![]() ![]() ![]() The Bard comes off as kind of a jerk, and his nonstop sarcastic barbs ride the line between being funny and mean, often leaning toward plain old nastiness.īut, even though The Bard's Tale would like to mock the conventions of wizards, warriors, dungeons, and dragons, it ultimately ends up relying on the things it's supposedly trying to make fun of. ![]() From here The Bard is launched on a series of archetypal quests, ultimately getting locked into a quest the requires him to climb a series of ominous towers to fight wizards and rescue a fair princess, all the while making snide comments. He ultimately ends up getting more than he bargained for when he's subsequently sent into the cellar to face a more serious vermin problem. The game puts its best foot forward at the start, opening with a cinematic sequence in which The Bard, a traveling musician of flexible morality who has no interest in noble adventure or becoming a celebrated hero, tries to con his way into a free meal by using his lute to conjure up a rat in a rural pub, and then strolling in and offering to get rid of it in exchange for a bed and a hot meal. The Bard is back, and he has a really bad attitude. If you're not looking for the sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and can see your past a few problems, you'll find that The Bard's Tale is a fair action RPG. Borrowing Snowblind's Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance engine, as well as its overall structure, The Bard's Tale is a decent dungeon crawler that invests some energy into lampooning RPGs and high fantasy in general, but like a stand-up act about airline food or the line at the post office, its perspective isn't very interesting, and it lacks any real follow-through. Despite the fact that it bears the name of a much-loved mid-'80s computer role-playing game, and despite the fact that it's the handiwork of one of that game's creators, InXile's reenvisioning of The Bard's Tale is not a nostalgia piece for fans of old PC RPGs. ![]()
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