Before you pop the game in, you’ll be laughing (read the instructions on the front of the disc). Within the first few minutes of turning on The Bard’s Tale, you will have already guffawed a dozen times. This game is hilarious, and has a wonderful self-parodying style few others can match. It’s all about setting up typical role-playing clichés and knocking them down, something long-time fans of the genre will appreciate and recognize from classic Interplay RPGs like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. It’s less subtle than No One Lives Forever’s spy spoofing, but not quite Conker’s level over-the-top – a perfect middle ground between tongue-in-cheek and farce.

Leading the charge in this accomplishment is some of the best writing, music, and voice acting I’ve encountered all year. Dialogue is wall-to-wall laughs and delivered with spot-on timing by the likes of Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, Robin Hood: Men In Tights) and the always-excellent Tony Jay. The game has a pitch-perfect score, provided by industry staple Tommy Tallarico Studios, and some of the most enduring lyrics since PaRappa the Rapper. You’ll be singing the ode to Charlie Mops for days.

The game’s no slouch in the visual department, either. A surprising amount of detail and personality has been placed in the character models, and their designs are traditional, yet distinctive. Environments are typical of the genre (forests, caves, artic wonderlands, etc.) but there are no hitches to speak of thanks to the engine used in the game, licensed from Snowblind’s Champions of Norrath. It also features the kinds of little touches that make geeks like me go a big, rubbery one, your dog chasing random birds when you aren’t in combat for example. If there is a visual problem, it’s that the isometric camera doesn’t always provide the best view. It can be repositioned slightly with the right analog stick (rotated, zoomed in and out), which helps from time to time, but if you are fighting under a tree or some other large obstruction, you’ll have to fight blind. A real annoyance, but it often comes with the territory.

The biggest problem with The Bard’s Tale is that once you strip away all its charm and personality, it becomes practically indistinguishable from any other action-RPG, save for the fact that it’s not as deep. Five minutes into wandering around a troll-infested cave and you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate it from any other troll-infested cave you’ve ever had to hack-and-slash your way through, particularly since the combat system lacks any sort of finesse. Sure, once you encounter the next cut-scene you’ll be treated with some hilarious deconstruction of troll-infested caves in action-RPGs, but in the meantime you’ll still have to mash through wave after wave of brain-dead monsters. It has neither the endless item hunting of Champions of Norrath, nor the complex character building of Dark Alliance 2, and a total lack of multiplayer limits the longevity quite a bit. This isn’t to say you won’t enjoy the game, but gameplay alone won’t make you love The Bard’s Tale. You have to play it for the story, the characters, the dialogue, the songs, and just consider the hack and slashing a necessary evil to get you from cut-scene to cut-scene.

Also, the game isn’t nearly as open-ended as Brain Fargo let on in interviews. Sure, it’s not as linear as Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, but you never feel like the world’s your oyster. The levels are still as restrictive as anything you’ve seen, even if you are relatively free to pick your quests as you see fit. If it makes you feel any better, you can affect the game by your reactions in certain cut-scenes. In most instances, you are allowed to choose one of two reactions to questions and comments - the smirking, sarcastic reaction and the smiling, heroic one. There’s no incentive to pick either, no right or wrong reaction, but the one you select will change things slightly. It doesn’t have enormous sway over the story, this isn’t Knights of the Old Republic we’re talking about, but it’s more role-playing than Xenosaga gave you, so be grateful.

HIGHS:

LOWS:

• … But it’s only half good.
• Camera can be a headache.
• Even the best single-player only action RPG has longevity issues.

If you picked up The Bard’s Tale to be wowed by gameplay, you grabbed the wrong game. Return it for something flashy and leave this one for people who can appreciate the value of humor and personality. My recommendation? Pick this one up once it hits the bargain bins and you won’t regret it.

Overall Score: 8.3

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