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Being a huge geek, and more specifically, a gaming geek, I was ultra-thrilled to hear that the Bard's Tale series was being resurrected for platform gaming. I was one of those kids who bought graphing paper to map out dungeons...oh my god, I'm stopping now. So anyway, the original series was a very by-the-books take on an RPG. You create a party, people with different attributes and skills that individually would be devoured by the wilds, but together could overcome any evil. The Bard, it seems, much like Buffy, came back from the land of the dead a little skewed. Developer inXile apparently worked with Brian Fargo, the creator of the series, and they decided to make it a laugh fest. Luckily, there's plenty of good action to glue each humorous moment together. It's nice to play a game that parodies such an overwrought genre. The voice acting (including Cary Elwes as the Bard) is superb and really milks the most from the script. I can't say that I've finished the game, but I definitely return to it once or twice a week. It's nice to just sort of pop back into this quirky world where snarky comments can pay off. The controls are fairly easy to learn (I guess it is similar for other inXile games), but the learning curve for me kept me from diving right in. One thing that is either irksome or convenient, depending on your take on RPG and the whole submersion principle, is that the booty you claim--be it weapons or armor--instantly turn into gold. While this is convenient, it sort of takes the fun away of hawking your wares from shop to shop to find the best deal--or having to choose which piece of equipment to leave in the field because you can only carry so much. Something that also is a departure, and is kind of in the Final Fantasy vein, is your ability to summon people to help you. It was always the Bard's greatest ability to summon creatures to fight at his side. This game is no different, but I prefer a changing cast of characters for my sidekicks, rather than a prescribed "Crone" or "Heroine" or "Mercenary" to help out. Overall this game is great effort and if, like the original series, they put out a "Construction Set," I'm definitely on-board. (jeremy.01.05)
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