Older games players may remember the original Bard's Tale games. If you're looking for an in-depth RPG game in the vein of those games, this modern versions of The Bard's Tale may not appeal as it's a very different type of game to the original. Though it's got the same Producer as the original - Brian Fargo - this is not a remake by any means.
What we have here is an action-RPG – a curious mix of game styles that works well in some ways, disappoints in others, but in the end is triumphant because of the large doses of humour injected into it. Most RPGs have rather hackneyed storylines and this is no exception – rescuing princesses held captive in towers by evil dudes etc – but The Bard's Tale takes this storyline and makes fun of it, along with the clichés that infest the whole genre. The game has a narrator (veteran games Voice Actor, the late Tony Jay) who at times lets you know what's going on, and frequently insults the Bard. The Bard himself is voiced by Cary Elwes (not always brilliantly it has to be said, but he's often funny) – and the dialogue often borrows from the film The Princess Bride that he starred in. ("Inconceivable!" and "As you wish" being the two most obvious and recurrent examples.) I also have a sneaky suspicion that the music is also inspired by the music in that film, though my wife tells me that it's just my imagination... The humour in the game is mostly very good, especially the narrator's dislike of the Bard, and they often have short conversations - sometimes with other characters in the game wondering just who the Bard is talking to!
The game simpilifies many of the aspects of a traditional RPG - for instance weapons and combat are kept quite simple. Combat can be a little too repetitive at times, which is probably the main weakness of the game, but there is a range of tactics that can be employed and different enemies can require specific tactics to defeat without taking too much of a beating yourself. There are three difficulty levels - easy, normal, and "old school", which determine your starting stats. These consist of the normal things like strength (for melee weapons), dexterity (ranged weapons), vitality, luck, charisma (for getting shopkeepers to reduce their prices!), and rhythm. Rhythm isn't something you would normally expect to see, but you are a bard after all. Instead of wandering round trying to find outcasts and misfits who are willing to join your merry band of adventurers, you can instead summon various characters and creatures by playing a special tune on your instrument (as you get more powerful instruments, your mana and the number of creatures you can summon increase). This gives the game a different flavour and during the course of the game, or even during a battle, you can change your party around. This can be tricky if you're in the middle of an intense fight since, of course, you cannot wield a weapon and your instrument at the same time. You have to learn the correct tune before you can summon a creature - you start off only knowing how to summon a lowly rat, but in time you can learn more and improved versions of those you have.
When it comes to battle, you control both that Bard himself (using the mouse plus the space bar if you are equipped with a shield) and your party. These are commanded (or with some of them they seem to take it more as suggestions!) with four basic commands - attack, defend, come to the Bard's position, or fall back. There is a little scope for genuinely devising your own tactics for different situations even if it does seem a little limited at times. The characters themselves are often very funny - for instance the Explorer is a very handy gent who will search for and disarm traps, open chests containing objects, and collect any objects that are left over from battles (the objects are instantly converted into silver, another example of the game mechanics being simplified). He does however enjoy it greatly when you blunder into a trap yourself! The Crone is hilarious - "I'll put a spell on you!), the Light Fairy always make me smile (though for some reason he doesn't usually make much difference to the actual amount of light in most locations), and the Mercenary is quite fun. There are 16 basic creature types to be summoned in all, plus improved versions of existing creatures. The higher your rhythm, the better their abilities.
Aesthetically the game is nice, not amazing by any means but it gets the job done. The voice acting on the whole is very good and as mentioned often funny, but once or twice it just sounded like completely the wrong inflection was put on some of the words. There is a little bad language and quite a lot of innuendo in the dialogue (the game is subtitled: "A Quest for Coin and Cleavage"), which along with the slightly gory battle merits the 12+ PEGI rating for the game.
There isn't much scope for conversations in the game beyond the pre-set conversations, though you do get the opportunity to give a positive or negative response in many situations. This doesn't generally have a huge impact on the outcome but does at least give you some control. Oh, and many people in the game seem to like it if you're rude to them - which considering the Bard's personality is just as well!
Overall it struck me as Gauntlet meets Dungeon Master (I appreciate that if you weren't into gaming in th late eighties and early nineties, this may mean nothing too you!). It's no quite an arcade game, and not quite an RPG - it may not be a satisfying blend to most hardcore fans of either genres, but I found it an entertaining and somewhat unique experience. Without the humour it definitely wouldn't have been above average, but it's a game that will frequently have you laughing and smiling, which makes up for any parts of the game that start to feel a bit tedious.
