The Bards Tale IV: Barrows Deep

For those not familiar with the original(or remastered) Bard's Tale games, the original games date back to the 1980s. As a result, many will not be familiar with games of that era. Turn based combat was very common in those days(unlike console/arcade action games). This is based on the old Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper style, where characters have an "initiative" roll, so characters(not the player) that are more nimble, will get to take their TURN first, then the next, then the next. So, both player characters and enemies will take their turns.
Bard's Tale 4 isn't as formal, but it IS turn based in combat, the player or enemy takes its turn, then the other takes its turn, you tell it what to do, back and forth, until one side or the other is dead. While younger players may not enjoy it, older players will appreciate the strategy aspect of being able to take your time to decide how to handle things.
So, on to the game. There is a LOT of exploration that comes into play, with things hidden, and things you can't get to until later in the game(exploration abilities). That is where the game shines. Without being fully open world, there is a fair amount of roaming around you can do, and you do open more over time. Some things are VERY well hidden as well. Side quests that are not required are available as well. If you enjoy the exploration aspect, it can take a WHILE to find most of the things in the game as well. Puzzles will block some areas, and that may turn off some people, even while doing a good job of keeping the game too easy to just get through.
Overall, Bards Tale 4 is a solid mix of exploration, puzzles, combat, and story. It's not going to attract everyone, but it holds true to the vibe of the original games, while improving graphics and EVERYTHING. If you played the original games back in the 1980s, you will probably love the new game, while if your experience is all about action and skipping story, you may not enjoy it.

A true Bard’s Tale fan from the CPC 6128+ days, I immediately jumped on this reenvisioning, although the mention of VR features and simplified combat was making me skeptic. It turned out, the weird, card game combat layout worked like a charm and even if you could not face 396 berserkers in the limited 4X4 combat grid, encounters were fun! After a few hours, it was apparent that at its core, BTIV was a love letter to veteran gamers, for better or worse. And that’s because the charm and personality of old dungeon crawlers was there, but some nuisances tied to that period were also apparent. Exploration and travelling back and forth was cumbersome, conversations cheesy and idle NPCs standing like lifeless mannequins felt so weird.
After 34 hours (and nearing the end of the campaign), I experience a weird bug that made my party fall under the world’s architecture, effectively blocking my progress. Quite some time had passed since my last save and my patience was already wearing thin because of other minor bugs, so I left BTIV at that point. Mind you, that was back in release, so tech issues should have been patched by now. Besides, my team had grown so powerful by then that it was steamrolling all combat encounters. I hear there’s a Director’s Cut edition now: if there’s an inexpensive option to upgrade my version to this one, I would certainly revisit and take care of unfinished business…

big thumbs up. Early reviews made me wait on this game. Great songs, great atmosphere, great characters, spooky - love the game. HUGE SHAME this wasn't on sale during the summer sale they missed out on more audiences to discover this game. Excited for DLC and more content -

I was amazed. One of the most beautiful games Ive ever played. The atmosphere, the mesmerizing folk music in the background in the various worlds you enter while playing. Hundreds of puzzles, most of them fun to solve. I cant wait for the Director Cut version to replay this game!! :)

I played the original Bard's Tale and all of the followup games when I was a kid, and I absolutely adored these games. I helped Kickstart this game, and awaited it patiently. It did take a while to get into the groove of this game, and I finally did complete the game. However, there were a lot of bugs, misspellings, and lots of mechanics issues -- and I actually didn't get around to playing it until over a year after it came out. So, the support, patches, and updates appear to have been generic and really didn't get to the heart of it.
Overall, the game was good, and I do recommend it, but there were so many little issues that kept popping up again and again and again that it seriously bothered and annoyed me pretty constantly. Crashing, falling through the world, getting stuck over and over and over in places so that my character couldn't move, quest items that were mislabeled, and areas where there were dozens and dozens of puzzles in a row just to complete one simple stupid step that would stop the entire game progression if you couldn't figure it out, or didn't wanna' spend hours trying to figure out some dumb thing.
Now more is coming back to me and I'm getting annoyed again. STILL -- it was a good game.