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It sure sucks to be the chosen one.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It sure sucks to be the chosen one.

The Bard's Tale for Xbox and PS2 is a new title in a very old gaming franchise. Before talking about the game directly, let me tell you a brief bit about the history of its genre.

Once upon a time (80's, 90's), you could've roughly split up computer and console role-playing games (RPGs) into two groups: Japanese RPGS and American RPGS. Japanese RPGs tended to focus strongly on a plot. The game mechanics were just a mechanism to move the story forth. Character advancement was not nearly as important as story advancement. Ask anyone who has ever played any Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior game and you will find this is true. Enjoyment of the tale the game presented was the main goal of Japanese RPGs.

American RPGs on the other hand tended to be very open adventures with a very heavy emphasis on exploration, character development, and game statistics in general. The `story' of these games worked more like a general game playing guideline than a strong dramatic plot. The stories presented would give you a rough idea of what needed to be done next, but would rarely push you into doing anything in particular until you really felt like unlocking some new area or getting some special item. Players would often run around the game world trying to build up their character statistics as high as possible. The emphasis of these games was enjoying the gameplay, not the story. Two series that were the hallmark of this type of game were Wizardry, and The Bard's Tale.

This trend has even continued into the new century. Just compare Morrowind to Final Fantasy X: an open book versus a staged Soap Opera. Both titles are good games, just very different.

The original Bard's Tale was a classic example of one these open, statistic driven American games. You created a party of characters using Dungeons and Dragons like statistics. Then you would run around a pseudo 3D dungeon, kill monsters, and collect treasure. After that, you would return to the inn to gain levels, heal your party members, and then repeat the whole process over again.

This new Bard's Tale eschews that type of design completely, opting for instead a Diablo type action RPG style of control and play. The menu based combat of old is replaced with good ol' hack and slash button mashing fun. You control a singular character from an overhead view, while partaking in multiple story and non-story related quests.

Another difference with this Bard's Tale is that it is a humorous game. Unlike the previous titles which had somewhat serious stories to follow, this game is a laugh all the way through. It parodies other games in the genre, picks on common elements such as killing rats, opening random treasure chests, chosen ones, and has a very witty script to back it up with. I found the Bard's dialog to be a constant source of amusement. The character you control and the games narrator often banter with each other, usually to humorous effect. This humorous script writing even shows up when you engage other characters in dialog. You are often give at least two response choices, a nice response, and a `snarky' response. You quickly find out being nice doesn't help you get what you want.

And, in another departure from traditional RPGs, the character you control isn't your typical hero. No wide eye farm boys, elven princesses, or honor seeking knights here. He's a roguish bard who takes advantage of people whenever he can. He is very fond of beer and the ladies, and doesn't have any loftier goals than finding a warm bed to crash in at night, preferably accompanied with a barmaid. This is an attitude that never changes in the game, fortunately.

The basic story is that your character of the Bard gets drafted into being `The Chosen One', and ends up trying to rescue to a trapped princess. You quickly find many other `Chosen Ones' who have met a sad fate, and also discover that all is not as it seems...

The controls are fairly simple. You use the primary buttons to attack, block, jump, and activate things with. The left and right trigger buttons activate your summoning spells. Summoning can get a little tricky in the heat of battle so you generally want to do that in advance. Over all I found that the controls worked pretty well.

I was happy with the graphics. Nothing overly special, but nothing shoddy either.

Other than the script writing and humor, the other place this game shines is the sound effects and music department. The sounds always seem to be on cue, and I loved all the amusing sing-a-long songs they had in the game.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game and highly recommend.

One would never think that such drunken lout would make such a great chosen one.

I want my money back!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: April 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This has got to be the saddest RPG I have purchased in recent memory. Is this game honestly supposed to compete with Elder Scrolls 3 and 4, Dungeon Siege, Diablo 2, etc etc etc. Look elsewhere for your RPG's, guys. This game is sad.

The drawbacks are almost too numerous to mention. You have to be a bard. You can only have one character in your party. You can summon a few monsters but most of them you don't find until the very last tower. Once you beat the game you cannot replay your character. You can raise levels but it's not that fun and the monsters keep getting stronger as you raise levels. The magic items are idiotic.

Like a fish I was hooked start to finish.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: March 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought the game because a friend of mine recommended it. I am glad I drank the punch. I was not expecting such an entertaining humorous game and this was a real treat. The Bard has great wit and the help you can summon for battles was a nice touch. The story line and humor kept me looking forward to playing every night until I finished the game. I never took it out of my XBOX until I finished. This game reeks of character and in the end it is what I love about it. The best $20 I spent on a game in a long time.

