Classic dungeon-crawling fun.

(I should note that I received this game for "free" as part of the kickstarter backing "Bard's Tale IV" years ago)

I first played Bard's Tale II on my Commodore 128 in the mid-80s. As a kid in a military family that moved a lot, I had an interest in ttrpgs but I didn't know anyone else into that kind of thing. BT2 became an obsession of mine. Though I never got very far in the Commodore version (I think I may have completed the first real dungeon in Ephesus?), it made a huge and lasting impression on me.

Later I played BT3, BT1 and Bard's Tale Construction Set, which were all fantastic. Again, I never beat BT1 or 3 back in the day, but I loved them (3 seemed like a particularly expansive and impressive game to me).

Fast forward several decades and this "remaster" was released. It's been a while since I played, but I definitely put the time in. I finally beat not only BT2, but 1 & 3 as well! That was exciting.

It should be noted that (as I recall) this isn't exactly a remaster. Unless I'm totally confused, all three games, while faithfully recreating the story, obstacles, etc., are not so much separate games as they are basically scenarios or scripts run by the same (presumably new for this project) engine. So gameplay and features are consistent across the titles. You could think of each game as a chapter in a larger "Bard's Tale" game. This is acceptable, I think. I didn't want or need some hyper-faithful recreation or remaster. What I wanted was exactly what I got: More or less the original games with the crushing 80s CRPG difficulty substantially curbed. Or at least that's my recollection; it's been several years since my playthrough.

All that said, I think this was a wonderful project that made the original trilogy much more accessible to modern audiences. It's certainly not for everyone, as the turn-based combat is almost entirely text-based (much like predecessors such as Wizardry). Some of the puzzles might be a bit on the more convoluted side. But overall it was a delight to play. Old-school die-hards may miss the grind of the originals, but I'd say the trade-offs paid off splendidly.

Note that there is a "Legacy" mode that more or less restores the original difficulty and enforces certain oddball (by modern standards) limitations. I had little interest in that mode, so I can't comment on it.

Old school RPG that's been lovingly remastered. If you want an old school dungeon crawl, this is the one. It's also the grandfather of FALLOUT in a round-about way. I've only finished Bard's Tale 1, but it felt just like the old game that I played decades ago. Good job devs! This is how you do it.