I always find it interesting to look back on how some of these game series ended up on my radar.
It's true of any media really, hell, any "thing" at all. You hear about something through word of mouth or see it in a store or experience it because someone else is super into it and boom, all the sudden it's part of your universe. In a weird way, it's kind of a phenomena that doesn't really happen anymore. Nine times out of 10, you learn about something new from social media or via some targeted internet marketing blitz (or both). I grew up in a small town, in an era when the internet was still young and access to it was spotty at best. I did have a subscription to a handful of video game magazines. Almost all of these were console based and even when they did cover PC games, I usually ignored them. I had long since cancelled my subscription to PC gamer by the early 00's, so there was a brief period where that was a complete blind spot for me. And that was just in terms of video games. I had even less visibility into more old school fare, like tabletop RPGs or pen and paper games. These were kind of taboo in my house, the Satanic panic was dying out, but its last remnants still had the adults in town convinced that Dungeons and Dragons would lead us all to practice black magic and sacrifice our friends to the dark lord. I guess I kind of miss the whole process of organically discovering new things. Between the never-ending flow of information and just generally being an adult, it isn't something I get a lot anymore. But that wasn't the point of this whole opening rant, oh no. All of this was to set myself up with an excuse for when I inevitably did get to the point: I had never heard of Baldur's Gate when Dark Alliance came on to my radar.
I know, it's one of the most iconic PC RPGs of all time, but these kinds of games weren't really part of my universe at the time. I guess the original game was only three years old when Dark Alliance came out, so it wasn't quite the cultural touchstone it would become. As such, I had no expectation when I first picked it up, a friend and I were just looking for a solid, multiplayer RPG. We were totally cool with it having gameplay more similar to Gauntlet Legends or Diablo because we didn't really have any expectations from the Baldur's Gate, Forgotten Realms or Dungeons and Dragons names. From all that I have read about the reaction to this game, that was probably for the best. I totally understand why someone that was a diehard fan of Baldur's Gate would have taken issue with Dark Alliance. They could less to do with each other gameplay wise and Dark Alliance is way less involved and complex than its predecessor. But when viewed on its own merits, it's an outstanding game and while it just misses the mark of an all-time great, it's one I like to revisit frequently. It was one of our go-to's for co-op multiplayer back in the day, but even solo it's a fun adventure. It may not have much in common mechanically with other titles that bear the Baldur's Gate name, but Dark Alliance is a fun, addictive adventure that's easy to pick up and play while offering a reasonable challenge.
Dark Alliance sees you take control of one of three characters, human archer Vahn, elven sorceress Adriana or dwarven warrior Kromlech, who are on their way to the city of Baldur's gate. This trip goes south for your character quickly, as they are jumped and almost killed by thieves led by a man named Karne. Your character is brought to the nearby Elfsong Tavern to recover and once they have recuperated, they decide to help clear the cellar of rats as a favor to the innkeeper. While doing so, it is discovered that the thieves that attacked them are using the cellar and sewers to launch attacks on the citizens of Baldur's Gate. You decide to pursue the thieves in an effort to find out what is motivating them, while maybe getting a little bit of revenge in the process. This results in your character stepping into a hornet's nest. These are no ordinary thieves and their motivations run far deeper than relieving travelers of their gold. Throughout your adventure, you will discover and attempt to dismantle the inner workings of a complex plot that will determine the fate of not only Baldur's Gate, but the entire world. Yeah, this isn't the deep and complex plot that the series would become known for, but it's a solid backdrop for a fun hack and slash game. The enemies you battle are all interesting and have some great design, while your characters are serviceable avatars for the player. You will meet a variety of NPCs along the way, they don't see too much development but all of them have surprisingly deep dialogue trees to provide you with background on the universe. The locales here are as important as the characters, I had no interest in the Forgotten Realms before I played this game, but it does a great job of establishing its primary locations as critical to the story. The Sunset Mountains, Marsh of Chelimber and City of Baldur's Gate and their surrounding areas are all perfect backdrops for this kind of game. Each area has a hub, where the player will be able to rest, accept quests and buy items. These can be recalled to with potions at any time, though they are usually still pretty easy to get back to on foot.
