The Bard's Tale

What it is

The Bard’s Tale is a role-playing dungeon and urban crawl from Interplay Entertainment, first released in 1985. The listed edition includes the original Bard’s Tale 1, 2, and 3. Its premise follows a self-interested rogue who uses magical songs to summon characters to help on his quest. The adventure includes towns, forests, rivers, castles, towers, dungeons, mountains, and caverns, along with enemy encounters, bosses, and a cast of NPCs. Players can discover and summon 16 magical characters, and the item selection includes more than 150 weapons, armor pieces, instruments, tokens, artifacts, and other loot. The game also features voice acting, music, and song-and-dance sequences. Steam lists single-player, achievements, trading cards, partial controller support, and Family Sharing. The Steam version is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

What players like, and what they don't

Who it suits

A fit for players looking for a solo fantasy adventure with dungeon exploration, summoned characters, and a large assortment of items.

The Bard’s Tale combines a musical-summoning premise with dungeon and world exploration. The included trilogy gives players three original games, while the listed Steam controller support is partial.