The Bard’s Tale

The Bard’s Tale is an iOS port of the 2004 action RPG, itself based on an 1985 PC game. It’s one of the biggest RPGs to arrive on the iPhone/iPad, and it translates pretty well to the platform as a top-down action RPG. The Bard’s Tale is a deliberately humourous game that spoofs or satirises the RPG convention, while also being an enjoyable example of it. Production values are high – there is plenty (14 hours) of live voice acting, including singing. The game promises 20-30 hours of adventure, with fifty enemy types and over a dozen bosses.

While you play as a bard, with access to magic and weapons, you can choose to customise your character for melee/ranged/magic. There is IAP but it’s optional, and you can get all the items playing normally, it just takes more time. Reviewers have found the original game quite challenging even on Normal difficulty, with battles requiring careful planning and stragtegy: the in app purchases give it more of an “easy” mode.