Now that it's out on budget (on the Revival brand, the game's original publishers were Ubisoft), it represents great value for money as it's a long-term challenge to get to one of the possible endings, let alone all of them. (Not sure how many there are but the packaging says there are "many" possible outcomes, and I've already come across several areas where the game looks like it has the possibility to branch out in different directions.) I don't think there's a CD-ROM version available now, but even if there is go for the DVD-ROM version. The full game takes up a whopping 7.5Gb and even the normal install uses up just over a gig of memory. If you don't have a really good graphics card you'll probably experience some slowdown at parts of the game where there's a lot happening on screen, and considerable slowdown in some of the cut scenes.
System Requirements
OS: Windows Me / 2000 / XP (+Vista - see below)
CPU: Pentium P3 933MHz or above
Graphics: GeForce 3/4/FX/6/7/8 series (probably not GeForce 4 MX), or Radeon 9000 or above.
If you have Windows Me/2000/XP you can skip the next bit!
Running The Bard's Tale on Windows Vista
Officially the game doesn't run on Vista, and I had problems both installing it and playing it after I got it to install - it constantly crashed to the point of unplayability. However I managed to overcome both problems - here's how:
The problem is not in fact with Vista itself. The game uses Windows Media Format 9 (used in Windows Media Player 9), whereas Vista comes with WMF 11 which does have some backwards compatability issues. When you try to install the game, it looks for the DLL files associated with WMP 9 - and, of course, does not find them. However if you exit the dialogue box that comes up telling you that you need to have WMF 9 installed, you get the option to either cancel the installation or install with the recommended settings. If you choose this the game does actually install properly. Problem solved.
However you will probably find that the game frequently crashes to the point where you think it's a waste of time trying to play this game. I was at the point of giving up and installing the patch (for the European release of the game - I'm not sure there is one for the American release) didn't seem to help. Running it in XP or any other compatibility mode didn't help either. However as the problem was with WMF not Vista itself, and the game ran fine most of the time but crashed when entering a cut scene, it occurred to me that turning off the different graphical effects or turning them down to minimum might help. Once I had done this the game obviously didn't look quite as good, but it was still perfectly playable and I haven't had a single crash since in over 8 hours of playing time. I have no idea if one particular option was responsible for the crashes, but who cares? It doesn't make all that much difference to how it looks and without the game bombing out frequently, I've really enjoyed the game!
Hints and Tips
As The Bard's Tale can be rather challenging, here are some tips for you:
- SAVE OFTEN. This is the single most important tip I can give you - there are save points dotted around the game world (you can't just save anywhere), so make good use of them!
- TAKE TIME TO PRACTICE USING THE INTERFACE - when you're in the heat of battle is not a good time to find out that you don't fully understand how the ranged weapon interface works!! (I found this out the hard way...) In fact every interface in the game works very well and is well thought out - however it isn't always explained very well, so find yourself a nice quiet place or somewhere with very easy enemies, and practice.
- EXPLORE EVERYWHERE - chests containing items are usually located in the little nooks and crannies that don't seem to have any purpose. There are quite a few token that you can find in the game that will boost your stats (permanently), and very few of these can be found without significant exploration.
- WHEN YOU LEVEL UP, THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK - while every stat is useful in one way or another, think about both what you're likely to need most for your next big task, and what suits yours style of play. The effect that the Luck stat has is very difficult to quantify; also, Charisma gets you things cheaper... but wouldn't it really be better to go and earn the extra money, also earning valuable experience points at the same time? At times you can also choose extra abilities - critical strike, power shot, Treasure Hunter skill - again, think carefully before you choose one of these, it will be a while before you get to choose another!
- DON'T NEGLECT THE RANGED WEAPONS - I found that at the start of the game it was very easy to rely on the melee weapon and just bash my way past the enemies. Some bosses will just be impossible if you try to keep doing this, and you will want to keep your Dexterity topped up. The ranged weapon also has the advantage of being able to attack enemies out of your direct vision - as long as you can see them on the map, you can usually send an arrow their way.
- MAKE GOOD USE OF THE MAP - see above! It can also stop you from running headlong into so many enemies at once that you have no chance. The map can lurk in the top right of the screen, or be superimposed on the playing area as a bigger map, or turned off altogether (which I definitely don't recommend!) The map can also point you towards the next save point, shop, exit, or person that you need to talk to.
Well, there you have it. A fun game with quite a bit of depth despite some aspects of a traditional RPG being simplified, but not for those very easily offended.
Tested on: Packard Bell iMedia J2489 - not real problems once the Vista issue was taken care of, quite a bit of lag on the cut scenes, some in the game itself on occasions. I would think that the best performance would be with a GeForce 7600GT or better.
Third person action RPG that casts you as the Bard, musician and adventurer Based on the original Bard's Tale, the grandfather of all role playing gam...More at Amazon Marketplace
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