Bard's Tale Question

[Azred]

Originally posted by Tarjan: I actually still liked the Bard's Tale series the best, even after the Gold Box series. Gold Box games were good, but the problem, for me, was the length of the fights. *snip*

True. I think the computers would have crashed had the Gold Box games tried to copy that one fight in Harkyn's Castle: 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Tarjan: The other Bard's Tale beater at that time was Dragon Wars. It took everything that was good about BT, and added a far more developed story, better graphics, and maps that made some sort of logical sense (using Scry Site every five seconds in BT got a little tedious.)

Dragon Wars...another classic. Can you ever top the combination of Gatlin Bow with the Magic Quiver? [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img]

[Tarjan]

[quote]Originally posted by Azred:
[QB]

Originally posted by Tarjan: I actually still liked the Bard's Tale series the best, even after the Gold Box series. Gold Box games were good, but the problem, for me, was the length of the fights. *snip*

True. I think the computers would have crashed had the Gold Box games tried to copy that one fight in Harkyn's Castle: 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

Oh dear God, that's a scary thought!! Yeah, that fight was insane, but not overly difficult once you had a couple of mages with Mangar's MindBlade. I used to just cast that spell, read a magazine, wait for the round to end, and cast it again for however many additional rounds it took. It was a stupid part of the game, but an easy way to improve characters (admit it, we all used to teleport to that fight whenever we wanted to go up a level!)

[Nightowl2]

Yeah, Dragon Wars was pretty good for its time. But really one of the better games back then was Wasteland, the only post-nuke game worth considering.

Boy, we've gotten off track here, so I'm gonna start up something in the Misc Games category. Look for "Oldies but Goodies".

Nightowl2

[CerebroDragon]

Originally posted by Tarjan: Did anyone else ever manage to make any sense of this? How was he tricked? And why isn't he dead? It seems if anyone tricked anybody, HE did by pretending to be dead. I'm confused.

Fantastic to see and hear the Skara Brae worship...the Bard's Tale Trilogy has to be the most influential set of rpg games on my life. I spent many moons in my mid highschool years on these games, simply in awe of atmosphere, dialogue, riddles, music and immersive size of the world. In fact, Bard's Tale III I would go so far to say, with Ultima IV and Curse of the Azure Bonds, have been the most satisfying games I've ever had the pleasure of playing...
I still have the notebooks and maps locked away in storage somewhere...

As to the Tarjan history, I cannot answer with all certainty, but perhaps one could suggest that after removing his physical form from Bard's Tale I, in that great battle in Harkyns Castle, what may have been destroyed was perhaps merely a physical representation of him in a more primordial Skara Brae. I always imagined mindless droves of barbarians (SCSI! Oh how useful it was! BAMF) worshipping that statue of Tarjan! Thus, his existence although not completely clear, is arguably god-like already. By III, his madness seethes and writhes to an all time fit of power-mania against the inhabitants of Skara Brae...

Come hear the tale of Skara Brae,
A Mad god returned to have his way...

If you know the plot of III imtimately, you'll know that the Mad God's breadth of power surpasses that of one dimension - his influence almost transcends space and time itself! We're not told this in Bard's Tale one for many possible rasons, the most obvious being that the humble creators hadn't thought so far ahead! Yet this may be wrong too. Mangar's power to keep Skara Brae in an eternal winter, may lie with Tarjan, further possible evidence of his unhinted godliness.

There's also the more literal possibility that III was done regardless of the continuity of the first two. They play as stand alone games easily enough, you could play them back to front without missing too many plot elements, unlike playing Baldur's Gate II before the original, for instance. Not that I did it this way!
Chronos principles indicate to me to go Chronologically through games like this.
Thus, despite starting III first on the c64 and getting to Gelidia, I backtracked and in a friendly duel with a friend, lost out in the competition to conquer I and II first. Errr, but I digress. This game is engraved upon my rpg soul!

Accross time and space, the legends say,
Heroes at last to steal the day!

Perhaps also the Bard's Tale novels by Mercedes Lackey and others might reveal more...did anyone read these? I have two somewhere of them somewhere, but I remember trying to read one a few years ago and being appalled at the bad humour and disappointing atmosphere as compared to the games.

Anyway, I'm going to get back into Planescape - now here's another world which knows how to pull on one's conscioussness!

Cerebro Dragon
++))))))))(((())))++
--------UDIC--------

[Tarjan]

Well, I have to admit, I never pictured I'd be having in depth conversations about the Bard's Tale in 2003! lol... it's either pathetic or cool, not quite sure which yet...

Anyway, a little side note to Cerebrodragon:
I personally think you're right about the designers not having thoroughly developed Tarjan's character/history in BT1. However, in an interview with Bill Heineman (designer of Bard's Tale 3), he mentions that the whole series was planned from the beginning. In fact, the original plan was:

Tales Of The Unknown Vol. 1: The Bard's Tale
Tales of The Unknown Vol. 2: The Archmage's Tale
Tales of The Unknown Vol. 3: The Thief's Tale

However, hardly anybody referred to the first game as "Tales of The Unknown," so for marketing purposes EA decided to switch the title of the second game to "Bard's Tale 2," and completely drop the "Tales of The Unknown" moniker.