The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut

 PlayStation 4
Metascore
tbd

No score yet - based on 3 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
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  1. PlayStation Universe
    Sep 14, 2019
    80
    The Bard's Tale IV is a sometimes awkward, often charming and never less than a thoroughly enjoyable RPG that with cheeky wink and a swig of Elven Wine presents itself as one of the most surprising adventures of the year.
  2. SpazioGames
    Oct 4, 2019
    77
    The Bard's Tale Iv Director's Cut is the best version of the game from last year, with a lot of improvements and extra content, but still retains too much little bugs that need to be fixed as soon as possible. A solid choice for all the dungeon crawler fans.
  3. The Games Machine
    Oct 1, 2019
    73
    The Bard’s Tale IV: Director’s Cut defines a further step forward for InXile Entertainment. The flaws are there, but it's worth playing as long as you like this genre.

User Reviews

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User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 15 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 15
  3. Negative: 5 out of 15
  1. Shemhazaj
    Jun 3, 2021
    3
    Bought it on sale for $6, not worth it. Released in 2018, looks like it was 2008 and plays like 1998.
  2. tomvs123
    Aug 31, 2020
    6
    As someone who played the original Bard's Tale when it was new and has liked grid-based, turn-based, first-person RPGs ever since, this isn'tAs someone who played the original Bard's Tale when it was new and has liked grid-based, turn-based, first-person RPGs ever since, this isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it's not a bad western RPG.

    Lets get the bad out of the way first. On PS4, there's a lot of technical issues. The frame rate is bad (even on PS4 Pro), there's annoying (but not game-breaking) visual/audio/interface bugs and glitches everywhere, and they even have a mouse cursor on top of the ending movie - They really missed that??

    And this is the only game on PS4 that was physically painful to look at for extended periods - and I've played a lot of first-person games. I attribute this to the game's incredibly heavy motion blur when moving the camera horizontally. At first, I moved the camera sensitivity up to 80 since it was too slow for me. But that made the headaches and eye fatigue worse due to the increased blur, so I settled on 50 and avoided moving the camera quickly from then on.

    Related to this, they do offer a grid-based movement system in the settings, which prevents you from moving in ways that causes motion blur. But the game is very annoying to play in this mode as the levels/maps were seemingly not designed with grid-based movement in mind.

    The story is unfortunately cliche and generic. Although not bad, and not full of plot holes, it's based on the same plot that 90% of Western RPGs use: Evil being wants to control/destroy the world for some unknown reason, and you're the only person who can stop it. It plays out exactly how you expect, except there's much more getting magical items to get to the next plot point than normal.

    So lets get onto the good. If you like turn-based combat, you'll be glad to know that the combat here is good, relatively unique, and challenging. You're on a small grid with your opponents, with each side having half of the grid. There's skills that target specific squares of the grid and those that target enemies. For example, you can set fire to a specific square and enemies who step in it will catch fire. An enemy can start channeling for a powerful skill that will hit certain squares (related to him) on the next turn, and you can either kill him before that happens or use another skill to move him - either so you take no damage or the enemy skill hits his allies. And this is just one of the interesting mechanics. There's several other mechanics that keeps combat fun and rewarding.

    The puzzles in the game are good. They start out simple and get more complex as you make your way though. There's moving blocks through mazes onto switches, spinning pieces of circular puzzle boards to line up images, getting fairies to unlock doors by controlling their movement via totems, rotating devices to get strange blood magic to flow certain ways to unlock areas, and more. The puzzles don't make complete sense in the world, but they do a good job at keeping the player mentally engaged. In addition to standard puzzles, there's plenty of riddles that require you to read lore to figure out what to do next. Don't expect any hand-holding with these - some are relatively difficult, while avoiding being so abstract that they don't make sense. Use of pencil and paper will definitely help out with some of these.

    And then we come to the music. I normally don't mention music, but the game has some of the best vocal Celtic music I've heard in a game. This will vary based on your taste, but I think it's a great fit for the world. The only downside to this is that the music is a bit too good for the world. You'll be walking by a house, hearing this perfect pre-recorded singing and it seems a little too good for what you'd expect going by some random person's house.

    I had a decent time with the game, which is more than I can say about most games I play these days. The ending is a bit weak, the world seems a little small (even though it took me nearly 60 hours to complete), and I didn't have much motivation to go into the optional dungeon after beating the game, but I don't regret my time with it. Definitely a game to consider if you're into old-school western RPGs or turn-based RPGs.    … Full Review »
  3. OutlawTX
    Aug 29, 2019
    8
    When first released on PS4 this had a lot of issues but after the last patch, I’ve updated my review to reflect the actual game without theWhen first released on PS4 this had a lot of issues but after the last patch, I’ve updated my review to reflect the actual game without the issues. This is a real throw back to old PC games like Might and Magic but with turn based combat. Filled with great characters, great music and good fun. After they killed all of the game ruining bugs, this game is worth every penny.… Full Review »
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