The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight (Commodore 64)

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Description

After a group of brave heroes defeated the wizard Mangar the Dark and freed Skara Brae from eternal winter, all seemed well in the world. However, the evil Archmage Lagoth Zanta shows up and splits the Destiny Wand into seven pieces, scattering them all over the land. The Destiny Wand has protected the lands for seven hundred years, and without it the realm will fall into chaos. Thus it falls upon the heroes to reforge it. One of them also has to ascend to the position of Archmage and use the wand to defeat Lagoth Zanta.

The Destiny Knight is the second installment in the Bard's Tale series, and a sequel to Tales of the Unknown. Like its predecessor, it is a fantasy role-playing game with first-person exploration of a pseudo-3D world and turn-based battles against randomly appearing enemies. The sequel features six towns as opposed to the predecessor's only one, and a larger overworld area. Dungeons contain more traps and puzzles than before.

The player can create a party of up to seven active characters, as well as create additional characters and store them at the Adventurer's Guild in every city. Available races are human, elf, dwarf, hobbit, half-elf, half-orc, and gnome. In addition, some monsters can join the party and be summoned during combat. It is also possible to store money and banks and gamble in the casino, though the latter feature has been removed from the PC version.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "The Arch Mage's Tale" -- Pre-release title
• "Bard's Tale 2" -- Informal name

Part of the Following Groups

• Bard's Tale series
• Fantasy Creatures: Dragons
• Fantasy Creatures: Dwarves
• Fantasy Creatures: Elves
• Fantasy Creatures: Goblins
• Fantasy Creatures: Orcs
• Fantasy Creatures: Trolls
• Gameplay feature: Character development - Automatic leveling
• Gameplay feature: Importable characters

User Reviews

A brilliant game that clearly deserves the title of epic masterpiece.

Rob Von Strahd (7)

Critic Reviews

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)	Apr, 1988	920 out of 1000	92
Happy Computer	1987	89 out of 100	89
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Mar, 1987	10.2 out of 12	85
64'er	1991	8 out of 10	80
Commodore User	Apr, 1988	8 out of 10	80
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Dec, 1990	9.4 out of 12	78
Popular Computing Weekly	Mar 17, 1988	77 out of 100	77
Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft	1992	76 out of 100	76

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
BT2 in the Auto-mapping Game Group?	4	GTramp (80505) Jun 23, 2011

Trivia

Development

Michael Cranford, the creator, was never directly employed by Electronic Arts. Instead he was brought in as an outside contractor. He designed the second game almost entirely from his home, and after a falling out with an old friend on he decided not to get involved with the third game.

Related Web Sites

• Bard Songs (An online collection of Bard's Tale music transcribed to MIDI format. All from the PC versions.)
• Bard's Tale 2 - The Destiny Knight Walkthrough/FAQ (This text solution includes monster references and more plus the full guide. Posted on CheatChaser.com)
• Fan Site (Nice comprehensive site with links to maps, walkthroughs and other Bard's Tale 2 fan sites.)
• The Bard's Tale Compendium (Very complete site with lots of information, hints, downloads for every game of the Bard's Tale series.)