To clarify, I meant this about the Bard's Tale Trilogy. I view "Bard's Tale (2004)" as a foolishly named game.

Bugs:

* Initial range of attributes are incorrect. Example: Dwarves can't start with 18 constitution. (still unfixed)
* Application of saving throw to running away is incorrect. Paladin in first slot with max luck still can't run away from fights easily. (From the changelog, this looks to be changed to be even more inaccurate)
* Hunter crit chance increase on level up is incorrectly randomized. (unfixed)
* Party attack doesn't work. (There is a reason you can do this in the original game, even when no one is hostile!) (unfixed)
* Game incorrectly refuses to allow non-rogues to disarm traps. Non-rogues disarming traps is a legitimately useful action in low levels. It falls off later. The game design was fine without this bug. (unfixed)
* Bard song count tracking doesn't work correctly. You can sing infinite songs during a combat after running out of songs. -- This appears to be more spectific. I suspect it's when reusing the same song that's already in place.

UI problems:

* Ranged weapon use is super clunky as it interacts with the pooled inventory. How do I manage the bows and arrows for my party members? (Fixed in 1.0.7)
* Game autosaves, suggesting easily rolling back of bad outcomes, until your party takes a death and it autosaves before you can load. More consistency needed here (either way!) (unifxed)
* You can't get back to the list of monsters and distances while you're choosing your actions for the turn. You could do this in Bard's Tale 2 and 3 when distances existed.

Bugs:

* Cost of healing damage is halved, but cost of healing poison is quadrupled (!!!).

UI problems:

* You have to equip arrows to shoot them. But you can't equip more than one bunch of arrows. So you have to manually re-equip arrows after every 8 shots. In Bard's Tale 2 or 3 you just said which arrows to shoot at the time and could have as many as you wanted. This may make it impossible to fire more than 8 times in one combat. (Fixed in 1.0.7)

* When night falls, the behavior of the mini-map changes with no explanation. Presumably it's using the dungeon behavior, although this makes little sense. (A night-time town still has street signs and etc) (fixed in 1.0.7)
* The dungeon mini-map behavior is somewhat hard to read as it doesn't change instantly when you turn but it also doesn't transition. there's a lag that makes it bewildering.

The main menu seem garbled. Is it normal? the title seems corrumpted with the words not aligned and a huge "ES" between bard tale and trilogy.

Sorry but I am unable to upload the screen capture

My res is 1280x768 but it is the same in my desktop res 1366x68 and in every res ingame.

I can't produce your graphical glitch. I am running at 1600x1200 (native resolution). In windowed mode at 1280x768 I get a normal look, and the same when asking for "full screen" 1280x768. Not to say you aren't getting a glitch, but it doesn't seem to be generic to that scenario.

Bugs:

* When healing, the latin chant half-loops stupidly. This sounds intentional, but it's god-awful. Don't loop this. (fixed in 1.0.7)
* Traveller's Tune in town incorrectly lowers armor class by 2 instead of 1. (Similarly in the crypts, it lowers by 4 instead of 2.) (unfixed)
* Repeated Badh'r Kilnfest songs during one combat do not correctly stack. (unfixed)
* EDIT: incorrect: Spinners do not spin. It's so strange that they're on the map if they don't do anything. (fixed in 1.0.7)
* Game's refusal to allow equipping a melee weapon and a ranged weapon prevents making ranged attacks from the front line in a reasonable fashion. This limitation did not exist in BT2 or 3 so I assume removing it is an error. (fixed in 1.0.7)
* Ghouls incorrectly inflict OLD.
* Statues do not seem to respawn in any scenario. Not when going to another dungeon, nor when reloading. Just gone. Perhaps more realistic, but a lot less fun, and strangely inconsistent. (unfixed)

UI Problems:

* Spell durations are given in "Minutes". These minutes seem to last about 3 seconds. Very confusing. Why not give the actual duration in real time, or in a in-game unit that isn't confusing, or as a depleting meter? (unfixed)
* When selecting a party-member as a target with the mouse, it's really clunky that you have to click on the text box, and can't select from the party list below. It works okay with the keyboard as they're the same numbers either way.
* Dungeons are too dark. I have a spell that illuminates four squares out, but I can't see anything in the catacombs. I can get by on the minimap but that's just weak. Probably need some kind of gamma adjust, but I suspect the baseline is off. (Gamma added in 1.0.7, though dungeons really are just too dark)
* When selling items (for example arrows), you can't see how many charges/uses the items have. It may be that you simply can't sell items without full charges, but it's still confusing. (unfixed)
* The odd choice of having the shield and eyeball light up for multiple types of spells means it's easy to not realize essential buffs have fallen off. Given that these icons are part of the game expressly for the purpose of tracking the uptime of these buffs, this choice is pretty unfortunate. (partially fixed in 1.0.7. Bard song still creates shield icon)
* The distinction between forward and "kick" has been lost. This seems like simplification until you consider mapping dark zones, where it hurts. I suppose I'll find out soon enough if dark zones are now pointless. UPDATE: Indeed they are now pointless, it seems. The minimap feigns ignorance but the journal map is accurate despite you seeing nothing. Doors are mapped that you haven't tried. (unfixed)
* UPDATE: Mapping in darkness is worse than I thought. Some walls and doors are drawn that you have not tried but walked past, and some are not. I suspect it may have to do with which side they're on but not sure yet, it seems wildly inconsistent.
* After a combat, the Darkness message does not reliably appear.
* Many list selections support the mouse wheel, but strangely not the save file picker. (unfixed)
* Monster groups at 10' distance are displayed without a distance indicator. This is confusing, because it suggests that the distance information is not available. (unfixed)

Seems like you should post these somewhere more likely for someone from inXile to see them?

