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inXile Entertainment’s satirical action-RPG arrives. The Bard’s Tale is a action-RPG based on Snowblind’s excellent Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance engine that takes ample opportunities to mock RPGs while providing fun, though not quite Snowblind-quality gaming action.
You are placed in control of The Bard. The Bard isn’t your typical hero, he doesn’t really want to be celebrated nor does he particularly care for noble, righteous acts. He just cares about himself really. At the opening of the game, you see how he tries to weasel in a free meal by getting rid of rat he brought in anyway. Unfortunately, his plan doesn’t go as well as planned and he is sent off into a heroic journey to save a princess, of course. Along the way, the game makes countless references to RPGs and their valiant nature while still having time for the occasional pop-culture allusion.
As I mentioned, the game uses the Dark Alliance engine and it doesn’t stray much from the gameplay found in Snowblind’s titles. You’ll have to battle a number of enemies from the undead to animals as you traverse from one location to another. To battle these enemies you’ll be able to use a number of weapons like bows and axes along the way, and for the most part, the battle system is top-notch, as expected. While the melee fighting is undoubtedly excellent the magic element is the combat’s greatest strength. You’re able to summon fighters to fight alongside you thanks to the Bard’s musical abilities, and they’re fairly adept and certainly helpful. You’ll only be able to summon one ally at the beginning, but you’ll be able to amass a much larger crew towards the end of the game. Aside from all the combat, you’ll have a number of side quests to complete when you enter a town, which will in turn reward you with some unlockables.
Now that combat and the side quests were mentioned, the next aspect of the game to discuss would be the inventory system. In this aspect, The Bard’s Tale is incredibly simplified. There is no actual inventory, but rather you have a set of equipment, which can be upgraded. Any equipment that you aren’t using is turned into silver, which isn’t used to great capacity. While it is a noble attempt to simplify the system, exploring and looking for new inventory – a pretty major part of action-RPGs of this nature – isn’t present in The Bard’s Tale. Furthermore, the inventory system leaks problems into the healing system, which isn’t as intuitive as it could be. You can be healed by either Princess Caleigh or a specific companion, but both take a number of button presses and the Princess brings with her an inescapable sequence, which takes up time when you’re in the midst of a tight situation.
Visually, inXile Entertainment put the Snowblind engine through the paces with greatly varied environments, all of which feature great detail and (for the most part) excellent texture work. While not quite as detailed as Snowblind’s last game, Champions of Norrath, inXile Entertainment’s artists have crafted a believable and satisfying world to travel through. The game’s characters have reasonable character models, and fair animation through the adventure, although some abnormalities in cutscenes show some flaws in the game’s animation system. The Xbox version looks a touch better thanks to the progressive scan support.
The game’s audio is exceptional. While the sound effects are nothing to write home about – in fact, they’re the usual sounds of the genre – and the music is only good though fitting, the voice acting really brings the game the life. The voices of The Bard and the narrator (played by Cary Elwes and Tony Jay, respectively) are exceptionally good and bring the characters to life. Elwes, as The Bard, truly sounds like an arrogant son-of-a-gun, while Jay’s hostile presentation of the narrator could not be better.
On the whole, The Bard’s Tale is a good action-RPG title and a great effort by the gang at inXile. The use of the Snowblind engine allowed it to effortlessly provide enjoyable hack-and-slash gameplay, while the dialogue and presentation provided the necessary charm to make The Bard’s Tale stand out. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Nov 26, 2004
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