“Thank God that’s over. I never want to read another word about that bloody bard.”

These are the words quietly uttered by the elderly narrator of The Bard’s Tale after you die, and choose not to continue. After a bit of game time with this cheeky variation of the game Brian Fargo and pals created in the mid-80’s, it may well be that you’ll find yourself of the same opinion about spending any more time with it. As a game, it attempts a tongue-in-cheek approach to presenting RPG character development and story progression. But so many pieces of The Bard’s Tale end up over-spoofing themselves, or feel like basic constructs, that the end result is something largely uninteresting.