philip@hubcap.UUCP (Philip L Harshman) (07/09/88)
I called Go Amigo on Thursday June 30th to find out if Bard's Tale II was in
yet. I had been bugging them for weeks, and expected another "no, we don't
have it, no I don't know when it will be here." I've also been calling EA
about it. They had not even mentioned it in their automatic spiel and when
I talked to an order person, they kept pushing back the release date. But,
I digress. When I called on the 30th, Go Amigo said "sure, it's here, and
we have piles of them in stock!" With trembling hands I quickly placed an
order and asked for second day air. I sweated through the long 4th of July
weekend and finally got the package on the 5th.
Here comes an early review. No spoilers other than what you can get out of
reading the manual.
*** Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight ***
The most noticable difference is the graphics. While the graphics in the
original Bard's Tale were superb, there is even more detail in Destiny Knight.
The buildings in town look better, the monsters look better, the spot animation
is more varied and seems to run on a longer cycle, and even the standard
display window looks better. The viewport has stonework around it, the message
window is a scroll that actually scrolls with the text, and the long
duration spell markers have been changed around (some for the better, some for
the worse).
I've only gotten as far as the starter dungeon (my characters really don't
need it, but I'm obsessively thorough), so I don't know how I will feel about
the game by the end. However, there is already a lot to like about the game:
The graphics I've already mentioned, all new pictures (although I do miss some
of the old ones), a bank to store money in, saving in the dungeon (yeah!), a
wilderness area to explore (basically a dungeon with trees for walls - neat!),
lots of new spells (with some of the old useless ones dropped), more power
for some the existing spells, distance in combat, and summoned monsters being
treated as ordinary characters.
Some of that might need a little more explaining. The new spells include some
very useful additions including some killer offensive spells (200-800 damage
to all groups!). Makes me wonder what I'm going to need these spells for.
In combat, all monster groups will be at a distance from 10' to 90' from you.
You can hack at anything 10' away. Any more and you have to use a distance
weapon or a spell that works at a distance. This is going to take some getting
used to, but I like it alot. Summoned monsters can now go anywhere in your
ranking (not just the front), can hold and trade items and gold, can be healed
or resurrected when hit in combat, and can be saved to disk. However, if the
monster is an illusion, it will go away when killed and cannot be saved to
disk. This is also very nice.
So, in conclusion, I'm very happy with it so far and expect that it will
keep me entertained for quite some time. I hope to see some general discussion
of the game on the net and not just "how do I get past so and so".
Please note that I have no affiliation with Go Amigo or Electronic Arts other
than being a satisfied customer of both. Have fun!
--
Philip Harshman uucp: ... !gatech!hubcap!philip
Employed by Clemson University inet: philip@hubcap.clemson.edu
although they have no idea that bitnet: philip@clemson
I'm doing this. (So don't tell!) phone: (803) 656-3697darin@taurus.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) (07/11/88)
In article <2132@hubcap.UUCP>, philip@hubcap.UUCP (Philip L Harshman) writes: > saving in the dungeon (yeah!), OK, so how do you save a game? I noticed no mention of this in the manual, but I did notice the "restore game" option. Darin Johnson (...pyramid.arpa!leadsv!laic!darin) (...ucbvax!sun!sunncal!leadsv!laic!darin) "All aboard the DOOMED express!"