@twobellz Didn't they do that in about 2001? ...You're right,they need another one. NOW. With the same voice actor, a bigger game, and using the exact same Karma system as the other game (that is, none at all. Just appropriate consequences for one's actions.)
The tune is by William Byrd, and it's the first galliard to his pavan "Earl of Salisbury". Do a search here for the keyboard version by Davitt Moroney.
These games were hard as nails. Never did finish BT3 - got lost in the Ice dimension, back before there were walkthroughs on something called the internet. Just couldn't crack the damn puzzle
@UnEmily The tune is by William Byrd, and it's the first galliard to his pavan "Earl of Salisbury". Do a search here for the keyboard version by Davitt Moroney.
It sounds a bit off from the IIgs version. Was this run on an emulator? When I wrote this code, I had a seperate bass track for the guitar so it had a very full sound. (Yes, I wrote this game)
man this brings back many memories. i remember a spot in the castle where you could run in with a fire horn..and mow down 4 groups of 99 whatever they were and get mass experience. i spent hr upon hr playing this.
This is the ORIGINAL bard tale Intro. The Bards tale was a AWESOME trilogy from yesteryear! Part 3, the Thief of fate was INSANE!!!! Time and Dimension travel...EPIC my friend, the games were EPIC.
I remember watching my dad play this game on our IIGS when I was little and me trying to play it by myself and always getting killed...I used to get freaked out by the pictures of skeletons and monsters and stuff...awsome game!
To me it looks like much ATARI ST. The PC, Apple and C64 versions don't use that many colors. It could be as well from the Amiga, I have never seen the Amiga version...
It's neither. This is the Apple IIGS version, released in 1987.
The IIGS was the Apple II counterpart to the Amiga and Atari ST. It had a 16-bit processor, 4096 colors, 32 voice Ensoniq wavetable synthesizer, up to 8 MB RAM and Mac-like GUI standard, among other things.
It also had no blitter, sprites, copper... and the slow CPU had to do all the work.
Even the superior audio(compared to Amiga) was limited because it could only handle 32kb of samples... Amiga could handle up to 2Mb and in the end often sounded better. An unexpanded GS had 256kb of memory and a 65C816 CPU running at 2.8Mhz. The so called 256 color mode was just a 4bit mode with the abillity to change the palette each scanline among 16 palettes. But i must say that i really like the OS though!
Sure, the Amiga ran circles around the IIgs for animation, however that didn't mean it wasn't capable. Check out Rastan, Out of This World, Wolf 3D, Task Force or Zany Golf! Or any European demos from FTA or Ninjaforce.
Correction: Audio was 64KB of samples, but you could bank swap and spool megabyte sized ones in (how do you think it played MODs and MEDs flawlessly?). Yeah, the 256 mode was multiple 4-bit screens vertically, but it was 256 distinct colors...better than the Amiga's 32! :)
You forgot about the 64 color EHB mode and 4096 color HAM mode availably on any Amiga. The Amiga has got a dedicated chip (copper) for doing things like shifting palettes and reuse sprites for every scanline which takes no CPU time at all, almost every Amiga game uses more than 32 colors on screen.. "Shadow of the beast" has 80-128 colors on screen. "Jim Power", "Lion heart" etc has 300++ colors. AGA Amigas can handle 262144 colors at once(18bit)..
I know of half-brite mode, but it was only useful for shading (i.e. 32 mirrored colors in a slightly lighter shade). The IIGS could at least choose ANY 256 colors from it's 4096 palette, and with multiple scanline interrupts, up to 3200 colors per screen.
They were both cool machines for their time (and still are today), too bad both are now long since gone and forgotten about, outside of us die hard users/fans. Who would've guessed, way back in the 80's, that the "IBM PC" would win the PC war!
