While certainly being a more difficult game than the vast majority of PC RPGs these days, I didn't feel that any of the battles during KotC's main quest were unnecessarily frustrating or cheap.

The one real annoyance is that there can be a lot of trial-and-error related to the very first turn of a difficult battle (mostly during the last third of the game), as it's not uncommon that a single enemy archer armed with special anti-humanoid arrows gets in a -1000 HP attack on your primary spellcaster (a problem exacerbated by the game's lack of conventional D&D pre-buffing).
 

Another problem is that your party regularly gets stuck between campfires (the only place you can rest), too beat up to go forward but no way to go back.

It's not a problem if you know about it ahead of time, that your cleric absolutely MUST have the Scribe Scroll or Create Wand feats. But it's discouraging to get into the game and then realize you'll have to play the first part all over again (or part of it).

Actually, it turns out that the crafting feats in general are pretty important, since you can make magic items even in the dungeons, and they tend to be far better than what you can find in loot (which pretty well ruins the exploration aspect of the game for me). I usually prefer not to use crafting feats, but it's an absolute necessity in this game (which should be made clear at the start).

Other than this, it's a very impressive game, though. And if you're warned about this ahead of time, it wouldn't be a problem.
 

.I personally felt that the whole Bard's Tale clobber-you-at-level-1 thing was actually not good design, but the challenge was evidently endearing to some.

So endearing that he made the really dumb decision of putting a lightning-bolt trap ambush in the demo, which I assume is unbeatable by the demo characters because it killed two of my guys in one hit. It's the demo, man. People don't get drawn into your game by seeing how hard you can kill them. They want to achieve something. Like when I found the encounter that was CR 6 for level 3 chars so I couldn't save the dwarf, I was totally motivated to level up or become good enough at the demo to win that encounter and save him. But after seeing this guy's design philosophy, it looks like he put it in there just to say "ha ha, you suck, you can't win."

Not putting a campfire in the demo annoys me too. Unhappy to see that's a feature of the game.

In fact I hate pretty much everything about this game, from there not being a hotkey for "attack" to the way my mouse can scroll the screen up but not down. But I still have this pathological urge to play it that's making me want to buy it anyway...
 

I remember that lightning-bolt trap ambush, Noumenon. When I first encountered it in the demo, my guys were killed so fast - before they had a chance to do anything at all - that I couldn't see how they could possibly win. Yeah, it's odd to put something like that in a demo, but I guess it gives you the basic idea of the game, huh? It's pretty tough.

I left and returned later, and it turned out that the demo characters COULD win, with a little luck. They had to luck out in the first attack, then hit back hard enough with mass spells (including "silence") to keep the spellcasters from doing anything else. Then it was just a matter of mopping up.

But it's the kind of fight that you have to save and reload in order to get the right opportunity, and that's generally not much fun for me.
 

If you could, say, flee and go around another way, to surprise them, that would be a fun challenge. But you can't flee -- you can get to the staircase, but you can't go back up. So that's frustrating too.
 

I just beat the ambush room, so I feel cool now. Only then I fell into an equally stupid "scripted surprise round plus six skeletons to kill the wizard plus hold person on the knight plus CON damage" trap, and with all the rules that are implemented, why not Withdraw so I could at least get away? But I have a little more trust that this one is beatable now... a little.
 

Okay, I take back everything bad I said about this game, I found the campfire, I saved the dwarf, I bribed the elementals, it was all so cool! Getting fried the first round sucks in paper D&D but it is great in this game when you can save and reload and feel like you won by your smarts.
 

"I hate pretty much everything about this game"
- September 05, 2009 8:26 AM

"I take back everything bad I said about this game"
- September 06, 2009 5:04 AM

Sounds like someone stayed up all night playing. :D

The funny thing about challenge is that, if done well, it makes games more memorable.

There's this section of Castlevania 64 (the 3D one everyone hated) involving a cliff. I must have falled to my death a hundred times, and this was early in the game so I was frustrated as all hell.

Then, somehow, I made it. It was a great feeling and I never forgot that part of the game. It actually got easier, more more "balanced" in its difficulty later... but I don't really remember those parts. I just remember the frustration and joy of climbing down that godawful cliff.
 

Er, *fallen*, not falled.

Sheesh.
 

Heh... getting my ass handed to me repeatedly a few steps outside the inn in Bard's Tale 1 is one of the cornerstones of my memories of childhood gaming. I've forgotten pretty much everything else, but that particular image is still is as vivid as it ever was.

