a flawed gem. Super fun, super atmospheric, great puzzles and amazing music.

I hope more people give the game a chance. Loved it.
 
saenima

saenima

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,892
I'm in love with this game so far and the music is half the reason. So much charm. But it's rough, i don't think i've ever seen such a stuttery game.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,349
Played a tiny bit of this and enjoying it so far. Love the classic vibe.

And holy shit at that full motion video fireside bard tale intro!
 
Vamphuntr

Vamphuntr

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,301
PC version is broken for me. I'm running this on a 4k monitor and it won't let me run a resolution higher than 720p in borderless windows or when I switch to full screen I can only move the mouse in the 720p Area of the screen on higher resolutions.

It's really is an Inxile product.
 
Chance Hale

Chance Hale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,828
Colorado
Actually quite enjoying this and glad I waited for it to be patched. Combat is super snappy and the enemy death blowback look great. Tho the graphical downgrade even in the PC version is crazy compared to the original version. Apparently a patch to revert some of those changes is coming tuesday from the latest steam forums update.

Anyone else playing the gamepass PC version having an issue with opening the inventory and chests causing severe slowdown for a second or two? Annoying when it's stable otherwise
 
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eddy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,739
Played four hours on PC. The game is... surprisingly janky still. Several times I've had issues with character's skills getting jumbled up -- a character had his copied from another -- or go missing!

You'd need video to show it in action, but here's a screenshot of me shouting at the screen because one of my characters had all his skills magically disappear as this fight started. I literally had to give up and replay a good section because of this.

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Remember, we're talking about the "Director's Cut" here. The version that's supposed to have a year of polish?! I find this particular issue very frightening, because it's hard to see how skills can 'jump around' without some sort of corruption involved.

I've also had issues with containers retaining their 'sparkle' even after they've been looted; the sort of bug it's hard to imagine how it's possible for it to exist at this point. "Is container not empty? Show sparkle".

UI issues as usual, because no one can get that right.

That's before even talking about the performance issues.. I can go from 130fps to 30fps over a frame, just doing something mundane like opening a container. It's impressive in a way. Probably some entity loading issue, but not only do I have fast SSDs, I also have 64GiB of RAM so you'd think eventually they'd all get cached, but I guess not.

Bonus: xwynns is doing a paid (edited) playthrough of this on legendary difficulty. He's a very positive guy, but quite charming IMO.

 
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the_korben

the_korben

Member
Oct 27, 2017
81
The original was my GOTY 2018. In my opinion, everyone even slightly interested in this needs to give it a shot. About 50 hours of great atmosphere, interesting systems and general old-school RPG goodness awaits you. :)
 

eddy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,739
A new patch is out (Steam).

This update is live now! Please follow the inXile forums for known issues and updates on patch releases.

Quest & Progression
  • Fixed an issue where the user is not given the Wildland Whistle at the Adventurers' Guild after disabling Party Chatter
  • Fixed collision around certain puzzles and ledges that were allowing the player to fall out of bounds in certain circumstances
  • Fixed messaging for when the player does not have a lockpick in their inventory they will not be informed about it being required to open locked doors
Graphics/Performance
  • Added various art optimizations, collision, and asset loading improvements
  • Improved performance when player opens and closes inventory windows
  • Grass is now once again growing in the Forest of Inshriach
  • (PC) Improved NPC shadows and fixed High and Ultra shadow settings
  • (PC) Lighting adjusted throughout Skara Brae Above, Skara Brae Below, and The Cellars of Kylearan's Tower
  • (Xbox One and PS4) Improved framerate in various levels
Combat
  • Fixed an issue where rapidly issuing commands may cause one of the spaces on the combat grid to become locked
  • Fix for Forceful Wave attack that may cause the character's position to get out of sync
  • Fixed certain issues where charging specific enemies could result in players getting stuck on the environment or produce a misaligned combat grid
  • Fixed an issue where loading an auto save created before a combat animatic could stop the following combat from occurring
  • Fixed an issue where enemies could fail to launch Mangar's Mind Jab
  • (Linux) Fixed an issue where enemies in any combat could respawn after reloading the level
Misc.
  • Removed the Save Game option during animatics
  • Fixes and improvements for various party chatter moments
  • Fixed issues where using songs to quickly solve multiple puzzles could cause the puzzles to break
  • Fixed an issue where translation was missing for the 2nd riddle statue in Kylearan's tower
  • Fixed an issue in Mangar's Tower where subtitles and VO would fail when ghosts were summoned and interacted with for the first time
  • Fixed an issue where music from loading screen would play during gameplay after a load or level transition
  • Fixed various minor audio issues
  • (PC) Fixed an issue where using the 'Esc' key to close the Mastery Book could break its intended functionality
  • (PC Microsoft Store) Fixed issues with signing in and syncing saves
  • (Mac and Linux) Fixed an issue where all load-game story videos were missing
  • (Linux) Fixed an issue where Rabbie's speech did not have voice or subtitles
Crashes
  • Fixed a possible crash during the 99-wave combat
  • Fixed a possible crash when using the Dragon Breath ability
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FreezePeach

FreezePeach

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,811
Searching around the steam forums and it seems like they downgraded the PC graphics accross the board compared to the original version. I looked at some of the compares and yeah, they basically ported it to console and kept the PC version the same. Thank god i still have the original version in my library, still havent played it. Its 20 gigs larger too, the original.
 

eddy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,739
FreezePeach said:
Searching around the steam forums and it seems like they downgraded the PC graphics accross the board compared to the original version.
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I find the idea of playing BT for the graphics quite hilarious. There's no downgrade worth talking about, and even if there were you wouldn't give up the fixes and extra content for it.
 
Tupper

Tupper

Member
Jul 15, 2019
412
Okay, I've just finished this and really liked it. It makes me kind of sad because looking at the achievements, it seems like the majority of people who tried it made a starting character and stopped playing not long after.

There are a few bugs and the game crashed on me a couple of times but didn't stop me from playing it.

This game was really all about the puzzles. Even the combat was like a puzzle trying to figure out the best masteries to use and when. It felt very old school which I quite liked.

There are a few things I would give notes on, approaching the end game having enemies drop consumables rather than armor or gold would have been better. I had all the gold and armor I ever needed.

Great game, looking forward to an inXile with more resources. I'm gonna have to give Wasteland 2 a try again. I bounced off it to soon I think.
 

Bento

Member
Dec 4, 2017
56
Just wanted to see if anyone can give me an impression of the performance on the PS4? Close to buying but heard the DC was pretty rough at launch.
 
Jakke_Koala

Jakke_Koala

Member
Sep 28, 2018
1,173
Bento said:
Just wanted to see if anyone can give me an impression of the performance on the PS4? Close to buying but heard the DC was pretty rough at launch.
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Bumping this with the same question.
I didn't even know this was released on consoles.
The ACG review made me interested in the game, but forgot about it apparently
 

Bento

Member
Dec 4, 2017
56
Jakke_Koala said:
Bumping this with the same question.
I didn't even know this was released on consoles.
The ACG review made me interested in the game, but forgot about it apparently
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I bought the game and it's okayish. There's frame drops and it's kinda buggy (even had some crashes) but I've been really enjoying the game nonetheless (30 hours in). I got a PS4 Pro but I don't think there any enhancements.
 
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