The Bard's Tale IV cannot be called a sequel to the original trilogy. It is barely even a dungeon-crawler, with linear dungeons and extremely easy combat. This is not what was promised.

However, it could have still been something new and interesting, an RPG version of games like Portal and The Witness. Alas, it is not. The devs did design a few great puzzles and areas, but then decided that their game needed to be EPIC, adding 20 hours of pure filler content: you'll fight the same dumb enemies and solve the same dumb mechanical puzzles over and over and over again. No InXile, seven block puzzles in a row isn't good design.

Bard's Tale IV could have been a short & fun casual puzzle RPG, but it's just an overly-long waste of your time.

The Bard's Tale IV cannot be called a sequel to the original trilogy. It is barely even a dungeon-crawler, with linear dungeons and extremely easy combat. This is not what was promised. However, it could have still been something new and interesting, an RPG version of games like Portal and The Witness. Alas, it is not. The devs did design a few great puzzles and areas, but then decided that their game needed to be EPIC, adding 20 hours of pure filler content: you'll fight the same dumb enemies and solve the same dumb mechanical puzzles over and over and over again. No InXile, seven block puzzles in a row isn't good design. Bard's Tale IV could have been a short & fun casual puzzle RPG, but it's just an overly-long waste of your time.