The Bard's Tale III: Swan Song

He's going to make me play Bard's Tale III...forever. (Screenshot courtesy of YouTube user girldrinkdrunk1.)

The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate

United States

Interplay (developer), Electronic Arts (publisher)

Released 1988 for Apple II and Commodore 64; 1990 for DOS; 1991 for Amiga; 1992 for PC-98

Date Started: 1 February 2011
Date Ended: 4 March 2012

Total Hours: 42 (not completed)
Difficulty: Moderate (3.0/5)
Final Rating: 33
Ranking at Game #368: 240/368 (65%)

          

I'm departing from this game just as it admittedly started to get more tolerable. Thanks to ronaldsf's comment pointing me to the right patch, I finally had a version where I could type in spell names. This made a huge difference. I should mention that the patch brought some problems, though, including text appearing in the wrong locations.

The second dimension, Gelidia, was shaping up to be a little more interesting. Inside a ramshackle outpost, long-abandoned, I found a journal, written by someone named Alendar, that detailed the fall of the realm via some kind of invasion. The invasion apparently succeeded because their hero, Hawkslayer (my NPC from Arboria) was absent, and their god, Lanatir, was killed in the first wave of attacks. The journal mentions that Lanatir's sphere and wand (which I was sent here to find) are safe in his tomb behind a series of wards. Alendar died after using all his energies to cast a freezing spell over Gelidia to destroy the invading horde.

This isn't the first example of a expository journal entry in a CRPG, but I can't honestly remember where the first one did appear. They're a bit of a trope. The Elder Scrolls is famous for them, even when they barely make sense (e.g., a paper journal having survived 1000 years in a damp tomb). It adds a new dimension to The Bard's Tale III by actually instilling the land with a bit of lore.

Things got even better after that. The world's one dungeon, the Ice Keep, featured a series of warded doors with strange messages on them:

I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I mapped the keep, including an entire level that had not a single message or special encounter--I walked around it twice, just to be sure--before I realized the solution was in the journal:

The solution was to cast a series of spells against the warded doors. After some trial and error, I figured out that "bright light" referred to the "mage flame" spell; "loud thunder" resolved as "shock sphere" (that one took a long time); "whispered terror term" was "fear"; and "flaming guide" was "summon fire elemental." Finally, the note to "join the wall" was a hint to cast "spell bind" on it.

Unfortunately, by the time I was done with all the trial and error, my spell points were so low that I had to go outside and wait around for hours while they recharged. It literally took all day. I left the computer running while I went about my business, and when I returned about 6 hours later, the spell points were almost back to maximum. This is not a game that rewards experimentation.

With my spell point arsenal available again, I re-entered the tower, went through the opened portal, and explored four levels of a "black tower"--running away from almost every combat--before I finally encountered the dungeon's bad guys, a pack of wizards. They proved difficult enough that I had to blast away with my MAMA spell to defeat them, cast HEAL once, and turn a bunch of stoned characters back to flesh. By the time I made it out with a "black lens," my spell points were nearly exhausted again, and that's when I decided to call it a game. I honestly don't know if I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be any way to buy spell points, nor any faster way to recharge. The plot points in Gelidia were interesting, but only in comparison to what the game had offered so far, which was essentially nothing at all.

Like many games on my list, The Bard's Tale III might have been reasonably fun to play, map, and win when I was 15, didn't have any other responsibilities, and only bought one game every three or four months. It isn't addictive enough for modern gamers. Despite an interesting premise, the worlds are too empty, the gameplay too long, the mapping too unrewarding. I've quit a lot of games because of bad interfaces, or absurd difficulty, or inadequate documentation; this is one of the few that I've quit because I was just bored.

I admit to having some interest in the dimension where you travel to various cities on Earth, but that's the sixth world, so I wasn't willing to stick it out. Scorpia (whose review I reference below) barely makes any note of it, so I'm guessing it's not as interesting as it sounds.

Understanding that I can only rate the part of the game I played, let's see how it stacks up:

1. Game World. The premise of the series hasn't changed since the first game. In The Bard's Tale, you faced an evil wizard; in The Bard's Tale II, you faced a tougher evil wizard; in The Bard's Tale III, you face an evil god. In all three, these characters just sort-of exist; they're not explained in the context of any larger pantheon, and you don't really get anything about the history of the world or its people. In this game, you travel to different dimensions, but it's a little unclear why, how they're linked, or really how they're different from the dimension you start in (except for one case in which you visit Earth). The monsters and characters are just random names. The outdoor maps are extremely small--laughably so, given that they double back on themselves, and there isn't enough stuff in them to register any changes to your quest or progress. I was a little intrigued by some of the lore in the other dimensions, and I wanted to see what would happen with Hawkslayer, but it wasn't enough. If the game had rewarded my progress with the restoration of Roscoe's Energy Emporium, I might have stuck around a bit longer. Score: 4.
 

The only background info you get on this game.

