Third time's the charm. This is not only the best of the very good series, it might be the best RPG of its era.

User Rating: 8.6 | The Bard's Tale 3: The Thief of Fate APL2
The Bard's Tale 3: The Thief of Fate represents one of the rarest items you'll ever find in the world... a sequel of a sequel that is the best in the trilogy (dare I say, in the same vein as Super Mario Bros. 3?). And it is not because the other two were terrible games. The original Bard's Tale (BT1) was a masterpiece in presentation and storytelling, while the next installment (BT2) was an adequate successor that introduced new RPG elements. This third game (BT3) takes the best of both, and gives the player an epic journey, replete with many innovations meant to focus your time on the game and not mindless tasks.

For those unfamiliar with this series, the layout is very simple. The interface is always the same (no cutscenes, no movies). The upper half of the screen is split between two panels, one showing what is directly in front of you, and the other a message box for telling you information about what is happening (such as you just stepped on a trap!). The lower half contains all of your party information, including the order of your party, HP/MP levels, armor class, etc. You can only move in one of the four cardinal directions, and you navigate about using what you see in your upper panel. I hope you are good with directions, because getting lost is extremely easy with this informationless interface. However, this has been a very endearing trait of this series, because it forced you into exploring your surroundings, whether it be a town or a dungeon, and these areas became more than a part of the game, it melded into your memory much as your local neighborhood. Not to mention, many puzzles may require you to find clues scattered throughout the dungeon, which forces you to search the entire area square by square.

Fighting enemies happens by random or forced encounters, with the picture of the enemy appearing on the screen, with information about the enemy party appearing in the message box. Enemy information consists of how many groups and what kind of enemies there are, along with how far away they are (10-90 feet away, 10 being melee range). The random encounters seem truly random in terms of the groups you meet, but their respective distances are always the same. The battle then proceeds in a turn-based manner, first with a party decision whether to fight, retreat, or advance on the enemy by 10 feet (and sacrificing your turn). If you decide to fight, then you give character-specific instructions to attack, use a ranged weapon or item, defend, or cast a spell. The actual order of combat is not known to you, and it is possible to waste attacks on groups of enemies already defeated.

Once you win, you get the ubiquitous experience and gold, or probably the option to open a chest to get the experience and gold. No minigames at all, opening a chest is as simple as casting a spell or taking the chance that one of your characters (hopefully the thief) can disarm the trap, or you can just open the chest, caution to the wind. Although random encounters can happen often and of course become tedious, the fights can proceed extremely quickly (especially small fights), since all fighting is completely text-based, thus no waiting for sprite animations to deliver the final blow.

So, what about your party? It consists of several characters, and you can create your own from many different races and job types. Or you can go with the provided party. Pretty standard fare, and if you know how D&D character creation works, this is somewhat similar. A nice addition in BT3 is the additional stats provided for certain characters. For example, hunters, whose special ability is to kill an opponent instantly, actually has their % chance to do that as part of their stats now. Thieves have multiple %'s, for disarming traps, hiding in the shadows, and critically hitting. As much freedom as they allow, you will want some specific job-types represented. The thief is absolutely required (if you didn't read the manual, wow... this game might be impossible). You'll also need at least one magic-user.

The story itself is a throwback to BT1. Back then, the entire game was contained within the walls of a town called Skara Brae. At some point, you were required to fight and defeat the Mad God Tarjan to continue on your merry way. Well, that really pissed him off. In BT3, he has taken revenge by not only destroying practically the entire town, but has also started infesting neighboring dimensions. This sounds like a standard RPG story, but the way it is presented throughout the game is extremely effective. You are adventuring in a once familiar, but destroyed area. Everything is gone. No more equipment store, no more temples for healing, no more banks, no more Roscoe's for magic point replenishment. For any veteran of the first two games, the beginning of this one is incredibly desperate and bleak. The only ones left in town is an old man at the review board (where you have to go for advancing levels), and a priest at Tarjan's old temple. Very quickly, the old man sends you to the "beginner" dungeon at the temple.

Let's stop here. There's beginner dungeons, and then there's beginner dungeons. This is no beginners dungeon. The enemies are ruthless, and your low-level party will be quickly overwhelmed. You could really use an equipment shop, but the only way you are going to get better equipment is to fight many battles. This may seem like a tremendous sour point of the game, but, in fact, it is apt preparation for the rest of your adventure. The fact is, this dungeon is short, and shows you exactly what to expect from the rest of the game in terms of dungeon survival. This game is not about taking on all comers. It's about picking and choosing your fights. Also, it introduces you to the first set of many, many, "I thought I was done" moments. Once you get to the bottom of the beginner dungeon, you will receive the true password to the real temple dungeon. This second beginner dungeon is your first real taste of what other dungeons will actually be like. The baddies are badder, but the treasures are more sparkly. But once you complete this dungeon, you will reap great rewards.

Those great rewards are being able to travel to other dimensions to collect artifacts of great power (actually, you are supposed to enlist the help of heroes from these other realms, but for some reason they keep dying). These dimensions vary surprisingly for such a simple graphical layout. One is similar to a non-destroyed Skara Brae environment, another is an arctic wasteland, more than one composed entirely of dungeon-crawling. Each one contains a lot of riddles, some very powerful bosses, and a lot of exploring. But lets say a few things about traveling between dimensions.

The only way to do this is to create a chronomancer. Sounds cool, except for one little problem. The prerequisites are steep, and the sacrifice steeper. One of your magic-users has to become adept at 3 different schools of magic (magician, conjurerer, sorcerer), and then sacrifice all of his/her knowledge to become this new magic-user. Sounds like a big waste... except you MUST get one anyways, and they have awesome spells. This was the first game that I had played that contained such a dramatic change in character development. It seems pretty extreme, and this option is actually offered AGAIN later in the game. Not the exact same option, but a similar one. This later option is becoming a geomancer. Doesn't sound as cool, and although there are no prereqs, the sacrifice is MUCH worse. Any character (or it might be any non-magic user) can become one, but they basically lose ALL special abilities. For example, warriors lose their multiple hits, bards lose their music, monks lose their multiple hits AND armor class bonus, hunters lose their critical hit, and don't even think about changing your thief. Why in the world would you do this? Well, geomancers have the most powerful spells available... much more powerful than an archmage. But again, the choice is yours. In my opinion, it is best to change your warrior. Near the end of the game, the warrior doesn't do enough damage to kill enemies instantly, while the hunter/thief can, and the monk does much more damage.

In conclusion, this is the way a sequel should be. The game keeps the authenticity of the first game by maintaining high-quality story-telling with difficult riddles, but also expands greatly upon the previous two. Let alone adding two completely new classes, there is an abundance of new equipment, MANY more dungeons to explore, and the enemies have advanced in difficulty as well. Each dimension could very well be expanded into separate games themselves. The game also trims some of the tedium with automapping and quicker advancing, and instead of more of the same environment that would make veterans comfortable, this game throws a bucket of cold water on you, and scares you, until you learn to adjust and find that what is the same is a great story, and smooth gameplay.

As an aside, possibly the only way to play this game nowadays is to get the Ultimate RPG Archives, which includes all 3 Bard's Tales, along with several other award-winning RPGs. A definite must-have.