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Bard To The Future, And My Brutally Honest Look At This Platformer

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1By7aiv_kTU
Weirdest setting for a game ever award goes to Bard to the Future, a new platformer now available on Linux. I take my usual look to tell you what to do with your wallets.

Features
- Story Mode - spanning 7 time periods and 26 levels!
- Time Trial Mode across all levels!
- Gruesome Boss fights!
- Steam Achievements & Cloud Save
- Original Soundtrack and voice work!

About the game (Official)
Have you ever gone to the toilet so hard you travelled through time? The Battlebard has! Bard to the Future follows the Battlebard in a race through time and space against his new-found nemesis - an evil time travelling cyborg pirate.

Joined by two trusty sidekicks - a Wizard and a Barbarian (not real ones, of course) - the Battlebard must gather map pieces to find the mysterious treasure hidden in time. Players will have to jump and powerslide through several time periods to complete the journey. Each time period brings new environmental factors, unique enemies and varying difficulty - from the slippery grounds of the Ice Age to the resurrected mummies of Ancient Egypt.

Some thoughts
Honestly, I gave this game a real good go, and my first thoughts were instantly critical of the extremely simplistic graphics, but luckily it did momentarily make up for that by giving me a minor giggle with the pee joke when your character needs to find a bush. Sadly, the humour doesn’t really keep up.

I can forgive simple graphics if the gameplay and story are fun, but the levels themselves are shockingly simple, the banter between characters feels really flat, and it’s just not fun. The levels all seem to reuse most of the same details over, and over again.

By the second level you have people with you, and their jumping is mistimed so they jump while over a drop (attention to details people!), and you can be killed by walking into some tiny street cat. You would think being a ‘BattleBard’ you would have some form of strength, or an attack, but no, you get killed by a cat.

When retrying that level after being killed by Sir Kitty, the friendly characters are suddenly stuck and don’t follow you (developer has been notified of this) so it’s not a bug free experience either.

The platforming mechanics are surprisingly basic too, and it doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. The jumping is really basic, and there is no animation difference when you jump, which makes the experience feel flat and dull.
The only change in tactics is pressing E to “powerslide”, so you can reach a platform placed just a bit further than the last.

After repeatedly jumping over a few of the same kitties I managed to find the boss (hooray!), I was really, badly, hoping for something amusing, but all I got was a let down of titanic proportions.
It was a simple battle of him throwing bombs at me, and then when he jumps down you slide his own bombs back at him. Once defeated he removed his cloak and...the game froze. Luckily the “skip” action still worked, so I was able to gain access to level three.
The developers feature list mentions “Gruesome” boss battles, and that’s not exactly the word I would use for it.

Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to go into level four, as level three was much more of the same blandness. It added a few more difficult jumps, but we’re talking age 5 difficulty here, and it just wasn't fun at all.

I don’t hate platformers, but this game was so empty I walked away terribly bored of it.

Final Verdict: Skip it. Save yourself some cash here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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1 comment

Purple Library Guy Mar 3, 2015
Here I was, hoping it was about time-travelling Shakespeare.
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