Rent this one

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 65 / 65
Date: August 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For those of you (like myself) who played the old school Bard's Tale: Thief of Fate and it's sequels, this game is completely unlike the originals. Gone are the seemingly unending dungeon crawls, the parties of six cusomizeable, leveleable, equipable adventurers. The intricate mazes filled with darkness, traps and hordes of (sometimes enormous groups) monsters.

This, although much modernized game, is completely different. It is viewed in 3rd person, real time, extremely limited in size (compaired to its predecessors), and has but one character (which must be...you guessed it...a bard) which does gain xp and level but is not nearly as interresting or customizeable as the old parties of six plus one summoned creature.

The summoned creatures, I have to admit, are a lot of fun. The only bad thing about them is that many of these cool and interresting creatures are only found (and therefore, only useable) in the very last dungeon (which is actually a tower).

You can eventually summon up to three allies, choosing from sixteen creatures. These include an archer, a knight, and a rat. Many of these creatures are upgradeable. The rat, for example, can be upgraded into the "vorpal rat," which, although weak, is capable of inflicting huge ammounts of damage. Different combinations of summoned creatures enable you to have, for example, a blocking summoned creature supported by a healer and a high damager. Others do area effect attacks.

The gameplay is somewhat challenging. You will probably find yourself dying a few times and having to reboot your saved game. Some of the fights were challenging enough that I died five to ten times, but I was eventually able to overcome them all and win the game.

Because the combat is real time, you are forced to button-mash and pay VERY close attention to what's going on at all times. This is far removed from the old game system where you could sit and munch doritos while your hearty adventuring party pounded the snot out of hordes of monsters. Even a very weak monster can kill the bard if you're not paying attention.

Another down side is that the game has very limited replayability. After you win the game you cannot "go back" and play your character. The game is over. That's it. All those levels, all that treasure and upgrading for nothing. The closest thing you can get to infinite gameplay is if you simply do not enter the last tower. This leaves you with wandering monsters, scant (and unimagineative) treasure and only leveling your bard.

Wandering monsters automatically grow stronger as you gain levels. This too is a drawback, I think (it's like penalizing you for growing stronger). The fights actually become more difficult rather than getting easy as you become more powerful.

I played this game for a week and traded it in for another game. This is why I suggest you save your money and rent it for a week.

The Bard's Tale

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: June 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The first thing you should know is that if you're an old-school gamer who grew up playing The Bard's Tale games in the 80s, you may be surprised by this game. It bears no real resemblance to the original trilogy of BT games (aside from one passing reference early on, when the Bard mentions that he once saved a town trapped in "eternal winter," which is precisely what he did in the first game.) Designer Brian Fargo basically decided to completely reinvent the franchise with this game. Humor has always played at least a subtle part in The Bard's Tale games, and there were several Monty Python references in Bard's Tale III, but this time around, the humor really takes center stage.
The Bard is a sarcastic, self-serving and downright rude character whose primary concern is getting rich and getting women. In the original games, you were always on a noble quest to defeat evil. This time, the Bard doesn't seem to care who he sides with, as long as there's a nice reward in it for him.
In a lot of ways, this feels a bit like how an RPG might look if Tim Schaefer ("Day of The Tentacle," "Psychonauts," "Monkey Island") took a stab at creating one. All of the typical RPG conventions are here-- smashing barrels, leveling up, looting corpses, opening chests, etc-- but they're constantly mocked. Often, this mockery comes from the disembodied voice of the narrator, who regularly comments on the Bard's activities. (for example, early in the game, you offer to help a barmaid. You wander into her room, and, of course, there's a treasure chest on the floor. When you open it, the narrator comments, "You're stealing from her?! Oh well, actually, I'm amazed it took you THIS long to get your hands on her chest." Some other great bits of humor come in the form of songs. Yes, characters will occasionally break into song/dance numbers, complete with bouncing-ball lyrics so you can sing along.

In terms of actual gameplay, things are kept relatively simple compared to most RPGs. This was done deliberately so the player could focus on moving the story along without getting bogged down in busy work. For example, if you find a weaker weapon than the one you're currently using, it is automatically converted into coins-- no need to make a detour to the shop and trade it in. I suppose some people may think this cuts down on the roleplaying aspect, but I like it.

Fighting in mostly a matter of hitting the X button to swing whatever weapon you're wielding. However, you can also summon creatures to fight alongside you (the bard has a magic lute to do this), and you can use your directional pad to give basic commands to your summoned allies, such as "Attack," "Defend," etc. It's simplistic, but it works well and the fights are often entertaining enough without being overly difficult.

