That’s the one. Good times.
Ybarra’s Mystical Coat of Armor. Named after one of the developers. An upgrade from Ybarra’s Mystic Shield. (MYSH) Also notable as a member of the sacred session starting quintet of spells that would be replaced by Batchspell (BASP) in Bard’s Tale II. (Those spells would be Kiel’s Magic Compass (MACO), Greater Revelation (GRRE), Sorceror’s Sight (SOSI), Major Levitation (MALE), and the aforementioned YMCA. The unofficial 6th startup spell was Greater Summoning (GRSU), cast about a dozen times, until you got a demon lord with satisfactory HP.)*
Also, the Barbarians are in Harkyn’s Castle, not Kylearan’s Tower. Upon entering Harkyn’s, cast Apport Arcane, (APAR) North +5, East +12, Up +2. Spam MIBL until all Barbarians are dead. When the fight ends, Cast APAR and teleport down 2 levels. Teleport back up 2 levels. Look! The barbarians are back! Rinse. Repeat until you run out of spell points. Go to Roscoes Energy Emporium to refuel. Return to Harkyn’s. Rinse. Repeat until your parents make you go to bed, because it’s a school night.
And then, if we’re being entirely honest, wait for your parents to go to sleep, get back up, and turn the computer on again. Hope your 1541 drive doesn’t head crash loud enough to wake anybody back up, cause then you’ll be in real trouble.
In 8th grade, Bards Tale was my religion. All this crap will be burned indelibly into my soul until the day I die.
*I should note that some people used Cateyes (CAEY) rather than Greater Revelation due to Cateyes’ indefinite spell duration. This was foolish however, since Cateyes would allow you to see in the dark, but did not reveal the presence of secret doors, as Greater Revelation did.
Ybarras mystical coat of armor
/M.
Cool thanks for the link. Nice artwork, in that magic the gathering game card way.
So, I just got the bards tale for the android on sale, and it comes with the original three games. How much of an investment is it to get through those three games, and is it worth it with a tablet sans keyboard (although I hope to get a small keyboard with the case I purchase). I will be running it on the nexus 7.
LOL45
You’ll never get through them. Well maybe the 3rd one, I actually beat that one when I was younger.
Still, its worth it for the experience. Odds are you’ll get tired after a bit and move on, but I’d check them out for the historical angle if nothing else.
Edit: This thread actually made me want to play them again so I looked into Devil Whiskey since I remember the demo from a while back. Damned thing is still like $25. A little too pricey for me at the moment… or probably ever.
Comes with the Android version of the Bard’s Tale.
I beat all of them on the C64 long long ago and tried getting into them again to no avail. First, my days of hand drawn maps, including dark squares, spinners, and teleports has long since passed. Second, the end of the dungeons in the 2nd one are in some cases tied to real time, with instant death if you fail. These are delightfully called snares. Third, even with the cheat of a free elemental, you will be spending lots and lots of time just walking the streets in the first one so you can survive the most basic of battles. Be prepared to reroll party members often. Fourth, you’ll want a copy of the manual handy, or at least a list of the spells since you cast them typing in, if I recall correctly, the four letters required each time, like MIMA for Mangar’s Mind Mallet.
With that said, if you don’t mind the effort of an old school RPG, the games are really rewarding when you do succeed in a totally old school kind of way.
I remember Bards Tale 3 as the one where I took one step, and faces machinegun-toting nazis (Did my mind make that up?), defeat them, take another step and another batch of hardcore crazies attacked me. Every…single…step had me in combat.
I loved the first two ones, but gave up on the third. I do remember Geomancers being hardcore mages that destroyed EVERYTHING in their paths.
Did any of you play Dragon Wars? It’s meant to be Bards Tale 4, essentially. I had it as a kid for my Amiga but never played it much. I loved the weird shaped box and the box-art, though :) (Also, when I got the Interplay 10th anniversary anthology I got the game again and still never played it).
It was awesome! You started in Purgatory as far as I remember, a prison type area, with absolutely nothing and had to escape roving bands of other inmates and critters. Very nice game, and it actually kinda still looks okay.
I recently replayed the original Bard’s Tale on my iPad (funny that I also first played it on an Apple IIc) but quit at about the same spot I did over 30 years ago where the dungeon gets dark and you can’t map worth shit. It was the tedious mapping that always caused me to give up in disgust. If the game had an auto map function I probably would’ve beaten it by now.
Dragon Wars had an automapper ;) Razgon says it’s awesome, so maybe everyone should just play that instead?
These were awesome when you didn’t know that games could let you save anywhere, look at ingame maps, have difficulty scaling or even let you know where to go to level up your characters.
The regular mapping was tedious. The darkened dungeon area with the teleporters and spinners were pure hell to map. As I recall, you had to drop stuff to mark a known locations so that when a teleporter moved you or a spinner changed your facing, you could eventually figure out you had been re-oriented in some fashion. I am 100% certain I will not have the patience for that. I had Bards Tale I and II for my Apple IIgs and played Bards Tale I several years ago when I pulled the IIgs out of mothballs just for kicks. Luckily, I had saved all of the mapping including the darkened dungeon maps.
Loved Dragon Wars although I don’t remember a lot of it. I liked the use of bars to represent your health and mana (and fatigue?), and I distinctly remember that there was more than one way to escape Purgatory. The multiple solution plan was something that was touted when the game was first released, but am not sure how often it appeared beyond the starting prison. This one I’d be happy to play again.
Extremely difficult, but terrific game (if you are into that sort of thing, that is the Wizardry/Bard’s Tale type of CRPG). A game where it’s very easy to ruin your party, with levelups being precious (you can get something like 7-8 in the first 5 hours, andf you won’t see that many again for the next couple dozen) and the skill system being rather involved. I never beat it. I think I got my original copy from the Ultimate CRPG archives, but it may have been that Interplay anthology.
Man I miss those compilations.
Hmm … didn’t BTCS come with automapping of some sort? I might be misremembering things.
I don’t remember if someone actually remade BT1/2 with it, but I used to know a site which had at least a couple of dozen BTCS designs on offer … now I can find only two.
One of the first game-builder-thingies I ever toyed around with, though in the end, I liked SSI’s Unlimited Adventures better.
Still…
rezaf
Centauri Alliance not only had automapping, but it could be played using that view. It also may be the first game that experimented with a"traditional dungeon navigational hinderances disrupt your auto mapping" mechanic. Walk into a teleporter/spinner/etc and you lost your party’s position on the map. And the map wouldn’t fill in right away when you were in unfamiliar territory.
BTCS might have come with automapping as well; I can’t recall.