(no subject)

[firstfrost]

I'm playing The Bard's Tale on PS2, and it's adorable! It's snide, sarcastic, mocks the genre... and does it well. One of the big temptations when putting a choice between nice dialogue (which in this case is "sarcastic but vaguely amenable") and snarky dialogue in a game is that it's easy to make the nice choice always the right one. Not the case here - sometimes you want to browbeat NPCs into dropping their prices, or they'll think you're a wuss if you're too nice, or whatever.

Some of my favorite bits:

• You're essentially in a running argument with the narrator (who is sort of hoping that you'll lose, because he thinks you're a jerk. Which you are.). You loot the chest in a house, and the narrator is appalled - you explain to him that nobody cares, and they just leave stuff around in chests all the time. You kill a wolf and all sorts of treasure falls out - the narrator decides that makes no sense, he's going to skip those paragraphs in the future, and thereafter all you get are wolf pelts (and the occasional picnic basket).
• As you go along, you run across the mangled corpses of (or arrive just in time to see get killed) the Chosen One(s) who have been pursuing your quest. Each time, you happily loot the bodies of their valuables, and then three goblins arrive and start the song-and-dance number "It's bad luck to be you" about the hapless victim. They sing for a while, and then run off.

Comments

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Okie doke, how did you know that was a good game to buy? Not that you're really "mass market". :-)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think I first came across it as a "not yet released, but we think you'd like" from Amazon, for the PC version that hasn't yet come out. So I looked at it, and there were a couple of user descriptions (they don't seem to be there any more) talking about the way the game starts (you get sent to kill rats in the basement ("How cliche..."), and you kill a little rat, and are doing your victory pose when a Great Big Rat comes up behind you and sets you on fire, so you run back upstairs and everyone in the bar laughs at you). And I thought *that* sounded fun, so I put the PC game on my wish list for a while.

Then shumashi herded us all to a game store when she was visiting, and there was the game for PS2! That would explain how it had been reviewed before being released. :)

Bard's Tale

[robgates.livejournal.com]

Now...that *does* sound entertaining. Do you know when the PC release is slated for?

By the way...hi.....long time no see! Blame Donna for my connecting to various Live Journals...she told me y'all were on Livejournal, so I figured I'd come say hi!

- Rob

Re: Bard's Tale

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Amazon claims June, but I don't know whether that means "We haven't figured out how to port it" or "Our expert porters are way backlogged".

(and Hi! You appeared at the same time as manycoloredeath, but were much easier to figure out.)

[(Anonymous)]

That was one of those games I played for a while but eventually could not take - be sure you only go where you have to go, because otherwise when you go back throuugh somewhere you will have the exact same battles. I gave up when I couldn't face going back through one particular area because it was too annoying.

-bellesby

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that the monsters all regenerate, yeah. But I find the combat about my level of tactical competence, so it's not too annoying yet. :)