Bard's Tale II
| The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight |
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|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Interplay Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | Michael Cranford |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, NEC PC-9801 |
| Release | 1986 (C64), 1987, 1988 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Review score | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Score |
| RUN | A |
The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight is a fantasy role-playing video game created by Interplay Productions in 1986. It is the first sequel to The Bard's Tale, and the last game of the series that was designed and programmed by Michael Cranford.
The game features Dungeons and Dragons-style characters and follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, The Bard's Tale, also created by Michael Cranford.
The Bard's Tale II takes place on a larger scale with an explorable wilderness, six cities, and multiple dungeons which give this game its dungeon crawl character. The game has new features such as casinos and banks, and introduces a new magic user called an Archmage, among other changes from the first game in the series.
The game became somewhat infamous for its very high difficulty level. Cranford acknowledged this in interviews, stating that it may not have been playtested enough and that while he wanted to make a challenging game, he didn't realize just how difficult it was to complete the quest.
Although it received mixed reviews upon release, The Bard's Tale II won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1986.
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.
As a beginning player, a wizard named Saradon, having heard the news of your victory over the evil wizard Mangar (in The Bard's Tale), contacts you with dire news: "Lawless mercenaries from the neighboring kingdom of Lestradae ... under the guidance of an evil Archmage known as Lagoth Zanta" have stolen the Destiny Wand, that, through its power, "has maintained peace and prosperity for the last 700 years".
The player's manual provides the following overview of the game:
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