Bard's Gold

Developer: Erdem Sen
Steam Release: Aug 2015
Hours Played: 3
Similar To: Cave Story+ / Cally's Caves 3 / DLC Quest /  Rogue Legacy
Rating: 1/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

Bard's Gold is an action platformer done in much the same vein as Rogue Legacy but on a smaller scale and in side-scrolling rather than screen-scrolling format. You control a little fellow with a large green pointy hat who leaps about from ledge to ledge initially in a world of dark dungeons and old rooms while finding keys to unlock doors. You're first given a short ranged dagger throwing attack which is rather weak, along with a jump and double-jump ability. Your first foes will be bats, blobs of various colours, flying tomes and the odd creepy crawly. Spikes also jut out of walls and some fall down as you pass by while others get flung horizontally at you now and again so you need to be on your toes. Levels will rain fireballs if you take too long. Your main goal is to collect gems and get as deep into the game as possible.
 

BALANCE & PACE

Unlike Rogue Legacy, rather than top-up upgrades exclusively at the end of each run, you visit shops as you play. You can enter these to purchase more powerful weapons, extra health and speed boosts etc with the gems you collect along the way. However, you'll need to be aware that these accessories are immediately removed from you if you die, leaving you with that default dagger attack again. This means you could just ignore the shops completely and save gems for help towards buying the permanent upgrade at the game-over screen. Although you get four lives on normal mode by default, Bard's Gold is an unforgiving game that punishes wrong moves with instant death. Familiarising yourself with the layout of levels, knowing how enemies react to being attacked and when the flying spikes will whizz past you is therefore all good to know. 

 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN

Bard's Gold is fairly basic by design and rendered in a plain, pixel-art style. The blobs, in particular, are the most dull enemy you'll ever encounter. It starts out quite dark with its first world mainly dominated by black, browns and greys. Unfortunately, with the game priding itself on being quite hard, most players will not get to see any worlds beyond this first dreary one which is a bit of a shame. I, for instance, am still trying to get beyond World 1, Level 6 after three hours of play - and I still haven't found my first skill book to even be able to upgrade anything else besides health. To my mind this may be more of a balancing issue than an indicator I'm poor at the game. The game features a few tunes as part of its soundtrack that resembles quirky supermarket music but, again, I've not got far enough into the game to experience anything different.   
 
 

PROGRESS SYSTEM

Bard's Gold is divided into four worlds that get unlocked if you can defeat the previous world in a clear run from beginning to end and without losing your starting lives (plus those you might buy from the shop). A world consists of six levels and ends with a boss fight. To assist in this task, you are taken to a game-over screen at the end of every run where you are able to use any unspent gems to upgrade certain attributes. These attributes, in turn, can only be unlocked if you have acquired its corresponding skill-book that you are supposed to find in the game. Unfortunately, many players have complained about the elusive nature of these skill-books (I have not found any in 3 hours of play) which once again means large portions of this part of the game seems to be needlessly inaccessible to most players. 
 
 

CONCLUSION

I have no problem with a game being challenging or hard to beat - in fact this is one of the selling points of the game - but Bard's Gold seems to have design faults that simply make it too tough for casual gamers to get beyond the first world let alone to actually complete it. Weapons bought with gems are taken away upon death making it too harsh a penalty; skill-books are rare to the point that they cannot be found thus limiting upgrading and (one more thing) there are no warnings or indicators given as to what lies underneath you when you're forced to take a blind leap - making death a little bit luck-based on occasions. Despite these negatives holding the game back, it still has enough qualities and decent enough gameplay mechanics to make the player determined to persevere with it and to crack those challenging worlds.