 
2. Character Creation and Development. The creation process is no better or worse than the average CRPG of the era. You select a race, class, sex, and name. I give the game some credit for some interesting classes, and for featuring more classes, and with different strengths and weaknesses, than you have the ability to accommodate. The races and attributes are essentially the standard D&D set. My biggest problem, as I've discussed, is that leveling is unrewarding. You're expected to bring in characters from The Bard's Tale II who are already at around Level 30-40, and if you don't have them, there's a starter dungeon to get you there. At that point, you have all your abilities and spells and there's nowhere else to develop except to add a few more hit points and spell points to your pool. Like most CRPGs of the era, the encounters don't differ based on race or class, although apparently you do need a thief at some point in the game to sneak up and backstab a guy who's immune to spells and stays out of melee range.

This is a sign of a broken character-development system.

I'm going to give an extra point for something that I didn't actually experience in the game: the option to change fighters to the "geomancer" class, which doesn't come up until the fourth dimension. Doing so allows you to keep using the same weapons and armor, but you lose all your special attacks and, for bards, bard songs. The spells in this class seem almost worth the effort, including the ability to "trap zap" an entire dungeon level, an alert for anti-magic zones, and lots of mass-damage spells. I suspect I would have transferred my paladin or bard. Score: 5.

3. NPC Interaction. This hasn't changed since the previous two games. There are no true "NPCs," just occasional encounters with people in their respective squares, to whom you can say, at best, yes or no. There are a few wandering NPCs, like Hawkslayer, who join your party, but with no lore or dialogue attached to them. Score: 2.

Someone clue me in as to what he was all about.

4. Encounters and Foes. This game's downfall is its banal, featureless encounters with a slew of unmemorable monster portraits. Thank the gods for mass damage spells. In the unpatched version, at least, there are far, far too many encounters, although you can run away from a lot of them. There are inventory puzzles in the various dimensions that add a little depth to the game, but for most of it, I was cringing with every turn or step, hoping I could just finish mapping this #*&$(ing corridor already! I usually regard random encounters, opportunities for grinding, and re-spawning as good things, but this game taught me the value of moderation.

Two hobgoblins. You have to admire their spunk.

I wish the developers had learned a lesson from the Might & Magic series, in which every third or fourth square featured some kind of message or context-sensitive encounter, or Pool of Radiance, where at least four or five times per map, you got some kind of role-playing option. I mean, what kind of a world is this in which packs of 98 monsters are just roaming the countryside together? Where do they even live? How do they feed themselves? Score: 3.

5. Magic and Combat. A character who has progressed through all mage classes, including archmage, has access to 80 spells. Between these, the various combat options--including rogue sneaking/backstabbing--and the various items you can find and use, combat ought to be very tactical, and there were times at the beginning when it was. Spell points were so precious and death so imminent that I carefully studied the spell book and tried to identify the best spell for each foe. It was a joy and relief when I defeated Brilhasti. After that, when I got 20 levels all at once, the game suddenly became far too easy, and every combat was a bore, except for the boss-level fights. These left my spellcasters so drained that I had to stand around in the sunshine for hours (real hours, not game hours) to get them back again. Score: 4.

 

6. Equipment. I have to give it points for variety, but this is one of those games that doesn't tell you jack about the stuff you find. You can guess that adamantium plate is better than mithril plate based on your armor class, but there's nothing to tell you whether Kael's Axe does more damage than the Dayblade (except, I guess, to meticulously record and average your damage scores). Part of this is supposed to be fun, I guess; most of the items you find have some sort of magic property attached to them, and through trial and error you can figure out what they do. With the right items, any character can cast mage spells. In practice, I find that there's far too much stuff to keep straight and much of it was under-powered. After a certain level, damage was so overwhelmingly based on character attributes, I don't think it would have mattered if they'd all had daggers. Again, I wish the creators had looked to Might & Magic, which had the same variety of equipment but allowed you to pay people to tell you stuff about it. This game doesn't even offer a shop. Score: 5.

My chronomancer and the only two harmonic gems that I found in the entire game.

7. Economy. You collect millions of gold pieces and have nothing to spend it on beyond spells (which you buy up quite quickly) and healing. The lack of Roscoe's Energy Emporium and Garth's equipment shop did not improve this game. Would it have killed the developers to let me buy harmonic gems? In the beginning stages, coin is precious because of healing, but pretty soon you have spells that will resurrect all your characters and cure them of all conditions in one casting. Score: 3.

8. Quests. The main quest is the standard slay-the-evil-wizard type, but the sub-quests associated with each world are, if not quite "fun," at least interesting. The game would be a lot better if you were allowed to visit the seven worlds in any order, instead of marching through them in lockstep. There are no side-quests and, as far as I can tell, no opportunities for role-playing in the main quest. Score: 3.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Inputs. Most of the problems I experienced here are probably platform problems, but that's what I have to judge. The graphics are adequate enough, but the sound is horrible and I kept it turned off. The automap seems like a nice feature, but it was broken, frequently not mapping squares I'd stepped on, and it resets every level.