The 3200 color mode isn't a real mode, just a scanline interupt palette change trick, and it takes almost all the CPU time (unexpanded GS), so it's only useful for static pictures. The Amiga can actually have an unique palette for each scanline (not just 16) thanks to the copper (eats no CPU). In the end of the day a 5/6 bpl picture often looks much better than a 4 bpl using palette changes IMO..
I'm actually looking for an apple IIGS for my collection, but there aren't many out there :(
Right now i'm coding a new PC engine emulator. The PC engine is a perfect example on why a 16 palette/16 color mode (256 colors) NEVER can be as good as a real 8bit mode. Actually it looks more like a 16 color mode ,and so does the "fake" 256 color mode on the GS (Jim Power on the Amiga looks more like 32-64 colors than 300++). HAM looks beautiful, but is too slow for games.
Have you EVER heard an Atari ST sounding like this?? The ST has the same lowtech sound chip as the MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum 128... etc. inferior to both the C64 and NES.
I actually had this game for my Atari ST. I don't think this is that version for two reasons: the song is completely different than the song that I remembered (and I remember it very clearly), and I don't ever remember the Bard telling a story during the intro/initial load with text and pictures.
Quite many good memories...and I used to map it with dots and lines only, work very well for this perfectly geometric game, this mapping system didn't work as well with BG! :P
Sara's Bra...didn't read it that way back then! I guess I become pervert with the Internet!
The text...it defile really slowly...back then...I remember feeling like I was coming out much faster...hmmm
The Bard's Tale was the first RPG I played on my C64. On a blurry old TV that you had to give a whack to occasionally to get it to work! LOL. Yes, very good times indeed...
I do wish someone would do a full let's play of this, and not the crappy modern version.
rayvn03 1 month ago
Memories of the good old Commodore 64 days
Tuddley3 3 months ago
This is definitely the IIGS version. My question is, where are the songs from? I heard one of them in a church once.
TheSwashbucklr 5 months ago
One of the best games ever released, EA need to get off their fat asses and reboot.
Trouble is I wonder if anyone has the creative juice to update it to the standard the game deserves...:-(
twobellz 7 months ago
@twobellz Didn't they do that in about 2001? ...You're right,they need another one. NOW. With the same voice actor, a bigger game, and using the exact same Karma system as the other game (that is, none at all. Just appropriate consequences for one's actions.)
Pentharis 3 months ago
@Pentharis Yes, it was awful in comparison to the original series, what we need is a REMAKE of BT I, II and III.
twobellz 3 months ago
I'm guessing this was the PC version, based on the colour pallete and slightly higher res graphics than the Amiga could manage.
ArcanePath360 9 months ago
three words :what the fuck
that is bards tale xD no
i know my english isnt very well
why i find the words ned so schnell
nightshadowbeimer 10 months ago
@nightshadowbeimer This ain't the new Bards Tale, this was the original version from the 80's on the Commodore 64/128.
Tuddley3 3 months ago
A good deal of The Bard's Tale 1 music is from Byrd and his Elizabethan contemporaries.
GladiusRutter 1 year ago
Search on YouTube "Galiardo, BK15b"
I keep getting errors when trying to paste the YT link.
GladiusRutter 1 year ago
The tune is by William Byrd, and it's the first galliard to his pavan "Earl of Salisbury". Do a search here for the keyboard version by Davitt Moroney.
GladiusRutter 1 year ago
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GladiusRutter 1 year ago
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GladiusRutter 1 year ago
how come that nobody has ever did a real instrumental version of this song??
FRMmega 1 year ago
@FRMmega Many have recorded it. Davitt Moroney's version is on YT, just search for "Galiardo, BK15b"
GladiusRutter 1 year ago
@GladiusRutter Oh man! That's awesome! Thanks :D
FRMmega 1 year ago
These games were hard as nails. Never did finish BT3 - got lost in the Ice dimension, back before there were walkthroughs on something called the internet. Just couldn't crack the damn puzzle
ArcanePath360 1 year ago
0.0 wow he's making that musik wiff the....thingy???
heh
phan303 2 years ago
@phan303
a lute.
nodahanshin44 1 year ago
Anyone know what the actual song is called?
