The Bard's Tale Review

The title of The Bard’s Tale will invoke memories of a classic series of RPGs in those who have been gaming since the 1980s. However, the similarities end with the title as the 2004 iteration of the game is not a throwback or tribute to classic RPG gaming, but rather an action-RPG in the style that has been all the rage since the release of Dark Alliance. With one important difference, that is. While RPG games tend to take themselves very seriously, The Bard’s Tale takes a satirical, tongue-in-cheek approach that has as much fun at the expense of the genre’s conventions as it does with itself.

In The Bard’s Tale you are the bard in the title, a rapscallion fortune seeker more interested in lining his own pockets than he is in saving the realm from the latest threat from Evil. You’re first introduced to the bard as he tries to con his way into a free meal and bed for the night by conjuring a rat and subsequently “offering” to rid the tavern of its “rat problem”. As it turns out the tavern really does have a rat problem of the giant demonic kind, and the bard finds himself saving the day although his motivation is more a question of saving his own skin and scoring a free meal. And so it goes throughout The Bard’s Tale as our hero does continually does the right thing for the wrong reasons, always asking the same question before accepting a quest: “what’s in it for me?”

Our self-absorbed antihero is the perfect point man for a game that pokes fun at just about every convention, cliché, and aspect of action RPG games that you can think of. The game’s narrator and the bard don’t get along too well together and constantly trade quips back and forth, a local barrel maker pays you to smash the world’s barrels to increase demand for his product, and, of course, clear the proverbial cellar of its proverbial rats; and all of this just at the start of the game. From there the game pokes fun at everything from opening random chests, to items dropped by slain monsters, to rescuing the captured princess. Most it is pretty humorous and will keep you smiling as you make your way through the game.

The Bard’s Tale not only pokes fun at RPGs, it also tries to streamline some of the genre’s more tedious aspects. For example, there is no character inventory in the game. Whenever you pick something up in the game it is automatically converted to coin on the spot – no need to trek your way back to a merchant and sell your loot each time you run out of inventory slots. If you come across a weapon or armor, it will automatically be equipped if it is better than what you currently have and your old item will in turn be converted to coin. At first this will seem like a godsend as it will save you the time of having to examine the worth of every little thing that you come across in the game and constantly fooling around with your inventory space to try to hold on to the high value items until you come to a shop. However, this comes at the cost of some of the strategy that comes into play when managing weapons inventory. There’s no need to keep a couple of weapons around to use on different types of foes as one weapon is as good as another against all creature types. There’s no choice to be made on the tradeoff between speed and damage as all the weapons can be swung at the same frequency. And so on… I’m all for streamlining tedious tasks, but this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. On the other side of the coin so to speak, because you can instantly convert everything that you find to silver and since creatures respawn in the areas you visit giving you plenty of opportunity to pick up even more items, you’ll find yourself flush with coin throughout the game. There are a limited number of stores in the game and they each have a limited inventory, so you won’t have much trouble buying everything the game has to offer.

Another thing that you won’t have to worry about in The Bard’s Tale is selecting a character class as you can only play as the bard. The bard is a versatile character though, as adept at swordplay as he is with a bow. The bard’s specialty, though, is music, and he has the ability to conjure magical companions to fight alongside him by merely playing the appropriate tune on his loot. Each of these summoned companions has their own particular specialty and you will at times need to have the right companion at your side in order to progress through the game or get past a particular enemy. You have a little room for character customization by assigning points to statistics each time you level up and by selecting your bard’s special skills – dual-wielding, critical striking, etc. However, if you want to play a mage or thief you’re basically out of luck as even with a customized skill set the bard is still pretty much a ranger-like character.

The Bard’s Tale really shines in bringing life and personality to your character. Voiced by Cary Elwes (of Princess Bride’s Dread Pirate Roberts fame), the bard is not shy about keeping his observations and motivations from the narrator, other characters in the game, or even himself. His musings are often sarcastic, occasionally mean-spirited, and sometimes even reveal a hint of a good heart buried beneath all of the self-absorption. In short, he is a complex and interesting character and in a way this is a subtle means of skewering the RPG standard of generically noble and universally bland heroes.

The game even lets you direct the bard’s barbs in conversation through its “smarmy or nice” interface. When conversing with characters – which are all voiced and well-acted, by the way – you are in control of some of the bard’s responses. Rather than selecting from a list of text responses you merely choose the attitude of his response. Select “smarmy: and you let the bard loose to deliver barb-laced sarcasm and occasional mean-spiritedness. Select “nice” and you let a little of the good side of the bard’s character out, although this option is not necessarily a sarcasm filter. What makes things particularly interesting is that sometimes one response is far more appropriate than the other and being nice when you need to be gruff or being mean-spirited when you need to show compassion can cost you the opportunity to pick up bonus experience points, items, side-quests, or silver.

Well so far the game sounds pretty good and for the most part it is, but there are some serious shortcomings that prevent the game from being one of the truly great ones. The first problem is with the awkward healing system. There are no potions to quaff in The Bard’s Tale. Rather you must collect special crystals instead. These crystals are used to call upon the spirit of the princess you’re ultimately trying to rescue in the game to come down and heal you and your summoned companions. Crystals instead of potions, no big deal there. Where the real problem lies is in the healing process. To invoke the healing spirit you must hold down the left trigger to display a compass rose style menu, select healing from that menu, and then from the next menu select the number of crystals that you want to use to power the healing. What’s worse is that the combat does not pause during all of this. When you’re desperate for health you must bug out of combat run to a safe place, and quickly make your way through the menus before your enemies catch up to you. Once you select the heal option, you’re then forced into a cutscene that shows the princess’ spirit descending from the sky, bestowing healing on your party, and then ascending back up into the sky. This cutscene lasts over 5 seconds – an eternity in game time – and there is no way to bypass it or cut it short. At a certain point in the game you’ll learn a song to summon a healer into your party, but this is not a very good substitute. The healer can not be relied on in a pinch as she seems to cast her healing spells at random, and never when you desperately need it. Plus having a healer around takes a slot away from a character that can actually attack the enemy, so this option is best used for between battle heals to save on healing crystals.

Unfortunately the game’s combat can be just as frustrating as the healing process. The controls are a little sluggish to respond and you can feel a delay from the time you press the button to the time the bard swings his sword. This is a particularly annoying problem when it comes to blocking. The game is designed to make blocking vital to your success and yet you’ll constantly put up your block after you’ve received the blow or be forced to guess when an attack may be coming so that you can put your block order in on time. It is also impossible to break out of attack animations, so if the game decides to send your bard on a three swing combo and the enemy moved before your attack button press registered, you’re stuck watching as the bard swings through thin air, powerless to stop him. It is ironic that a game that attempts to streamline gameplay and poke fun at game conventions suffers from one of gaming’s more garden variety weaknesses, that of poor and unresponsive control. It’s enough of an issue to prove frustrating during the longer stretches of fights, especially since the game likes to keep you fighting a very high percentage of the time.

If you’re an RPG fan and are looking for a little good natured ribbing of your genre of choice, you’ll probably be happy to look past the game’s issues simply for the entertainment factor. There’s enough to like about The Bard’s Tale that it warrants a look despite its problems. If you’re simply looking for hack and slash action though, you may want to rent the game first to see if you can put up with the fight controls.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 79%.  The Bard’s Tale is the (Monty Python’s) Holy Grail of action-RPGs.