We talk sometimes about how people think writing is very easy because it seems like a thing everyone can, theoretically, do and how it’s actually not easy and this causes a lot of crap to get into the system.
Within writing, I think the genre that gets the worst end of this stick is parody, and within that lowbrow parody, because it seems really simple– make fun of cliches everyone knows, tell stupid jokes, and it’s a hit! But the truth is low parody is very, very hard to write. When it’s good you get Airplane!, but when it’s bad, it’s really, really bad. And while as a game Bard’s Tale has some redeeming qualities and is actually pretty fun to play, as a parody it’s really bad and falls into some very obvious and self-destructive traps.