The Bard's Tale is a cross platform action RPG from the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era (Don't ask me the generation number, I can never remember.) that I really... really dislike.
The gameplay is really ropey and hard to manage and your character feels like he shouldn't have attacks himself with how badly he controls. Which... the main focus of combat is your summons, so that's fine. You're supposed to try and position it so your summons (Some of which exist for getting hit) get hit instead of you.
Honestly the gameplay was fine for a game of its era. What really irks me is the humor. It's bad parody, clearly from a bunch of nerds bitter about specific tropes being popular. It's like a So Bad It's Awful "Darthwiki" page on TVtropes before the website existed.
The main conceit of the game really does seem to be "The Bard is an asshole and we're making fun of Young Chosen One plots." and it's very on the nose at all times like you were watching Scary Movie's take on Scream. About the third time they sang It's Bad Luck To Be You was when I wanted to stop playing, but I powered through because it was the 00s and I had a game, I had to play it. I had the PS2 version.
Honestly it feels like a parody of RPGs by people who hate them.
Meanwhile, 2004's Sacred and it's sequel Sacred 2 feel like a loving parody of RPGs with well thought out gameplay especially for the genre, both of them being open world ARPGs (Think Diablo 2 clone for the first one, and some kind of full 3D open world ARPG for the second. I've edited the ini files to the point where it basically controls like an old MMORPG.)
The plot makes only the smallest efforts to be "serious" and the payoffs tend to be jokey one liners from the protagonist that feels like they're going through the motions because they're having fun, with voice actors fully in on the jokes, with random combat barks that let you know you're here for a long time and a good time.
I'll be streaming Sacred 2 starting after a couple of days off, so let's talk about the first game.
Sacred is a game you'll boot up and think is super serious... until the first time your character opens their mouth for a one liner. Where The Bard would make a witty quip about everyone but him being "Tartan clad trash", your protagonist in Sacred (Of which you pick from several characters with pre-existing personalities) will say something cheesy, and if the camera angle wasn't zoomed out isometric you could see them doing the "Well here we go again!" sitcom face.
And for the expansion of Sacred, Sacred Underworld, you go to hell. With the exact same tone.
Or when you're fighting enemies and calling down fire from the sky and the enemies around you scatter and run, as the Battlemage, and he yells out "Hey come back you're ruining my quota!"
IDK what my point even is anymore, but the PS2/Xbox/PC Bard's Tale feels very mean spirited and bitter.