UnEmily 2 years ago
@UnEmily The tune is by William Byrd, and it's the first galliard to his pavan "Earl of Salisbury". Do a search here for the keyboard version by Davitt Moroney.
GladiusRutter 1 year ago
Why does he have a glass beer mug instead of a wooden tankard?
ioport 2 years ago
Because he got the expensive stuff, bards make awesome bank dude, so he can afford the glass mug!
RedneckYachtClubber 2 years ago
It sounds a bit off from the IIgs version. Was this run on an emulator? When I wrote this code, I had a seperate bass track for the guitar so it had a very full sound. (Yes, I wrote this game)
burgerbecky 2 years ago 11
It was recorded from the virtualapple webside (the link is on the right). I think it is still available there.
pursuerr 2 years ago
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DocRob0t 1 year ago
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DocRob0t 1 year ago
@burgerbecky I played that game so many times when I was young! Thank you for writing it. And congratulations!
sudiste75 1 year ago
@burgerbecky
Then I'm afraid there is no other way for me, then love you. :-)
MrSmilingUndead 1 year ago
@MrSmilingUndead :) Hee hee
burgerbecky 1 year ago
man this brings back many memories. i remember a spot in the castle where you could run in with a fire horn..and mow down 4 groups of 99 whatever they were and get mass experience. i spent hr upon hr playing this.
themoj0 3 years ago
@themoj0 They were berzerkers
HonkeyDolemite 11 months ago
This is not Apple version but Amiga version.
multiz007 3 years ago
I always imagined him singing the copyright notice at the end of the song.
RobTFirefly 3 years ago 22
TheBard786,
This is the ORIGINAL bard tale Intro. The Bards tale was a AWESOME trilogy from yesteryear! Part 3, the Thief of fate was INSANE!!!! Time and Dimension travel...EPIC my friend, the games were EPIC.
bentpreacher 3 years ago 7
@bentpreacher
that EA stopped this series- biggest gaming travesty ever.
nodahanshin44 1 year ago
ok um this pic quality is terrable its better of PS2 Game Cube Xbox E.T.C
TheBard786 3 years ago
I remember watching my dad play this game on our IIGS when I was little and me trying to play it by myself and always getting killed...I used to get freaked out by the pictures of skeletons and monsters and stuff...awsome game!
radbie 4 years ago
Bard's tale on Apple II GS?!? AWESOME! Too bad I had an apple II GS, but just had the Apple II version of the game :-(
lChupacabra 4 years ago
Is this the PC version, Apple or C64?
nomadikk 4 years ago
To me it looks like much ATARI ST. The PC, Apple and C64 versions don't use that many colors. It could be as well from the Amiga, I have never seen the Amiga version...
Liudprand 4 years ago
It's neither. This is the Apple IIGS version, released in 1987.
The IIGS was the Apple II counterpart to the Amiga and Atari ST. It had a 16-bit processor, 4096 colors, 32 voice Ensoniq wavetable synthesizer, up to 8 MB RAM and Mac-like GUI standard, among other things.
Loved the in game music in this port!
Apple2gs 4 years ago
It also had no blitter, sprites, copper... and the slow CPU had to do all the work.
Even the superior audio(compared to Amiga) was limited because it could only handle 32kb of samples... Amiga could handle up to 2Mb and in the end often sounded better. An unexpanded GS had 256kb of memory and a 65C816 CPU running at 2.8Mhz. The so called 256 color mode was just a 4bit mode with the abillity to change the palette each scanline among 16 palettes. But i must say that i really like the OS though!
Ahle2 3 years ago
Sure, the Amiga ran circles around the IIgs for animation, however that didn't mean it wasn't capable. Check out Rastan, Out of This World, Wolf 3D, Task Force or Zany Golf! Or any European demos from FTA or Ninjaforce.
