The Bard's Tale ARPG: Remastered and Resnarkled

I began my love affair with the CRPG with The Bard's Tale I on my Commodore 64 in 1985. The story itself has been reused so many times, it has become cliche, but it was pretty much standard fare. But, the way The Bard's Tale handled every game mechanic was excellent. The enemies, the magic system, the weapons were all done so well. This tried and true formula carried throughout the series. In Bard's Tale II, you actually ventured out into the wilderness. Again, even through nostalgia colored glasses, these early games are well worth the play through, even if they have not aged particularly well. This brings us to the "Reboot" of the Bard's Tale. My love of the first brought instant scorn when I heard of this blasphemous attempt to recreate the wonderful game of my youth. The end result, however, is one that is almost worthy of The Bard's Tale name. But this re-incarnation from inXile Entertainment places it's tongue firmly in its cheek and takes you on an enjoyable fantasy adventure. The Bards Tale is more Princess Bride than Lord of the Rings. The mechanics are straight forward for an action RPG. The NPCs you meet are well developed and the story is quite cliche. As a matter of fact, The Bards Tale pokes fun at RPGs for the entirety of its story. All in all, I give this game 4 stars as it is not Amazing, but a worthwhile play though. And of course the 3 original Bards Tale games helps boost its ratings as well.

this game is fun beyond belief. it'll poke fun at the clichés, conventions we see (current or not) in rpg's, action games and all. ("press the button to jump, boyo!" "press a button to jump!?! what button!?! are you mad!?!") XD i mean, how many games can we name where the player character gets into heated arguments with the narrator^^ the narrator, voiced by Tony Jay, is just... superb. as always. Cary Elwes as the bard is also great, very believable as the cranky bard. granted, as a topdown basic hacknslasher, ala baldur's gate, champions of norrath, it can't start to compete with those. but what it lacks in gameplay options, it more than makes up for in story and laugh out loud moments. i've always liked a good comedy, and with the market going more and more for violent, dark, mature games, it's fun to just sit back and enjoy a good (no, make that great) storyline which will, at the very least, put a grin on your face. one of the most original storylines i've encountered, btw. one ending had me laughing so loud, when, in typical bard fashion, i just decided to...XD before i'm done, one last thing worth mentionning: the music. Tommy Tallarico studios took care of that, and it's pure genius. when i heard the first song, "beer,beer, beer", i was hooked and just wanted to hear what was next. same goes for ambiant, background music. even if the game is set in a fictional world, it's easy to see that they were going for that "highlands, scottish" typeof atmosphere.

This is a review of just the 2004 Bard's Tale, not the classic Bard's Tale I, II & III also included in this package which I haven't played through yet. Overall, I was nonplussed with Bard's Tale. It wasn't as funny as it thought it was and it suffered very badly with horribly clunky controls due to being a direct console port. Playing this with a mouse and keyboard was just plain irritating (eg point and hold right mouse button down to walk somewhere, and summoning companions was just painful in execution). I'd suggest this would play much better with a GamePad. Another issue I had with the game was how short it actually was, with heaps of areas added in purely to pad out the paltry main quest length. For example - you battle up a tower to beat a tower boss, and then you battle a different set of enemies all the way back down again just to lengthen the game. Another example - having to get to the next tower via multiple other areas just added in for padding. My first play-through was done in less than 20 hours, and I'd say there's probably 10 hours or less if you didn't take your time. It's not all bad. I did like some of the game mechanics, such as automatically converting treasure to cash and automatically upgrading to best available equipment and selling off the old equipment. That saved tedium. I also always appreciate auto-mapping - I must be getting lazy in my old age. Overall, I'd say worth it when on special, but don't expect too much and do expect to be annoyed by the game's clunky controls.

Took away the version I bought, replaced it with a "remaster" which I didn't buy and didn't want.