The Bard's Tale III: The Age of Aggression is Just About Done

The guy was dead literally four seconds later.

I can't believe how many comments I got on my last Bard's Tale III posting. I really starved you for those five weeks, didn't I? The last week has been rough, work-wise, so while I struggled to find time to play the game, I read your comments and tried to figure out what to do. Most of you wanted me to get on with it, but some of you offered cogent arguments for staying. I was particularly intrigued by bobturkey's comment that there's a World War II-themed world, and I appreciated Stephen Tanner's reminder that Sir Robin's Song eliminates a lot of the random combats. Then Killahead came along with a link to a thread on The Adventurer's Guild that not only explains the programming behind the random combats, but also offers a patch to reduce them and fix some other errors, like enemies not using their special attacks (or, in some cases, attacking at all).

I'm pretty sure he's referring to stuff that happens in a different world. These bartenders get around.

I downloaded the patch (created by a user named "drifting") and I can't say I noticed a huge difference, although I wasn't keeping track of the various monsters' special attacks in the first place. It sounds like most of the high-random-combat squares were in the starter dungeon.

Uh-huh.

I resolved to finish at least Arboria. I opened up my mapping file and was surprised that I'd already mapped much of it. I don't remember getting as far as I did, but then again, it was over a year ago. I do vaguely remember hitting a lot of places that I could not get past because I lacked some crucial item, and a foe (Tslotha, it turns out) who kept coming back to life. The key was doing everything in the right order. I had to collect an acorn from the outside area and the "water of life" from the palace beneath the lake.

It took me forever to figure out I needed to use a wineskin to "collect" the water.

Planting and watering the acorn allowed me to get through a portal in Valarian's Tower, where I found a weapon called the Nightspear. The Nightspear was needed to trap Tslotha's soul so he wouldn't come back to life.

See if you can figure out which part of this message nearly made me rage-quit.

Returning Tslotha's head to the king allowed me access to the Sacred Grove...

 

 
...where Tslotha's heart and the water of life, placed in the cavity of the dead Valarian's chest, allowed...I don't know...somehow allowed me access to a part of the dungeon where I--at last--collected Valarian's Bow.

 

Returning it to the guild master in Skara Brae, I was awarded 600,000 experience points and given a new quest to retrieve Lanatir--or at least his gear--from the realm of Gelidia.

"Actually, it would probably be easier if you just killed him and took his stuff."

After finishing the level, I reloaded a backup and played parts of it again so I could make the following video, which illustrates some key aspects of gameplay. The pauses are me consulting my maps, but for the most part, it's quick because I'm able to teleport to most of the places I need to go.

Some highlights from the video:

• 00:00: Start off in a tavern. Note how the animation makes it look like the bartender is repeatedly spitting into the patron's glass. It takes Essyltt a while to order a drink because I forgot to give her any money. Earlier in the game, the bard needed to keep drinking to replenish her songs, but somewhere along the way, she found something called the Bardsword which makes that unnecessary. So I basically just wasted a minute for nothing.
• 01:16: My characters are nearly at max health, but I figure I'll heal them anyway. A few seconds later, I lose patience with pointing and clicking, and throughout the rest of the video I'm using the keyboard.
• 01:58: Note the unfortunate gesture the king is making with his staff.
• 02:31: An easy combat begins. I could run, but I want to illustrate some combat things.
• 02:43: Notice the difference in attack damage between my monk and my bard! The bard is fairly worthless except for "Sir Robin's Song."
• 03:35: Boy, that tower sure looks high.
• 04:27: Another combat. Mabon the Mad pulls out all the stops and casts Mangar's Mallet (while shouting, "Run home and cry to MAMA!"), which does 200-800 points of damage on every foe but costs 80 spell points. It's one of a few fairly overpowered spells. I've been complaining that spell points take so long to recharge, but perhaps that's deliberate. Perhaps the creators wanted your pool of spells to last through basically one world, with a little recharging or harmonic gems in emergencies. My guess is it would definitely be worth having a third spellcaster, especially since Escorducarla, as a chronomancer, doesn't have nearly as good mass effect spells.
• 05:32: The game forces me to pick up some armor that I don't want, so I have to immediately go and drop it.
• 05:54: In preparation for entering the tower, Mabon the Mad casts the "Batch Spell," which simultaneously casts light, compass, protection, wizard eye, and levitation. One of the better inventions of the game.
• 06:35: I teleport to the place on my map that I want to go.
• 07:00: For some reason, planting an acorn in a dungeon floor accomplishes something.
• 07:40: I "trap zap" a trap ahead of me, but frankly I get the message so often that it's a waste of time to keep doing it.
• 08:01: Watch the compass. I run into a spinner. It takes me a few seconds to figure out where I'm going.
• 08:18: Every first-person tile-based game of the era features "zones of darkness." These serve no purpose but to making mapping a pain in the neck and waste spell points.
• 08:31: Forgot to have Sir Robin's Tune going. This allows me to "(R)un" from unwanted encounters with near-100% success. I haven't been having much trouble so far, but just in case...
• 09:13: I find my objective.
• 09:40: Yes, I'm looking at my map and counting squares. Moments later, I exit. Time to hang out in the sun and recharge my spell points!

At some point, leveling became meaningless. I stopped by the Wizard's Guild every once in a while and got a level or two, but all I'm getting at this point are more hit points and spell points on top of an already-staggering total. When games get to this point, it's time for them to be over. Usually it happens late in the game. When I was playing Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal and started thinking, "Ho hum. I guess I'll take another improved whirlwind attack," it was fortunately close to the last battle. In this case, it's relatively close to the beginning of the game. I know it seems like I've been playing for a long time, but all I've really done is complete the optional starter dungeon and the first of seven worlds.

When you have to start mentally putting commas in the experience point figure, your characters are perhaps a bit over-leveled.

Although each of the four dungeons featured only one or two key locations (the rest was just mindless mapping), the levels at least had the virtue of being small, and thankfully the developers didn't restrict the use of APAR (teleport) at key locations like most games do.

I confess that when I started this posting, I had intended to include a GIMLET in it, but it ended up being longer than I anticipated. I hated the game a little less during this play session--mostly because I took the time to re-read and note the spells, which make combat a lot faster--but probably not enough to keep this up through six more worlds. I'll explore Gelidia a bit as I gather the screenshots for my GIMLET, but I really think the next posting will be the last.