I beat it on Normal. Got three endings (don't know if there are more). My save file is at 23:45, but with all my deaths, I'd say it was in the 25 to 26 hr range. I've never played any of the original Bard's Tale games.
I generally dislike ARPGs, but I really enjoyed this game. The summoning of creatures with a specific ability is why. That and having your pet dog fight alongside you. It took me a few minutes to realize that there is no inventory system and I actually found that to be a good thing. Not having to head into shops to sell off stuff, or deal with inventory restrictions, was a lot better than I would have expected, since I'm so used to it. When you find (or buy) a better piece of equipment, you automatically get what you would have from selling the now useless piece of equipment.
The game itself is pretty easy (on Normal). Beyond the skills that allow you to equip various weapons, I barely used any of them. I fell into pretty much one combination of summoned beings for a large chunk of the game (expanding as you're able to summon more at a time). Except for trying out the different weapons, I exclusively used either Dual Wield or a Bow, and never saw a use for two-handed swords or flails. For probably 90% of the game, you can just blindly flail around attacking and be successful, especially when you learn the Tune for the healer. I think there were three places where I felt the need to use the artifact magic (and one was just to keep alive someone I was escorting, which wasn't necessary, but it nets an extra item if you do). The handful of boss battles took me three tries at most, with the first try being to see if melee combat was effective and to see how the boss fought. The end boss to get the good ending ends up being a cakewalk thanks to something that I would think shouldn't be available to use in that battle.
Most of the jokes did have me smiling, although they'd probably wear thin on multiple playthroughs (but, hey, you can always skip them). It seems they pulled several from Monty Python with some alterations. There were several FMVs that seemed to be cut short based on how abruptly they ended. The end movies are very fuzzy, which surprised me considering that the in-game FMVs were pretty crisp. I also did smile at some of their plays on things that are standard fare in RPGs.
Of all the things you can unlock, I only unlocked the opening movie, which I'm a bit stunned at, considering I beat the game -- which is not how I unlocked that movie.