This implies that I think inXile (or krome) would do something about it.

They both had a LONG time to care enough to read stuff that was already on the inxile forum. There's sites out there that disassemble the original games and go into the details of how it works. It's not hard to find out how the game is supposed to work, and there's endless crosslinks between the obvious places to look. Obviously, no one cared to look.

Mostly I'm just documenting how the IIgs version of the game is still the best, at this point.

I don't remember Bard's Tale 1 having arrows.

Also, I don't remember being able to choose which arrows to shoot in Bard's Tale 2 or 3.

In the DOS versions of Bard's Tale 1 and 2 (and I think this applies to the 2gs versions as well), you can't use an item you don't have equipped. This is not true in the Commodore 64 version of 2, and is not true in any version of 3 that I've played (haven't tried the Amiga version). They don't in the DOS version either. (Haven't checked any other versions.) I assume nobody in your party is wearing a Nospin Ring or a Nospen Ring? ("Nospen" was a title in the original games; it wasn't corrected until BT3.) If anybody in your party is, then it is intended behavior for spinners to not do anything. It's actually always been random, as has the rogue's thief skill chances.

It didn't, the remaster does. (It's awkward).
But you'd expect them to at least allow the range of possibilities from 2 or 3 given that they're in there to be "compatible" with 2 and 3. You had to equip the bow but not the arrows (it was strange).

And yes you can use items that are just hanging around in your inventory. I've done it many times, but it may vary with port and specific game. Yes, that's a DOS version bug. They do in the c64, IIgs, and Apple II, and they do in Bard's Tale 3 after the spells were rebuilt.

They don't in the DOS version of Bard's Tale 3; in fact, playing the song during battle will only heal you for *one* round.

If you are playing the song outside of battle, it will heal you every round of battle, but if you then play the song in battle, the healing will stop after that round.

The AC lowering song (Sanctuary Score, I believe) has a similar quirk; singing it will lower your party's AC, but at the end of the round, the party's AC will return to normal, removing other combat AC effects (so your invisibility spell's effect will disappear). Kael's Overture, in addition to frying the enemies, would set your party's AC to 15 points below normal, and that effect would *not* wear off at the end of the round.

(It seemed that the DOS version of BT3 took the manual's statement about bard songs only lasting for one round in combat rather literally. On the other hand, I note that Divine Intervention doesn't heal the party (unlike what the manual says), and monster inventories are inaccessible (again, contrary to what the manual says and the way the 8-bit versions worked).)

With that said, the DOS version of BT3 is so buggy that I would not use that version as an authoritative version when determining how the game is supposed to work.

Then what is the correct way to equip and shoot with a bow in the game for now?

I´ve used an arrow against a foe and it works, I do not remember if the bow was equipped or not.
I used ranged attack with the bow equiped and it seems to work. In fact I agree it is quite confusing/inconsistent.

Legacy mode hasn't been implemented yet. It's coming in winter sometime. The game costs $15.

Yes, this is an MS DOS bug committed by the farmed-out EA developers. If you look at the implementations done by interplay they don't behave this way. Again, the bad port, yes.


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Missed opportunity:

* Lack of customized wall art for dungeons. In the 8-bit versions, the cellars, sewers, and castle had custom wall art. These got dropped from the 16-bit versions because of space limitations and the higher resolution and colors, but there's not much space limitation in the 270MB download. It would have taken fairly little effort to whip up a couple of variations on walls and doors as compared to all the monster art, so it's kind of a shame.

[About BT3]

First I have heard about this version being made by "farmed-out EA developers". Do you by any chance, have any source on this? (I am genuinely curious how this particular version of the game got released in such a poor state.)

Does this really look like I have no idea how the games work?

No, no one was wearing a Nospen or Nospin ring. I assume the original title was to make it less obvious intentionally. Spinners really appear not to work. So far I only tested the one in the center of the cellars. I stepped on it around 30 times and my direction was never altered.

Edit: Update! The spinner in Catacombs 1 works. Maybe it was a one-off or maybe some other thing was breaking the spinner earlier. I'll go back and test it again. No, it was not. The hunter skill in bard's tale 1 was a direct function of the hunter's level. You can find the disassembly discussion on the brotherhood.
In Bard's Tale 3, when they externalized the skills, they were given the behavior you see here.
I don't have a direct source, but look at the names credited on the port and then go dig up where they worked. Never at Interplay, and they did work at EA at the time.