The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut

 PC
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 52 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 52
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 52
  3. Negative: 13 out of 52

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  1. Hexen-Slayer
    Sep 16, 2020
    3
    THE BARD'S TALE IV has a great Gaelic score and a pretty interesting combat system. And that is all the good I have to say about THE BARD'S TALE IV!
    Graphics are outdated and the game world appears lifeless. Most NPCs stand around and don't do anything but wait for you to walk on by and talk to them.
    The game is very poorly balanced with some enemies being too easy and some supposedly    THE BARD'S TALE IV has a great Gaelic score and a pretty interesting combat system. And that is all the good I have to say about THE BARD'S TALE IV!
    Graphics are outdated and the game world appears lifeless. Most NPCs stand around and don't do anything but wait for you to walk on by and talk to them.
    The game is very poorly balanced with some enemies being too easy and some supposedly low or mid level encounters being way too hard. Then there are the horrendous loading times of several minutes: the game is not up to date on a technical level to justify such loading times. Not even close!
    Quests are tedious and require traveling back and forth long distances with the occasional death and long loading times.
    Puzzles are extremely bad - I ended up disabling them.
    BARD's TALE IV does not deserve to bear the name BARD'S TALE, it's an insult to the superb original trilogy. Do yourself a favor: the original trilogy got a superb remaster, buy that instead. You'll be glad you did.
    BARD'S TALE IV however is a 3 out of 9 (Bad).    … Expand
  2. DAMreviews
    Oct 18, 2019
    4
    PS4 Pro - I finally tapped out at after 5 hours due to the balance of difficulty hindering game progress. The world looks like a mobile game, very similar to the Elder Scrolls Blades. Load times take 20 seconds-plus. So moving back and forth for some quests began to feel like a chore and caused feelings of dread about simply wanting to grind outside of the main quest.
    Combat is the biggest    PS4 Pro - I finally tapped out at after 5 hours due to the balance of difficulty hindering game progress. The world looks like a mobile game, very similar to the Elder Scrolls Blades. Load times take 20 seconds-plus. So moving back and forth for some quests began to feel like a chore and caused feelings of dread about simply wanting to grind outside of the main quest.
    Combat is the biggest issue because of difficulty. Every meaningful quest encounter is balanced to be barely passable and often felt due to the luck of draw. I died several times on any mid-level battle and then sat through another significant load time, stunned at how punishing it is. After trying new areas, progressing the main quest out of sheer luck, only to repeat the punishing process with no direction or tips from the game, I had to stop.
    I want to support InExile but I’d be lying if I said this game wasn’t trash.    … Expand
  3. NerdishNerd
    Oct 1, 2019
    3
    There's a lot to unpack here, so buckle up.

    First is the history of the game. Delayed, delayed, and delayed some more. At one point it was delayed for an ill-fated attempt at a VR game which supposedly was going to tie in to this. Somehow. It was never explained how nor was it ever tied in. There were also a few early previews for which feedback was given but never used. Which    There's a lot to unpack here, so buckle up.

    First is the history of the game. Delayed, delayed, and delayed some more. At one point it was delayed for an ill-fated attempt at a VR game which supposedly was going to tie in to this. Somehow. It was never explained how nor was it ever tied in. There were also a few early previews for which feedback was given but never used. Which culminated in the first release over a year ago. Which, like this, imploded on itself. Various errors, numerous bugs, and InXile ignoring the Kickstarter backers who tried to warn them.

    Then the blame-game began. Most of it was aimed at the people who backed it. Really, such blame belongs at the feet of the director of the game, one Brian Fargo. He has yet to take any responsibility for the failure of the game, for how poorly it launched, and has yet to make any sort of apology for any of it. Instead us backers got this version of the game. And maybe, eventually some DLC.

    None of which makes up for the fact that this isn't the game that was promised in the campaign, nor for the game-breaking bugs of the first launch, nor for the aborted attempt of a launch. It doesn't go back and undo the fact that InXile ignored the feedback early users, that they changed focus several times during the course of developing the game (through launching new Kickstarters, shuffling staff around to cover on previous projections that were not yet completed, or bringing in new hires who had no idea what this project was about), or for blaming their customers for their own shortfalls.

    The long and the short of it is this: No one in InXile had any idea what to make of this game. Brian Fargo didn't direct, didn't lead, and certainly didn't seem to give a care about how this game turned out. And now, with a second bite at the apple, they've continued to fall short of any expectations that they set with the Kickstarter. To know this is the case, one need only look at the dated graphics, the lack of optimization in the game, and listen to the overproduced and muddled sound & voicing. All of it adds up to a secondhand product being pushed as a top of the line nostalgia hit.

    The original Bard's Tales game were about exploration and fun. This is about none of those things.    … Expand
  4. jseph1234
    Apr 1, 2020
    3
    I was ALMOST tempted to Pre-Purchase this but I am glad that I didn't because I realize the gameplay was wonky and shallow and while it had some cool cutscene when you ran into a villian the weird combat sequence sucked.
  5. bladex
    Sep 2, 2019
    0
    pathetic puzzle game pretending to be an rpg that's what this is.

    you'll soon discover early this is not an rpg game the amount of puzzles in it are insane and annoying. ranging from crappy pushing block puzzles to annoying gear puzzles. there is a cheat to skip all these puzzles but that's not what makes this bad. the rpg elements are some of the worst i've ever experienced in my    pathetic puzzle game pretending to be an rpg that's what this is.

    you'll soon discover early this is not an rpg game the amount of puzzles in it are insane and annoying.

    ranging from crappy pushing block puzzles to annoying gear puzzles. there is a cheat to skip all these puzzles but that's not what makes this bad.

    the rpg elements are some of the worst i've ever experienced in my life.

    1st of all there are no re-spawns there are a set number of enemies on the map which makes it difficult to gain exp and gold.

    you will find yourself up against 100 HP enemies than can spawn up to 4 50 HP goblins when all you have is a party of four ranging from 12 to 20 HP when you only do 7-10 dmg and they each do 8-10 dmg against your party and you will be slaughtered! and because you won't have the right gear because everything in the stores is INSANELY expensive you will find yourself getting wiped out again and again!

    it NEVER gives you enough opportunities to grow your party before your thrown into the gauntlet against insanely hard mobs and this is just on the normal settings!

    spell casting sucks also it takes 1 turn to cast a spell and if your hit before the turn is up your spells are cancelled and ythe same goes with enemy spells you have to drop what your doing and do a pitiful low level attack just because it does mind dmg to stop their spells and did i mention you usually only have 2 party members that can do this? the amount of unfairness in this game is just insanely unfair!

    there are much much better rpg (rpg lol what a joke calling it that) out there than this polished turn. try them instead!    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. MMORPG.com
    Sep 18, 2019
    85
    The Bard's Tale 4: The Director's Cut is an epic tale of corruption and evil, suffering and loss, of lessons learned too late and and the bitter consequences. It's also a story of hope and triumph and perseverance. It's a game that challenged me and a story that tugged at my heart.
    Read full review
  2. 3DJuegos
    Sep 11, 2019
    80
    The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut is a great dungeon crawler with many clever puzzles and epic combats turn based. It still has some bugs, but the experience is better than the original.
    Read full review
  3. GameSpace
    Sep 5, 2019
    85
    The Bard's Tale 4: Director's Cut is the version of the game we deserved.
    Read full review
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