#56 - The Bard's Tale

"So I was just walking down the road, right? And this guy threw a Bard's Tale cartridge at me!"



I sentence you to cast this game into oblivion.

The Bard's Tale is one in a long line of computer adventure games that was inexplicably ported to the NES a few years too late. In the mid-80's and early 90's, RPG's were advancing at a fairly quick pace. The general meat-and-bones was the same – grind, grind, grind – but the advances came in other ways, like better graphics, more interesting stories, and perhaps most importantly, well-made menus that didn't take years to navigate. For me, as lame as it may sound, the latter point kills whatever fun can be had from this old-school dungeon-crawl.

The story is your typical “band of misfits goes against an evil ruler” with one exception: your handy dandy bard. Bards are, perhaps, the most important member of your group. Their singing often raises your attack or strength during battles. It's a nice change from the warrior taking all of the pixelated glory, but it's the only real innovation in the game. The rest is sloooooow going, as all of the mid-'80s fantasy RPG tropes are nestled firmly within the game's CPU bosom. You want to buy weapons for your party in a quick and timely fashion? THINK AGAIN! You want to fight enemies that aren't insanely harder than you? NOT POSSIBLE!

I've been thinking of changing my name to The Laziest Game Reviewer, though without apology. It's hard for me to get through more than thirty minutes of games like The Bard's Tale, due to the outdated mechanics. I know there are some reviewers out there (Bless you, Super Boy Alan) who won't review a game until they've beaten it. If that's the kind of critic you're looking for, move along. The NES has a lot of crap, and if I'm gonna wade through it all, I'm doing it on my terms.

Yeah, the Bard's Tale. Old-school adventure fans, dig in. All the rest, stay away.

D