The Bard's Tale

Developer: Interplay
Year: 1988

This is a tough one to review, for two reasons. First of all, it's an RPG -- what are we honestly going to get out of playing it for half an hour? And second, I've probably put 100 hours into the Bard's Tale over the course of the last 20 years, so there's not a lot for me to learn about it. So here's an attempt to review the game, and the NES version.

First of all, Bard's Tale is an amazing game. There's depth, there's really good dungeons, interesting characters and classes, there's challenge and some puzzle solving -- it really has everything that subsequently became standard for computer RPGS. It also has the bad stuff -- random battles, grinding, some clunky interface stuff. But mostly, it's a really, really good dungeon crawl, one that i've come back to several times since I first played it at the Bucktown Public Library.

The NES version suffers notably in terms of interface and control -- again, establishing a pattern for RPGs that's still around on consoles today. The graphics are also notably crappier, which was a surprise for me given that they really weren't that good on the Apple. The town of Skara Brae was clearly pre-fab and everything looks like everything else, up to and including dungeons.

Still and all, Bard's Tale is a great, great game. It's fun, challenging, has a diversity of monsters and the NES version preserves the spirit of the game even if it misses out on a little in terms of execution. If you haven't played Bard's Tale, this isn't the version to start with -- but it's definitely a game worth playing.

Rating: 8/10 Great game, one of the greatest, but clunky on the NES.
Advice: Get thee unto an Apple emulator.
Best Moment: Probably the first time you go back into the dungeon under the inn and realize how much ass you kick now. There's a reason people tolerate leveling.