Correction: Audio was 64KB of samples, but you could bank swap and spool megabyte sized ones in (how do you think it played MODs and MEDs flawlessly?). Yeah, the 256 mode was multiple 4-bit screens vertically, but it was 256 distinct colors...better than the Amiga's 32! :)
Apple2gs 3 years ago
You forgot about the 64 color EHB mode and 4096 color HAM mode availably on any Amiga. The Amiga has got a dedicated chip (copper) for doing things like shifting palettes and reuse sprites for every scanline which takes no CPU time at all, almost every Amiga game uses more than 32 colors on screen.. "Shadow of the beast" has 80-128 colors on screen. "Jim Power", "Lion heart" etc has 300++ colors. AGA Amigas can handle 262144 colors at once(18bit)..
Ahle2 3 years ago
I know of half-brite mode, but it was only useful for shading (i.e. 32 mirrored colors in a slightly lighter shade). The IIGS could at least choose ANY 256 colors from it's 4096 palette, and with multiple scanline interrupts, up to 3200 colors per screen.
They were both cool machines for their time (and still are today), too bad both are now long since gone and forgotten about, outside of us die hard users/fans. Who would've guessed, way back in the 80's, that the "IBM PC" would win the PC war!
Apple2gs 3 years ago
I really like the GS :)
The 3200 color mode isn't a real mode, just a scanline interupt palette change trick, and it takes almost all the CPU time (unexpanded GS), so it's only useful for static pictures. The Amiga can actually have an unique palette for each scanline (not just 16) thanks to the copper (eats no CPU). In the end of the day a 5/6 bpl picture often looks much better than a 4 bpl using palette changes IMO..
Ahle2 3 years ago
I'm actually looking for an apple IIGS for my collection, but there aren't many out there :(
Right now i'm coding a new PC engine emulator. The PC engine is a perfect example on why a 16 palette/16 color mode (256 colors) NEVER can be as good as a real 8bit mode. Actually it looks more like a 16 color mode ,and so does the "fake" 256 color mode on the GS (Jim Power on the Amiga looks more like 32-64 colors than 300++). HAM looks beautiful, but is too slow for games.
Ahle2 3 years ago
Have you EVER heard an Atari ST sounding like this?? The ST has the same lowtech sound chip as the MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum 128... etc. inferior to both the C64 and NES.
Ahle2 3 years ago
I actually had this game for my Atari ST. I don't think this is that version for two reasons: the song is completely different than the song that I remembered (and I remember it very clearly), and I don't ever remember the Bard telling a story during the intro/initial load with text and pictures.
chowdown 2 years ago
is this 8bit 64bit how many bits is this game
AkumaADemoncus 4 years ago
Why is the music completely different from the C64 version? The C64 version was one of my obsessions as a kid.
mrsparkle001 4 years ago
Anyone would have the temple song with the rezing and healing singing? :P
Anofalye 4 years ago
Quite many good memories...and I used to map it with dots and lines only, work very well for this perfectly geometric game, this mapping system didn't work as well with BG! :P
Sara's Bra...didn't read it that way back then! I guess I become pervert with the Internet!
The text...it defile really slowly...back then...I remember feeling like I was coming out much faster...hmmm
Anofalye 4 years ago 2
Dude ... I mapped this shit out with graph paper back in the day!! An awesome RPG.
Vileheadbanger 4 years ago 3
[long sigh] ahh the good ol' days...
xxPenumbraxx 4 years ago
The Bard's Tale was the first RPG I played on my C64. On a blurry old TV that you had to give a whack to occasionally to get it to work! LOL. Yes, very good times indeed...
Gothdemon01 4 years ago
Good old times :D
Morbid666God 4 years ago
The graphics may not to be alot to look at now but back in the day this game kicked ass
VisionofOrion 4 years ago 3
Yay, childhood memorys lol :)
DFDelta 4 years ago
C64 Lol
ThatsEwalds 4 years ago
EWW
Daermon989 4 years ago