The Bard's Tale ARPG: Remastered and Resnarkled

Only 24 percent of players have beaten the rats in the cellar (This is the first fight of the game) The single BEST comedy musical ARPG from the ps2 era! Avoid spoilers, this is key. The HARDEST top down ARPG you will never finish. P.S. The guy from Princess bride is the voice of the bard.

It's peak in a 7/10 kind of way, which is something that more games need to aspire to be

Despite it's age, this game gets somehow better with time. It's a rare breed of parody-RPG made by the titans of Interplay with genuinely good puns and terrific songs. Plus it's also spots industry legends like Tony Jay (his last work) as a narrator and Tommy Tallarico as a songwriter. The game itself is not that brilliant (it's just OK arpg with cool summon gimmicks) but oh my good is it funny, refreshing and full of clever puns and truly insightful jokes. It's a Steam Hidden Gem and I really think you should at least try it on sale.

I understand that this is a remaster of a game that was originally made almost 25 years ago, but it feels like it was made by someone who had only heard about computer games before and was still learning how to code. It has a glacial pace, both in terms of story and literal walking speed. Load screens are preposterously long given the low quality of the programming. The combat system is laughably bad, with no sense that there is any relationship between a click of a button and a swing of the sword.

A classic game full of fun and song, though it may be a bit old and clunky for some people. Tip 1: Do not waste points on Charisma. Once you've made a deal with the barrel maker in Houton you can go through the tavern and its basement twice to smash barrels, return for a 500 gold reward, then repeat indefinitely. (Stops working once you enter the cold mountains.) Tip 2: When you reach Dounby you should have at least 30 000 gold. Save, donate all you've got at the Kirk, then load to get your money back. This should unlock all the extra bonus content.

This game, is intolerably frustrating to play. The combat relies on the animation of your swings and the timing of your blocks, but the input is sticky and unresponsive. The summons are expected to do a lot of work, but the later you get the slow manna recharge means you have to just Sit for a long while so you can fill your squad, or charge ahead and be understrength. Mechanics of the missions are varied, but often rely on indeterminably long bits filled with frustrating set pieces, Example: an NPC escort mission through a field of respawning enemies, that the respawn time is instantaneous, and the NPC movement speed is like 1/4 your walk speed, where the NPC stops every 4 feet to throw an annoying line out and until they get through that line, they wont start walking again. And then, the distance you have to be from the NPC to make them walk is basically pressed Against the NPC. It's nostalgic to hear Tony Jay, but Wow does Cary Elweys sound Bored. Not that I blame him, the jokes are all extremely dull. There's one part of this that's kind of Offputting where you have a tone and art that are so at odds that it's hard to tell whether I love it for evoking a feeling like a Sam Raimi movie, or if I hate it for How at Odds it is. I am going to finish this game, but at this point it's out of Spite. All of this, and the bugs or oversights are also horrid. Your bow will Often not fire or you can't get it to acknowledge that it should fire, or lock you into it's draw and freezing you in place. The cursor can't be too far to the top left or you activate your inventory screen mid combat. The enemies all have Random HP so you can have 2 enemies of different varieties, 1 that is ostensibly a lower tier and 1 that is a higher tier with better equipment; and which one takes longer to kill is entirely a toss up. You can kill the higher tier enemy in 1 hit and then wail on the other lower tier enemy for like 30 seconds before they go down; and because the lower tier enemy is just packing inferior equipment and skills, it's just the equivalent of chopping down a really pathetic tree. I've had missions break, achievements not trigger, CTDs, get frozen, have summons spawn places that can't be reached, had bosses get stuck in animation loops, had enemies AI die mid fight, and had Boss AI die mid fight. 0/10, would not recommend at All. Go play Dark Alliance if you want a good ARPG from this era or find some bargain bin indie ARPG with controls that aren't fighting you more than the enemies. I'll revise this score if the story absolutely blows me away, but I'm 99% sure I know the twist in the story Now, at chapter 10/13 (And have known since chapter 2/13). Addendum: Okay finished it. Called it.

Unfortunately the Bard is not aging well. With its outdated and slow gameplay, the game quickly becomes boring. On the positive side - funny jokes and catchy songs to sing in the pub is enough for me to recommend. EZ to 100%.

this has got to be the funniest RPG I've ever played. I've beat it multiple times and am fixing to reload and play it again

Should you play Bard's Tale? If you are curious about one of many Diablo clones of early 2000s with a self-aware humor twist that plays like your usual repetitive jankslop? Well, yeah, you may give Bard's Tale a shot but other than that... I don't see why one would bother. I bet I would've loved it as a kid though. It has those early 2000s comfy video game vibes that we all know and love. So, nostalgia googles required.

I've completed this game on PS4, so excuse my low hour count. This is pre-Deadpool Deadpool. It's good. Play it.