Heretical as it may seem, I have to start out by saying this: I don't like Diablo. I played the original game and I have played Diablo II but not its expansion pack (this is mainly due to the fact that somewhere in Act II or III, I was wandering around this teleport labyrinth and simply got aggravated because this sort of pointless wandering was one of the main things that bugged the crap out of me about the game in the first place).

There appears to be some substantial subset of people who enjoy computer RPGs who are slavishly devoted to the Diablo series and many of its imitators. I'm not one of them, and this is why. I find dragging one's character around the screen or attacking monsters by clicking the mouse button ad nauseum not only lacking in much tactical depth, but also really, really tedious. I find bashing every single barrel or chest or equivalent object one runs across in the hopes that number 2,350,493 will yield the armor that will decrease the amount of fire damage you take by 3% to be equally tedious. To me, these so-called "action RPGs" represent a console-like bastardization of the true computer role-playing experience as represented by classic works like Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and the old SSI "Gold-Box" series.

I mention this because I have long history with the Bard's Tale games; I played the old-school BT trilogy on Apple II computers we had at school, along with stuff like Carmen Sandiego. By the time you built characters up to the end of Thief of Fate, your characters are serious badasses. Vivendi released what many originally thought would be a "remake" of the old game in 2004. It was, in fact, an "action RPG," where you did not create your own character, but played a premade character, known simply as The Bard. It took me rather a long time to get through the 2004 Bard's Tale, not because it's an especially long game--it is, in fact, about average length for these games--but because the gameplay was very tedious indeed. So I would pick it up, play for a while, get stuck in an area, and quit playing for a while. The thing that lured me back time and again, aside from a general desire to finish something I started, was the humor. The game is peppered with hilarious cutscenes with singing and dancing Trow (goblin-like creatures). The Bard himself, voiced by Cary Elwes, is a smartass of the first caliber, and he is in a running war of words with Tony Jay's narrator.

The gameplay is much like any other Diablo-style game, but instead of having companions join your quest, you use the magical instrument in your inventory to summon magical creatures to aid you. As you progress through the game's various areas, you will learn new tunes that will allow you to summon different and more powerful creatures. The instrument itself determines how many creatures you can summon at once, because it uses mana, which regenerates over time, and provides you with a set number of creature "slots." The Bard can specialize in melee or ranged combat by maxing out Strength or Dexterity stats. He also has several other stats that you can point points into during the start and when he levels up, including Charisma (affects prices of goods in shops), Luck (affects damage/to-hit rolls in combat), and Rhythm (affects stats and damage of summoned creatures). I made my Bard more of a melee specialist and his low Dex score meant that he was, in fact, completely inept with bows. The control scheme, which uses the WASD keys to rotate the camera, the mouse wheel to zoom in/out, RMB to move, LMB to attack, the cursor keys to issue basic commands to creatures, and WASD in conjunction with number keys to select creatures and weapons, is a bit awkward but probably familiar to those comfortable with this sub-genre. You cannot save anywhere; instead the game relies on save points that appear in various areas, the quantity proportional to the difficulty level.

The story begins as The Bard has used his lute to summon a rat outside a tavern and conned the barmaid into paying him for banishing it. He is soon enlisted by the projected image of an imprisoned princess, Caleigh, in a quest to free her by extinguishing the flames atop three towers, each of which is protected by a powerful guardian. She declares that he is The Chosen One. As he goes about attempting to achieve this feat, he runs across the corpses and hears the pitiful tales of several other "Chosen Ones" who didn't quite make it, and this is one source of the game's humor, as The Bard finds himself perenially mocked by a trio of singing, dancing Trow who do not hold a high opinion of his chances for success. Having defeated the tower guardians, The Bard must make his way to the fourth tower in the town of Houghton, where Caleigh is being held prisoner by a druid named Fionnoach. Once there, a secret is revealed and The Bard must choose to side with Caleigh, side with Fionnoach, or leave and forget about all of it. Thus, the game has three separate endings, although in all of them The Bard himself makes out fine.

The game was okay. Its main draws are the terrific voice acting and the great story. The gameplay itself was not very exciting and by the time the player works through about 75% of the game, The Bard is sufficiently powerful such that none of the battles are very challenging. I would very tenuously recommend this game to others.