Bard's Tale -- anyone remember Skara Brae?

[AndrewR]

Well, would you believe that I just learned where that name came from??? I was watching the History of Britain on The History Channel tonight (first in a five part series this week -- watch it if you can!), and they mentioned that the oldest permanent settlement in the British Isles is on Orkney way in the north of Great Britain at a little village called.......Skara Brae! Pretty fascinating, I thought, and now I want to visit because I love history and that was one of the best video games I've ever played.

 

[dennilfloss]

Nice stone-on-stone masonry and funeral home there. All those flat stones are very esthetic.

Lionheart (Kate Bush)

 

[Cosmic_Horror]

LOL.. great game!

I bought the game second hand and never could find part 2 & 3!

 

[mosdef]

Isn't that also from the Ultima series?

-mosdef

 

[billandopus]

I wasted a large part of my childhood playing that game. It was great but slow.

Especially when you got powerful enough to encounter tonnes of monsters and you cast a fireball spell/whatever on them and it would scroll .... one ... by .... one and a battle would take 30 minutes or so. I would sleep and then set my timer to wake me up. Jeez.

 

[AndrewR]

Cosmic: They recently resold all of the games as part of the Ultimate RPG collection -- that should still be in stores if you want to track down the 2nd and 3rd installments. I played the second one also, but the third was just too damn long. On the third, also, you start running into creatures that are just always faster than your people and will kill/stone/wither one of your characters when they do -- it's rather frustrating since you have to leave the area to cure some of those things.

What's amazing is that I actually remember this stuff from so long ago.

mosdef: I have no idea. I only played one of the Ultima games (IV, on an Apple II+) and can't remember THAT far back.

bill: There was one part that I still remember -- the 3 groups of 99 Vikings (or Norsemen or something) which was the best award of experience other than winning the game. I used to go there, cast a spell or use an item to kill all of them, then walk away and do something else while it scrolled through all of it.

 

[billandopus]

Yeah, but I was a real glutton for punishment back then.

I'd set a homing beacon into one of the toughest areas, teleport there, go to a prepositioned area where there were superstacks of monsters and then duke it out for a loooong time, teleport back and rest. I'd do it over and over again until i'd reached the highest level. I'd also maximize my heroes by fully charging the special artifacts - especially the golden bows which damaged entire stacks - and then cloning them and distributing them to my other heroes and until everyone was armed to the hilt. I was pretty much invincible. Speed was not an issue since my speed was always highest coupled with speed increasing artifacts for everyone. If there was a hero that couldn't wear boots of speed or whatever usually it wouldn't matter since my other heroes would have toasted all the monsters before they could retaliate.

Man, I can't believe I did this stuff.

 

[AndrewR]

<< Man, I can't believe I did this stuff. >>



When I think back at how many hours I have burned staring at a CRT, I could have probably written several hundred novels.

 

[BigToque]

Skara Brae is part of Ultima.

 

[JellyBaby]

Yes indeed I remember the Bard's Tale! First RPG to use a psuedo-scrolling 3D movement system. It was kewl. I also recall having a blast finding/selling/buying items in that game, as well as trying to solve some really tough word puzzles.

&quot;Skara Brae&quot; is also used in the Ultima games, beginning with U3 (?) and even including U9 Ascension.

 

[adams]

That name really rung a bell

I just bought the Ultima collection for like $15.00, which includes Ultima 1-8, and also a pre-ultima game. I just needed a little flashback to my childhood... I'm playing part V right now, and poor Lord British is missing

 

[JellyBaby]

<< I'm playing part V right now, and poor Lord British is missing >>

adams,

Hint: look in the abyss. U5 was good but U4 was better. I also liked U7/7.5...and even, gulp, U9 (apart from the bugs and some of the npc dialoge design). Avoid U8, SuperMarioAvatar, at all costs...your very soul will be at stake if you play that one.

 

[adams]

I'm playing U5, because I think I beat I-IV when I was a kid... Oh the days of the C64

I should probably go and find Skara Brae.

 

[AndrewR]

Bard's Tale kicks Ultima's ass!

Actually, they both became pretty tedious after awhile.

 

[JellyBaby]

Andrew,

Indeed! Try going back to Bard's Tale 1 today and I'll bet you'd quickly lose patience. But there's no need -- good RPGs are plentiful today. I bought Baldur's Gate 2 when it shipped and I love it. Haven't played in a while, though, and I'm still on Chapter 2 but I'll finish it someday.

 

[Double Trouble]

That was a great RPG game. I remember playing it on the Apple II GS way back when that was the best platform for graphics and sound. The monks chanting when they healed one of your characters was awesome, I can still hear it

 

[AndrewR]

JellyBaby: I did go back and try to play it when I bought the Ultimate RPG Collection. It was highly boring after about 20 minutes.

 

[dennilfloss]

I have the Ultimate RPG Collection and the Forbidden Realms Archive and I have yet to play one of these games. Unfortunately, Might &amp; Magic keeps pumping out enough good current games that there is no window of opportunity to play them.

No Time (The Guess Who)