The controls are pretty tight, and the layout is just about perfect, at least on the PS2 version. The left stick controls your character while the right moves the camera. You can slash, block, use magic/skills and jump with the face buttons, while the shoulder buttons are used for healing and magic potions. The d-pad is used for switching skills and swapping between your mele weapon and ranged weapons. Bows aren't just for the archer, each character can equip one, and the path of the arrows is dictated by a helpful line on the screen. Your HUD is limited, but it tells you all you really need to know, your health, magic and experience. I don't have much to say here, which in respect to controls is a good thing. Everything is responsive and the layout makes sense, though this Dark Alliance was also on GameCube and I could see that version being a bit of a bear to control. The graphics are really good to great, the character models are well done for the era and the lighting is particularly well done. There is a great variety of light and dark, claustrophobic and open, colorful and drab. The sound is okay, there is a little too much repetition in music but the tracks that are there are good and they always fit well with the areas where they play. The voice acting is worth calling out here, it's way better than what most games were offering at the time and it helps the story feel like it has more weight.
The biggest thing with Dark Alliance though is the gameplay loop, it's just so addictive and makes the game hard to put down. Anyone that's played anything Diablo-adjacent knows exactly what to expect. You mow through hordes of enemies, you take their loot, you sell that loot, you turn in quests, that's it. It's simple in theory, but it's both very challenging and extremely rewarding. If you don't use your block button effectively or cut and run when you have to, you are going to get overwhelmed very quickly. Again, that's a good thing, a lot of times games like this just boil down to smashing the attack button and you can't do that here. It's so rewarding to keep finding new gear, slowly but surely improving your loadout while building up your gold to buy better stuff. There are so many different items and variations of those items that it feels like you will never see the same item twice. It takes just enough time to level up that it feels like an accomplishment, but not so much that it feels futile. All of the characters learn of variety of special moves, either spells or physical attacks, and these are almost universally fun to use. At the end of the day, it's a tried-and-true formula done about precisely, which is a recipe for success. It helps that the dungeon design is excellent, they all flow very naturally and allow for a variety of ways to take on enemies. Multiplayer is also a big plus here, it isn't a perfect implementation, but it gets the job done. It would have been nice to see more than two players able to join at once, but that's a bit of a nitpick.
Of course, Dark Alliance isn't perfect. For one, it kind of assumes that the player has something of an understanding of the D&D/Baldur's Gate universe. That wouldn't be as much of an issue if it was a direct sequel, but it's a spinoff on a totally different platform. I don't care so much about the plot, that's not that central here anyway, but it makes it a little tough for non-fans to understand what enchanted items do. If you don't know what the suffixes on enchanted weapons mean then it's hard to determine what their actual effect is. This would be mitigated if you could bring up a detail page on each item, but that isn't possible. I guess the biggest issue though is that as addictive as the gameplay loop is, it's kind of overly tight. There really isn't much in the way of sidequests and the ones you can take usually just end up getting completed on their own in the course of the main story. It would have been nice to see an optional dungeon or some side content that you could unlock before beating the game. There also isn't anything really new here, I don't mind but I could see it coming off as a bit flat if you play a lot of these kinds of games. There's nothing really wrong with Dark Alliance and it's one of my favorite games to play through every so often, but it really doesn't break any new ground.
Still though, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a great game that's worth playing, even if you aren't a fan of it's lore or universe. You need not know all the finer points of D&D or Forgotten Realms or whatever to get the most out of a hack and slash game where you fight through hordes of monsters. It's easy to learn, you can pick up the controller and know exactly what you are doing right away, but it's also tough to master. It looks great, it sounds great, it's well designed and has precise controls. What more could you want? I do wish the experience were a little deeper, but I kind of also appreciate Dark Alliance for exactly what it is. A well designed, action packed, RPG-adjacent title for nerds to run through with their friends for 10-15 hours. Even people who don't normally like this kind of stuff will be able to find something positive here. It may not be the best game ever made, but Dark Alliance is really good and a personal favorite of mine.
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