The Bard's Tale

The Bard's Tale: A Comedic Action RPG

Discover the humorous world of The Bard's Tale, a role-playing video game where you play as a selfish rogue bard prioritizing coins and carnal pleasures over heroic deeds.

What is The Bard's Tale?

The Bard's Tale is a comedic action role-playing video game developed by inXile Entertainment and released in 2004. It is a modern remake of the 1980s RPG series of the same name.

Players take control of The Bard, a selfish and snarky rogue bard who is more interested in scoring coins and carnal pleasures than performing acts of heroism. However, he gets drawn into a quest to save a princess and defeat an evil wizard after the ghost of a deceased bard and a fanatical priest threaten him.

The game combines hack-and-slash combat with puzzle solving and dialogue trees. The Bard can cast magic spells by strumming his lute, summon allies, and manipulate enemies during battle. Outside of combat, players must solve various puzzles and rhyming riddles while interacting with eccentric non-playable characters using sarcastic conversation options.

With its irreverent humor, colorful hand-drawn graphics, and extensive voice acting, The Bard's Tale parodyed and paid homage to classic fantasy RPGs of the 80s and 90s. An updated version, The Bard's Tale Remastered and Resnarkled, was released in 2018.

The Bard's Tale Features

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