The Bard’s Tale is not your standard hack-and-slash; you’ll have to develop a bit of strategy in your battles. You aren’t left to fend for yourself, however, because you’ll collect magical tunes as you progress on your adventure. These tunes will summon various assistants to aid you on your quest. You are limited as to how many of these summoned assistants you can use at once by your musical instrument. As you upgrade your instrument, you’ll be able to support more assistants at the same time and with these, you’ll need to select which tunes you’ll want to use together. Mind you, every one has its purpose, and at certain times, only one will do what you need it to. But in general, the combination of assistants you summon is up to you and your favorite manner of attack.
One interesting twist that The Bard’s Tale brings to the RPG genre is that when you loot your enemies, whatever you find is identified as the items they are (trinkets, jewels, coin, family photos, etc.) and then are instantly translated into a “cash” equivalent. The entire act of selling your goods is removed from the game. When you purchase something from a shop, the merchant says he has a return policy, “If you buy it, don’t bring it back.” So, effectively, all you have to worry about is how you want to spend your earnings, not whether you’re getting a good price on them. This may be a detractor for “tweaker” gamers who like micro-management, but allows the gameplay to flow quicker and more smoothly.
There is a “radar”-like map that can either be turned off or shown as a small circle in the upper right corner or a larger map over the middle of the screen. This map gains detail as you explore your areas and indicates where the Bard, doors, enemies, allies, and save points are. I found that once I had purchased a bow, I played the game more and more from the “radar.” It seems that your arrows will continue further than you can see, allowing you to attack even when enemies are off-screen and distant enough that they aren’t attacking you. You’d be surprised at how good you can get at aiming at enemies in your radar.
One of the more delightfully entertaining aspects of The Bard’s Tale’s presentation is the antagonistic and interactive relationship between the Bard and the narrator. It is more than evident that the narrator has the greatest of disdain for the Bard and they tend to bicker back and forth throughout the game.
