Rented The Bard's Tale for Xbox and here are some impressions:
One line summary: Good top down hack and slash but the blend of LucasArts style comedy and action can be a bit jarring.
The Bard's Tale is a standard hack and slash with a few twists - a slightly open ended world (I found myself finishing several chapters out of order), creative summon monsters (like a pet electric spider), and of course the comedy.
This game's meat and best feature is the comedy, which comes early and often. Being able to choose between snarky and semi-sweet replies in mid-conversation is a cool feature, but moreover the game pokes fun of itself and other top down D&D games with sharp wit. Even the items you receive from killing monsters can be funny. Some "smart" things happen that involve some fancy scripting on the game designers' part (try walking into the impossible snowstorm in the Dwarven Ice Caves level more than once).
The combat is good, but after a few levels in impatience to see more and more of the comedy I ended up turning on a "god mode" cheat code to be able to zoom through the levels. Don't do that, you don't want to be a wussy.
I think the total length is much longer compared to say the early Baldur's Gate games. There are different ways of playing (magic, ranged, melee) and you can stat yourself up appropriately. I would say the gameplay is pretty sound.
So about the only bad thing I see in the game is the comedy is so good you are itching to see the next portion of it. Like Armed and Dangerous, it may be a style of comedy only some people enjoy, but if you enjoy LucasArts adventures or these sort of games you're probably going to love it.
If you can find it at a decent price, it's a good buy.
Overall: 8/10 (Based on ~10 hours play, probably half way through)
One line summary: Good top down hack and slash but the blend of LucasArts style comedy and action can be a bit jarring.
The Bard's Tale is a standard hack and slash with a few twists - a slightly open ended world (I found myself finishing several chapters out of order), creative summon monsters (like a pet electric spider), and of course the comedy.
This game's meat and best feature is the comedy, which comes early and often. Being able to choose between snarky and semi-sweet replies in mid-conversation is a cool feature, but moreover the game pokes fun of itself and other top down D&D games with sharp wit. Even the items you receive from killing monsters can be funny. Some "smart" things happen that involve some fancy scripting on the game designers' part (try walking into the impossible snowstorm in the Dwarven Ice Caves level more than once).
The combat is good, but after a few levels in impatience to see more and more of the comedy I ended up turning on a "god mode" cheat code to be able to zoom through the levels. Don't do that, you don't want to be a wussy.
I think the total length is much longer compared to say the early Baldur's Gate games. There are different ways of playing (magic, ranged, melee) and you can stat yourself up appropriately. I would say the gameplay is pretty sound.
So about the only bad thing I see in the game is the comedy is so good you are itching to see the next portion of it. Like Armed and Dangerous, it may be a style of comedy only some people enjoy, but if you enjoy LucasArts adventures or these sort of games you're probably going to love it.
If you can find it at a decent price, it's a good buy.
Overall: 8/10 (Based on ~10 hours play, probably half way through)
A games are there - one scene where you are floating on ice through a river is just mind blowing.