Starker on 20/9/2018 at 03:12
This was a game I backed on Kickstarter and I have to say I'm not feeling it so far, a few hours in...
* The game is pretty poorly optimised and buggy. Managed to get stuck in the level geometry twice... in a game with checkpoint saves. And there have been visual glitches too, like NPCs missing parts of their bodies, floating eyeballs and things like that.
* Exploration so far has been pretty linear, with high level mobs acting as gates, but maybe the game will open up later. The 3D world itself is pretty unsatisfying, as you can't jump and so far vertical exploration seems to be limited to clicking on a rope and getting lifted to another level. The quests have been quite railroady too so far. I think they might have been better off with a grid-based Dungeon Master clone.
* The dialogue system is pretty basic and you exhaust options by going down a list of things to say, but nothing I've read so far has really stood out for me, for better or worse. The writing is serviceable, I guess.
* Combat has been kind of simplistic too, so far, but maybe it gets better once there are more enemies and skills.
Not really what I expected from the studio whose predecessor brought us a game like Fallout. Even by simple dungeon crawler standards, it falls kind of short.
PigLick on 20/9/2018 at 05:53
The couple of reviews I have read seem to agree with you. Also how can people still think checkpoint saving is a good thing?
Tommyph1208 on 20/9/2018 at 07:36
Quote Posted by Starker
This was a game I backed on Kickstarter and I have to say I'm not feeling it so far, a few hours in...
* The game is pretty poorly optimised and buggy. Managed to get stuck in the level geometry twice... in a game with checkpoint saves. And there have been visual glitches too, like NPCs missing parts of their bodies, floating eyeballs and things like that.
* Exploration so far has been pretty linear, with high level mobs acting as gates, but maybe the game will open up later. The 3D world itself is pretty unsatisfying, as you can't jump and so far vertical exploration seems to be limited to clicking on a rope and getting lifted to another level. The quests have been quite railroady too so far. I think they might have been better off with a grid-based Dungeon Master clone.
* The dialogue system is pretty basic and you exhaust options by going down a list of things to say, but nothing I've read so far has really stood out for me, for better or worse. The writing is serviceable, I guess.
* Combat has been kind of simplistic too, so far, but maybe it gets better once there are more enemies and skills.
Not really what I expected from the studio whose predecessor brought us a game like Fallout. Even by simple dungeon crawler standards, it falls kind of short.
I'm curious... Why did you back it in the first place? Just because of the studio name, former Fallout work etc.? Or did they sell it really well/make it look really interesting in their campaign but just didn't deliver on all their promises?
Starker on 20/9/2018 at 12:28
I also backed Wasteland 2 and Tides of Numenera and Wasteland 3. Yeah, I'd say it's a combination of all of the above. The puzzle weapons seemed intriguing and the presentation was good and the campaign was pretty well run, plus there was the confidence of having a well-known established studio with experienced developers work on the game.
Don't get me wrong, I don't regret backing it or anything. I know Kickstarter's a gamble. It was a risk well worth taking, even if it didn't work out all that well in the end.
Starker on 11/11/2018 at 08:53
Finally got around to beating the game, after waiting for InXile to patch it up, and I have a somewhat better impression of it now, though not by much. At least it didn't crash anymore. The game does open up a tiny little bit, with a few side quests here and there, and you get a couple of choices that don't seem to change anything all that much, but the main storyline is still basically a railroad of follow the quest arrow to the next bit. And the world feels very static. The NPCs have a few different lines to reflect the threat you're currently facing, but in essence it's not much more advanced from a NES JRPG, really. I must have heard dozens upon dozens of times by now from that one guy about how he didn't know whether to shit or scream in a particular situation, right up until the very end of the game.
Overall, though, I felt that it was the presentation that let the game down the most. The story is very simple fantasy fare and never really drew me in. And the same goes for the characters. There was not nearly enough to form attachment to any of the places or people I visited. Everyone just stands around and never really goes anywhere, there's not a lot of local intrigue or lore to discover, the characters are bland and don't seem to have many other roles than quest-givers or shopkeepers, and the villains are absolutely cartoonish. The cut-scenes also felt underwhelming and simple (like most of the game), but at least I feel that if they had to save money, that was the place to do it.
The game is quite long, something like 60-70 hours, but that's not a point in its favour, as far as I'm concerned. It feels like it just drags on and on and overstays its welcome multiple times over. And it doesn't help that the bulk of the game is taken up by (mostly unavoidable) combat. (And yes, I realise that it's how it was in the original series.) This is the reason I played the game on the normal difficulty, just to get it over with faster. If you want any sort of challenge, though, you have to pick hard.
The other big part of the game is the puzzles. You have "puzzle weapons" that have a couple of simple puzzles on them and there are also puzzles in the world. The puzzles in the world start out insultingly easy, but they do get more difficult as the game progresses. They felt a bit tacked-on at times (especially when the only thing preventing you from bypassing them is essentially an invisible wall or a fence you could easily climb over), but at least they offered a little respite from combat. There are also secrets to be found in the world, but the reward is more often than not just a bit of money or an item you can sell, and the same goes for puzzles -- they just didn't feel like they were worth it, either for the reward or in and of themselves. The puzzle weapons were perhaps the most disappointing, though. I imagined that each weapon would be a unique puzzle and you'd be finding secret compartments in the weapons or perhaps unlock different configurations that transform the weapon, but really it's just the same basic set of puzzles with only a little variation. And they are not very good puzzles, either. One of them is a sliding tile puzzle, for example, which is just one rung below Towers of Hanoi in terms of most loathed puzzles in gaming.
Also, the game feels simultaneously too old-school and dated in some places and not old-school enough in others. There's all kinds of small irritations, like not being able to sort your inventory other than manually rearranging things on the grid or not being able to undo skill point selections -- so if you happen to misclick or realise that it would lock you into a path, you have to load a previous save. And on the other side, there's the checkpoint saving which acts as free healing, so you really don't need to worry much about managing your health. And there are quest markers that show you exactly where to go and places where you can use your grappling hook are all marked on the map.
It's not all bad, though. The party banter was pretty good, for example, and the voice acting and the songs were terrific, though the incessant singing did start to grate a bit 20 hours or so in. The combat isn't too bad and it would be fine for a game where it's just filler between more meatier parts of the game, like exploring and roleplaying. There's just entirely too much of it and it doesn't have nearly the depth or the replayability to carry the game for 60+ hours. If the game was 20 hours long, perhaps I'd have a much more favourable impression of it.
If I had to put a number to it, I'd say it was a 5/10 game (below average). It did have a few good bits here and there, but it just felt like a chore to play with no real pay-off.
Twist on 11/11/2018 at 17:01
Is there much in the way of navigating and mapping dark labyrinthine dungeons? That was my favorite part of the original Bard's Tale games.
Starker on 12/11/2018 at 00:34
Not really. It works more like a labyrinth (linear) than a maze, but you unlock shortcuts back to the places you've been to, so you end up with a maze. And there's a map regardless.
There are a few branching paths, but they are very short and the few optional side-dungeons are not that big.