The graphics are good. They're not going to win any awards, but the top-down view of the world is attractive, and the subtle effects, such as water ripples and trees blowing in the wind, make it all the more appealing. Occasionally, the trees pose a problem since they obstruct your view of the action during a fight, and I do wish a transparency effect was used in such occasions.

Overall, if you don't demand serious depth in an RPG, I definitely recommend this game. It has a good story, memorable characters, a simple interface, plenty of humor, and satisfying hack & slash combat.

An absurd amount of fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: May 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am totally loving this game. I'm not your typical video-game player--I'm a 28 year old woman, a wife, and a mother, with a professional career. I don't have a lot of time to play video games, which explains why I'm just now getting around to playing this--and I received it as a Christmas gift. But this game is such fun! It occurred to me, as my little Bard character was walking around, about to shoot some crows, followed by his little dog and the crone he'd summoned ("covered in sores and tattoos" no less!) how delightfully skewed this game is. Random characters pop up and sing songs. There are grutuitous close-ups of ample cleavage. Your adventure is narrated by an elegantly disdainful commentator. Ah, I just love this game.

It is not, mind you, for everyone--there aren't any loud explosions and realistic machine-gun fire or anything like that. But I must say, it really and truly grabbed me. Love it!

What a great game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: February 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Bards tale made its first appearance WAY back when games still loaded from MS-DOS. The original game was text based with pictures to help enhance the story, which may not impress today's youth but back then it meant hours of past your bedtime fun.
So, being an ole "Bards Tale" Vet I immediately purchased this for my XBox and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The dialouge, the story, the acting, the music the graphics and the non-political correctness all work amazingly well. Unlike many games where the story seems to be a side attraction, here in the Bards tale the "Tale" takes center stage and leaves you eagerly awaiting to see what's next.
Unfortunately, the main weakness that haunts this otherwise wonderful game is the overhead view of the character while exploring and in combat. It would have been so much better if the game interface was more like Halo, Grand Theft auto and Hero. The whole time I found myself leaning forward to get a closer look at my character who seemed so far away. In fact, the original Bard's tale was a first person view, not an overhead view like this one.
Another thing that would have been nice, though by no means necessary, is to have the original Bards Tale as a Special Feature to the game. It wouldn't have taken much space and would be nice for old farts like me and for newer generations to see where it all began.
Anyway, Cary Elwis and the rest of the crew did a great job and I hope that The Bards Tale sequel (or perhaps they'll do a prequel of when our little hero was a little brat?) is even better than this one.
A must buy for anyone who wants more out of their gaming experience than just button smashing.

Update: Be sure to save this game right before the final battle. Their are alternate endings and both of them, I assure you, are well worth watching. So watching one ending then load from the saved area and do it again, only this time with choosing the other ending. Personally I like the ending where our hero sides with the lady.

Great Game if you Over 28

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For those of you who came from Role Playing Games all the way back to the Commodore 64, you will love this game. If your younger and like the fast pace games like Nija Gaden this game is NOT for you. I am from the old school and enjoy this game. The Humor is good. A reviewer in X-box Magazine hit the nail on the head when he stated the game is too slow until you can summon at leat 3 creatures at once. I really had fun when I got to the fourth (that the maximum). If you have the time to go through what it takes to get a few charactors you will like it. If you don't don't waste your money.

A great introduction to RPGs

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 26
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy video games, but have played very few role playing titles. I don't like the wide-eyed youngsters saving the world storylines of most of those games. The Bard's Tale, however, had a great plot that was actually funny and interesting.
The learning curve isn't too steep, and the control scheme is fairly easy to understand. By the end of the game, you can summon up to 16 magical creatures to help you; this allows you to tailor the game to fit how you play.
The environments are interesting and varied. You will play on a snowy mountain, deep in a mine, on open fields and even on water.
Enemies are varied, as well. Each level had its own kind of enemy, so I was never bored with killing the same thing over and over.
I would definitely recommend The Bard's Tale for those wishing to try out an RPG, or just looking for something new.

A lot better game than I would have thought.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played all the X-box RPGs and I've liked pretty much all of them. What sets the Bard's Tale apart is the story. Usually the story in Baldur's Gate, etc is fairly linear. You proceed from point A to point B and it sure seems like point B is just like point A except it has snow or lava. It seems as if the focus is on character creation and combat while the story is tacked on. But the Bard's Tale actually makes it seem like the story comes first and is meant to entertain you while you kill everything and solve the quests. The game plays a lot like other X-box RPG games but lacks a lot of the hours of character creation and equipment upgrades that the other RPGs have. This is either good or bad depending on your point of view. All in all, a great game.

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