I still remember making a mad dash for the blacksmith's, which was about 11 steps away from the safety of the inn. Funny because since it was a step-engine, there was really no such thing as a "mad dash", you still had exactly the same chance to get ambushed between the two points, but it sure felt like a frantic sprint back then.

I haven't yet played KotC, but if it can recapture that feeling then I'll have a new favorite game for sure.
 

I paid for the game and now I feel like an idiot for doing it because I can't get past the second battle and there's no way around. I've already tried tricks like using Entangle, crafting a healing wand, crafting scrolls, and giving my wizard armor to wear to draw attacks. In other words, I tried all the stuff I used to help me beat the demo (I even beat the lich) and I still can't beat the second battle. Why does he want people who bought his game to get stuck after one hour of gameplay? (Well, it's technically about two minutes in but what with thinking, refitting, and reloading, it's probably up to two hours by now.)
 

Which "second battle"? If it's that cave to the west of your starting position, I had to leave and go elsewhere before coming back to it.

But I stopped playing the game myself, though I intend to go back to it later. I'm stuck between campfires, without crafting feats (which turn out to be required for play), so I need to go back to a much earlier save and try again. But I don't feel like re-doing everything I just now played, so I'll wait until it's not so fresh. (Now I'm playing Might and Magic IV and V, because of that great sale at GOG.com - old, but still lots of fun.)
 

No, literally the second battle, the first being the water elementals and the second being "Orc Attack." I finally beat it (not sure how), but not without sending an e-mail flame to the author first. Now I'm cruising.
 

The punitive nature of the early Bard's Tale experience gives you two things, almost in opposition to each other.

The first is the aesthetic of a dangerous city where life is short and victory seemingly a distant dream. It gives you a real sense of accomplishment every time you survive an unexpectedly tough battle. Life is cheap and the challenge is tough.

The second is that death is part of the game. Dying is not actually failure, just a setback. If you lose a low level character or two, you go to the Guild and recruit new ones. The game mechanics and the world fiction work hand in hand with this. Later on, when your dead characters are actually worth resurrecting, you get an additional challenge of raising the funds to have them brought back to life, a mission with real relevance to you rather than an arbitrary one served up by a plot point. It's no less interesting than the idea of searching for better equipment or trying to level up, which are staples for many people in other RPGs. It's just the stigma of having 'failed' that puts some people off.

Yes, it could be said it's frustrating to keep losing, but nobody ever 'won' at Tetris either. It's telling you to adjust your expectations to fit the game. I think it's a shame that too many games instead have changed over time to fit the expectations.
 

Yes, Ben, but I think that, for most of us, "frustrating" isn't fun. These are games, after all - entertainment. Above all, games have to be fun to play. No amount of realism or "challenge" will overcome that.

Personally, I've never liked resurrecting dead characters in a game - any game - even when there wasn't any kind of penalty. I'll generally just load a saved game and try again. I don't know why that is - maybe, as you say, it's the stigma of having "failed" - but it's true. (Usually, of course, there ARE penalties - the cost, at least.)

So, if I can reload a saved game, that's what I'll do. And if I'm prevented from doing that, I won't be playing the game at all (I've had more than enough over the years of games that restricted saves). Games just HAVE to be fun, first and foremost.
 

WGC, I think it's important that we don't always write games for 'most of us'. I don't like most sport games for example, but I don't complain about them not suiting me. One person's fun is another person's boredom.

There is plenty of room for easy games and challenging games, games where progress is just a matter of time and other games where it's going to take effort and skill. Each game can have its own aesthetic and you have to appreciate it for what it is (even if that means you don't necessarily enjoy playing it yourself).
 

Absolutely true, Ben. And maybe this IS just a matter of individual preferences. But I assume that game developers would like to actually sell their games. Are there enough people who find frustration fun? (Note that "frustrating" is the word you used.)

I was just commenting on my own likes and dislikes. I certainly won't "complain" if other people enjoy different kinds of games. As you say, there's room enough for a variety of preferences.

I guess what I dislike most of all is a game that forces me to play in only one way. The old games that restricted saves are a perfect example. In addition to the practical problems with that (did they think that players always had an unlimited amount of free time in which to play games?), I really hated not having the freedom to play as I wanted.

Well, all games depend on the developer's vision. And I'm not a game developer myself. But I think they'd be wise - assuming they want to sell games - to recognize the variety of people who might want to play their game. Simple player-set options would do much to broaden the appeal of some games.