The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight
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| The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight | |
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| Developer(s) | Interplay Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | Michael Cranford |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga, Apple IIGS, DOS, NES, NEC PC-9801 |
| Release date | 1986 (C64), 1987, 1988 |
| Genre(s) | RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | N/A |
The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight is a computer fantasy role-playing game created by Interplay Productions in 1986. (It is the first sequel to The Bard's Tale.) It was designed and programmed by Michael Cranford.
It won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1986.
Contents |
[edit] Story
A wizard named Saradon, having heard the news of your victory over the evil wizard Mangar, contacts you with dire news: lawless mercenaries from the neighbouring kingdom of Lestradae — under the guidance of an evil Archmage known as Lagoth Zanta — have stolen the Destiny Wand, a uniting force which has maintained peace and prosperity for 700 years.
Lagoth Zanta has since gone into hiding, having broken the Destiny Wand into seven pieces. He has placed each fragment into a "snare of death" — real-time puzzle rooms located in the depths of each of the realm's dungeons.
From the box cover:
Do you believe in legends? Legend states that, "Unimaginable power is bestowed upon the one who reforges the Destiny Wand..." Regardless of whether or not you hold faith in the stuff of legend, you must defeat Lagoth Zanta, regain the seven fragments, and reforge the Destiny Wand — it is the only way to save the Realm.
After reforging the Destiny Wand and becoming the Destiny Knight, you must face Lagoth Zanta in a final surprising encounter.
[edit] Gameplay
This dungeon crawl game featured several improvements over its predecessor:
- a measure of distance during battle, which allowed the addition of archery and ranged weapons and spells
- considerably more and harder puzzles
- real-time dungeon puzzles (called "snares")
- a new spellcaster character class (archmage)
- the ability for multiple summoned creatures to join the party
- the ability for summoned creatures to be included in saved games
- banks (unlike money being carried, money stored there would not be lost if the party was defeated)
- casinos (where one could play blackjack).
- a wilderness area containing six cities and 25 dungeon levels.
Characters can be imported from Bard's Tale I, Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, or Ultima III: Exodus, or created from scratch.
[edit] Reception
A review in Computer Gaming World gave the game a mixed review. The review noted several improvements over the original, such as an easier start and more easily recognizable buildings. However, the snares were considered excessively tedious, and the gameplay felt skewed heavily in favor of mages.[1]
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
Bill Heineman (programmer of The Bard's Tale III) has said that the original name of this game was to be Tales of the Unknown - Volume II: The Archmage's Tale.
Michael Cranford, a devout Christian, named five of the cities in the game after those of the New Testament — and the power of the Destiny Wand is said to be that of the Holy Spirit. This was his last Bard's Tale game because he decided to go back to university to study philosophy and theology.
Dave Warhol, who composed the music for The Bard's Tale II, founded his own game company in 1986, named Realtime Associates.
The hint guide for The Bard's Tale II was notable for being both a story as well as a walkthrough of the game, taking the point of view of a band of adventurers sent on a vision quest to decide what adventure they should tackle next. The guide was "written" by the assistant of the mage that had sent them on their vision quest who he had surreptitiously sent along without their knowledge to observe the events.
[edit] References
- ^ Scorpia (June-July 1987), “Bard's Tale II”, Computer Gaming World: 22-25, 54
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Bard's Tale Compendium
- The Bard's Tale II at MobyGames
- The Bard's Tale II at GameBase64 - with links to the files and music for the Commodore 64
