Linux gamers have had to wait a while but, with the launch of the new director’s cut, The Bard’s Tale IV now has a native port. The new enhanced version also has a lot of new improvements over the original game.
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The Bard’s Tale IV is a revival of a classic RPG franchise and sees players putting together a group of adventurers to explore dungeons and fight all sorts of monsters at Barrow’s Deep. It boasts quite a bit of customization options when it comes to building characters and promises different ways of approaching battle. Add to that quite a lot of dialog and puzzles and you’ve got plenty to sink your teeth into. It’s one of those single-player adventures that may draw you in for dozens of hours.
The newly-released director’s cut is a free upgrade to existing owners of the game and brings with it a lot of spit and polish. There's the usual slew of bug fixes and a few quality of life changes that includes a revised UI. There’s also extra content in the form of a new dungeon, enemies, items and all of those lovely kinds of things. All in all, it sounds like there have been improvements across the board.
I’ve yet to spend much time with the game beyond the tutorial. I did notice a rather annoying issue, however, with how textures are swapped on objects depending on how close you are to them. In short, flashes of green and purple appear on some objects for a split second. I’m not sure if this is an issue particular to Mesa and my AMD card or the port in general but I have reported it to the developers. Aside from that, I’ve also experienced quite a bit of shader compilation stutter at times. But that’s usually a one-time pain. Finally, there’s a list of a few issues across platforms known to the developers that have yet to be addressed.
On the plus side, I found the setting instantly charming with its Gaelic/Scottish vibe. What little I played of the combat also seemed like it was different and dynamic enough to keep me engaged for the duration of the game. Even with the caveats I mentioned, I'm tempted to dive in and play more. Hopefully it won't take very long for the developers to address the lingering issues.
You can get the Bard’s Tale IV: Director’s Cut on GOG, the Humble Store or Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Aug 27, 2019
Quoting: 14Weren't the older Bard's Tale games comedic? This one looks like they walked away from that a bit.Yes and no. There was the one top-view one that came out in the PS2 era (now the ReSparkled edition is on Steam, including the Apple II version of the original trilogy). The original Trilogy were more serious, but still had some silliness in them (if I recall, it had a spell called NUKE, and some monster named Fred.)
Since it's single-player, maybe it won't be important to download every patch published by GOG.
You also would randomly be beset upon by 200 orcs...
Quoting: slaapliedjeYou also would randomly be beset upon by 200 orcs...
Also, the Burger battle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K_I0Ufjp0k
Last edited by Shmerl on 27 August 2019 at 10:50 pm UTC
TheRiddick Aug 28, 2019
Quoting: TheRiddickDid they enable Vulkan API support (its been in Unity since 2018) ?They are using Unreal Engine. I'm still waiting for GOG release, so can't say if they are using Vulkan, but Unreal now enables it by default for all Linux releases.
QuoteLatest update for GOG Mac/Linux with due apologies. I do want to note that a number of GOG staff have been very helpful, staying late/arriving early to facilitate these issues, and likewise we've been working with them to figure out these issues. Still, as incredibly frustrating as this is for us, we imagine it's that much worse for you. We're continuing to work the issue. Here's the latest:
- Mac should hopefully be within 2-3 hours
- Linux requires certain GOG personal that aren't currently in-office, and we're looking at being around 5-6 hours out on that.
Looks like Linux team in GOG is now seriously understaffed.
Last edited by Shmerl on 28 August 2019 at 3:55 am UTC
Comparing old and new:
https://imgur.com/a/kxjx3rj
https://imgur.com/a/AtbtTts
Old:
https://imgur.com/Ik1r68w
New:
https://imgur.com/4srCcq
Developers commented on that here: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?p=207610#p207610
Last edited by Shmerl on 28 August 2019 at 5:09 am UTC
slaapliedje Aug 28, 2019
Quoting: GuestYahoo!So the Bard's Tale you linked is made by the same people, but this is more along the lines of the included Bard's Tale 1-3 that came out in the 80s.
So how does this compare with the other Bards Tale (on GOG)? That one is one of my absolute favorites.
Definitely wishlisted (and I really don't care to wait a few hours/days until it shows up on GOG. Guess I'm too old to understand this type of hysteria...)
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Oh and the name doesn't mean anything but coincidentally could be pronounced as "Buttery" which suits me just fine.
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