As an old skool gamer (i.e. a geezer), I fondly remember playing the original The Bard's Tale games on an Apple IIe back in the 80's. Obviously times have changed, and I don't think anyone seriously expected that when InXile's Brian Fargo announced a sequel to these games that it would resemble the originals. And it doesn't. Built using Unreal4 Engine, the first person perspective is about the only thing visually it has in common with its vintage predecessors. Arguably, this is a good thing too, since the original games, despite the recent enhanced version releases as part of this games development, are not what the typical gamer is looking for in 2018. This game very definitely doesn't look or play like an old skool cRPG, visually having more in common with Skyrim (minus the real-time combat and open world) than the original The Bard's Tale. Indeed, if modern old skool cRPG goodness true to the original The Bard's Tale is the itch you want scratched, you're far better off going for something like The Legend of Grimrock than The Bard's Tale IV. That doesn't make this is a bad game.
Despite giving the illusion of free movement, the game is essentially still grid based. This is essential for the games design, with a myriad of environmental puzzles that rely on blocks and floor pressure pads and traps that can't be trivially circumnavigated by diagonal movement, for example.
While there are just four basic character classes (Bard, Fighter, Rogue and Practitioner), they can be levelled up in a myriad of ways such that you won't feel constricted in your role-playing. Following specific skill trees you can specialise abilities and effectively create archers, battlemages, paladins etc. A cleric (healer) class can also be unlocked after completion of a side-mission, although I personally found little use for it, even after levelling up all the class's available abilities. As typical for practically every cRPG ever made, spell users become ridiculously over powered at higher levels, while the fighters become little more than "tanks" to attract and absorb enemy attacks.
The combat system is also far removed from the original games, and again, imo this was a necessary advancement. The turn-based system is reminiscent of Obsidian's South Park: Stick of Truth, with your party members (you eventually unlock up to six) allowed a certain number of attacks each turn (based on an Opportunity system). Unfortunately, there are only up to four different attack/defend options to choose from for each party member (these are determined by the player from a list of unlocked spells/attacks/abilities/items etc). For example, by the end of the game you may have a dozen different spells for your Practitioner, but you can only pick from four of them each turn during a combat encounter. The same goes for the other character classes. This very much limits dynamic tactics since, unless you knew beforehand which skills would be of most use for that encounter, there is no way of changing the character's available skill set after combat has started.
Beside general exploration, which is essential to locate keys (and loot!), and combat, the game is packed to the brim with puzzles. There are sliding block puzzles, floor puzzles, gear puzzles, fairy golf (guiding a fairy from point A to point B with signposts), rotating tile puzzles, ringing bells, and redirecting "lava" puzzles (similar to completing an electrical circuit). These are generally fairly straight forward, although a few had me head to Google for a hint. There is also a fairly standard crafting system to create various buffs, food/healing items, weapons etc.
The weakest aspect of the game is the story, which tbh never really grabbed me. Borrowing heavily from lore, characters, and weapons featured in the previous titles (none of which will mean much to the average player given how old they are), most of it didn't make a lot of cohesive narrative sense, especially given that there is preciously little in the way of books or dialogue to expand the history and lore. You're basically sent off from one location to another, finding adventure and combat along the way. Everyone, except the player character, is voice acted although with inconsistent quality.
While my experience was mostly fine, a complaint many have with this game is on the technical side. Performance is certainly not fantastic, with my admittedly budget GPU (a GTX1050Ti) getting around 25 fps regardless of graphical settings. Textures were pretty drab/muddy/non-detailed, but this is not unusual for lower budget titles. Personally I had a number soft crashes (i.e. where the PC's reset button was not required) and bugs that were annoying, but fortunately never game-breaking. I found myself falling through the floor on two occasions, as well as getting stuck on scenery, forcing a reload of the last save. Speaking of saves, The Bard's Tale IV has a unique approach to it. There are fairly numerous pillars scattered throughout the world that you can use to save your game ("Bind") OR you can choose to risk all and "Consume" it instead for additional experience, i.e. giving up that save game and risking death (upon which you will be forced to go back to your last save) in exchange for XP. The game is saved every time you quit, faithfully putting you back right where you left off (technically you could use this to save scum if you back up this temporary save file). In practice this system works well enough - once I reached sufficient power I confidently "Consumed" most save points to boost XP... but this also massively compounds the frustration level when the game crashes with all progress lost, potentially setting you hours back.
The soundtrack is mostly very good, with a number of quality original Gaelic tunes/songs scattered throughout the game world. They can get repetitive after a while however, e.g. when you're stuck on a puzzle, for example.
Overall Bard's Tale IV is a solid albeit somewhat budget RPG experience. If the game had been full price, the value prospect would be different, but inXile has priced the game accordingly at around US$35. Despite a few technical shortcomings it should keep most cRPG fans engaged for 50-60 hours assuming most of the side quests are pursued.