Most egregious is the repetitive melodies in the bard songs, which loop every 20 seconds and drive you crazy, but leaving the sound on is the only way to tell that they're still playing. The navigation and combat controls were fine, but the method of selecting spells is so awful that I can't believe no one stopped the game from being released like this. Imagine having to scroll through 80 spells, not listed in alphabetical order, every time you want to cast something. Although the patch fixed this problem, I have to grade it on the original, and I'm taking away all its interface points for that horrible design choice. Score: 3.

10. Gameplay. Linear, repetitive, non-replayable, too difficult at the beginning and too easy after that, and far, far too long. There is really nothing that I liked in this category. I can't give it a 0--the only 0 I've given was for Braminar, which featured literally no gameplay--but I really can't see offering anything more than a score of 1 here.

Final Rating: 33. This puts it 3 points lower than II and 4 points lower than I, keeping with my belief that the series got worse as it progressed. The developments the story and dimensions was offset by repetitiveness and boredom.

If it's killing you not knowing how it ended, here's the last of a nine-part YouTube series by user girldrinkdrunk1:
 

Like me, she played the DOS version. The video is an hour, with no sound (it's not a "let's play"), and it's mostly repetitive combat. Her characters, oddly, seem to be lower levels than mine; she must have used a walkthrough and avoided most of the mapping and level-grinding. But she has two archmages, which probably helped a bit with the spell point issue. The final battle with Tarjan starts at 45:45, and it clearly shows way overpowered characters fighting way overpowered monsters; her strategy (which is no doubt the correct strategy) is to use alternate mass damage and mass heal spells and slowly wear down the monsters before her spell points and harmonic gems run out. Meanwhile, she's having her thief hide in shadows and slowly sneak up on Tarjan; the titular thief does his one job at 51:44 and kills the mad god, but she's still got to contend with 25 rock demons one-by-one (they're immune to the mass-damage spells) before she wins the battle at 54:23. Her party ascends into heaven, is congratulated by some benevolent god, and is rewarded with godhood for themselves.

White text on an aqua background. Nice design choice.

 

The color choices make this section miserable to read, but it's a fairly good ending. If I'd played all the way through, I would have felt suitably rewarded. I'll reprint it here (punctuation errors and all) so you don't have to strain your eyes:

"Welcome, brave heroes. You have succeeded in destroying the threat to all reality. As you know, to do this, you slipped the bonds of time, and traveled forbidden routes through that which has forever been. You pressed your struggle forward despite danger and death, and you accomplished that which the gods themselves were unable to do."

His praise washes over you like a warm ocean wave, and you feel your strength infuse your body.

"In doing what you have done, you have proved yourself worthy of nothing less than the ultimate reward." He closes his eyes and raises his hands. "The death of the gods tore reality asunder, but you bound it up again. The gods of old are dead, therefore I accept you as my new children. You shall be gods yourselves."

His eyes open again and you look upon infinity. At once you see Skara Brae restored to its former beauty. You see beyond it and the Six Cities of the Plains. You see the whole world and each of its cultures, and you realize all of it is now your domain.

"And so it came to pass that the new stars burned in the night sky. The least of these, the Companion star, was named Hawkslayer after a hero of legend. The other seven, together known as the Company of Heroes, are each named for one of the New Gods. Each night they can be seen is betokened a good night, and adventurers know these gods smile especially upon them..." --excerpt from The Gospel of the New Gods (Chap. I, Verses 5-9).

Oddly, though, the game then sends these new "gods" back to the refugee camp in the unrestored Skara Brae.
 
Turning to Scorpia's June 1988 Computer Gaming World review, I'm surprised to see that some platforms allowed you to import characters from Ultima III, Ultima IV, or Wizardry. It's a cute feature, but how do we explain these worlds existing in the same universe? Moreover, what does importing your Ultima IV character actually do, since the classes, levels, magic systems, and hit point scales are all different?

Scorpia's assessment is fairly similar to mine, though she ranks it "better" than the previous two games, if still "too heavily oriented towards mega-combat" (p. 52). She notes how boring the dungeons are, and how pointless the spinners and dark zones are, especially given the automap function (p. 21). She says that Tarjan himself is quite easy. I was gratified to read her final assessment on the magic:

These spells make your party incredibly powerful. Except when facing opponents that are highly spell-resistant or have huge amounts of hit points, your characters can often blow away herds of monsters in a single round, with just a couple of spells. The power balance is thus very much weighted in the party's favor, making the majority of encounters fairly routine and not very exciting (p. 52).

So there you have it: a game that's eminently winnable, but would take poor time management skills to actually win. Like The Dukes of Hazzard, Lloyd Alexander novels, and the musical stylings of Duran Duran, this game is better experienced in memory than in actuality.