In my eyes, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was a flawed yet serviceable adventure. All of the elements were in place; they just lacked cohesion. Dated as it may be, I have to admit it's still a good-looking hack & slash RPG that runs smooth as buttered silk. Snowblind Studios built one hell of an engine. No doubt their expertise would be a huge get for any publisher interested in a rapidly expanding genre. I mean, that's more-or-less exactly why they were contracted by Sony Online Entertainment to helm Champions of Norrath. As usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. Less than a month before Norrath was released, Interplay & Black Isle studios put out the long-awaited Dark Alliance sequel. It's... fine? It's... well... I'm not sure how else to put this, but the only reason I have a positive outlook on the game is because I'm trying to flush all of its undercooked qualities as fast as possible. The more I try to forget, the less disappointment I feel.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is a direct sequel but done in a way that feels haphazard and low budget. The heroes of the first game were captured by a vampire named Mordoc SeLanmere. He orchestrated the destruction of the Onyx Tower so he could claim ownership of it. Turns out it just sits in a pocket dimension or something. My attention was already waning when he laid all this nonsense out. I think his ultimate goal is destroying Baldur's Gate. Isn't that Eldrith wanted? Skip the elaborate plot and let her handle it. There are several cronies assisting Mordoc, but combined they have as much depth as a throwaway NPC in Shadows of Amn. If your chosen hero doesn't kill them the first time they meet, then the next confrontation is guaranteed to be their end.
This time around, you have five heroes to choose from. Character-progression is much more involved, with everyone fitting specific archetypes that can be specialized further with builds. I wanted a break from the "sword & bored" crowd, so I chose Vhaidra, the Drow (dark elf) Monk. Her innate talent is unarmed fighting, and it is ridiculously good. Besides damage, a string of punches to the face has a high chance of stunning enemies. She can also learn Piercing Strike, which drastically decreases the armor class of whomever is struck by it. I invested several points into Combat Reflexes, boosting her attack speed to Hokuto No Ken levels. Bosses melt in seconds.
If that wasn't enough, each hero has their own side-quest. Completing it grants them new skills, making them more versatile and deadlier. Vhaidra can become a master assassin, but I'm not interested in stealth and backstabs. Hail of Knives though... Ooh wee! It's quite nice flinging a fan-shaped spread of knives in a hapless crowd's direction. Even better, anything dumb enough to get close - which is 75% of this game's bestiary - is going to eat every knife all at once. Now our Drow friend has two methods for melting bosses in seconds. Adrianna from the first Dark Alliance only had one, so... it's progress! Progress is important. Building a face-punching / knife-throwing goddess of war sounds like a good time, and it is... sort-of.
There are two aspects of character progression that Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 struggles with. The first is experience. Killing fell beasts and evil minions doesn't often amount to much. The first few level-ups come quickly, but not long after, you'll be wishing for a side-quest or a big boss to beat down for those big meaty chunks of experience points. Still, I'll consider this a nitpick, since I never felt like I was lacking. Knowing what skills to master early saved me a lot of trouble. All that I was truly missing from the infrequent level-ups was the serotonin hit. Much less forgivable is the poor gear. Instead of fancy modifiers, most equipment is determined by their quality, which ranges from shoddy to flawless. The expectation is that I'd take the better-quality weapons and armor, invest in tons of gems, and then combine them at the workshop to craft my own godlike gear. The reality is that the workshop is very, very expensive.
I don't have all of the math memorized, but if I wanted to craft a ring with +3 to Strength and Constitution, then I'd have to pay nearly 50,000 gold. That's not including the cost of materials. Even if I invested my money carefully, the most I could earn in a normal play-through is 200,000. These costs balloon like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade if I'm somehow possessed by a wild spirit that demands I craft +5 equipment. Extreme Mode bumps the cap to +15, and... yeah... that's not fucking happening. Now, there is some fun stuff that can be done with the workshop, like crafting Combat Reflexes onto gloves to get even faster attack-speed, but none of it is necessary or feasible for casual players.
Back when I covered the first game, I talked a bit about the Potion Economy. There's no such thing here, or at least I didn't feel it. There was never a point where I had too few or too many potions. Vhaidra's skillset not requiring an intravenous supply of mana helps, but enemies being on the weaker side helps even more. I also won't discount the possibility that I actually learned a thing in the 20 hours spent with both games, like the importance of blocking. Enemies can and will block attacks, so holding R1 and allowing a moment to assess the immediate danger helps the most. The heroes also have Sprint available to them, a very nice skill for closing distance, making a quick escape, or just maneuvering around the battlefield. Combat is a little more dynamic than before. Giving players agency with an actual evasive technique is really appreciated.
However, there were many, many times where I felt like I wasn't being pushed hard enough. That could be my fault for not just starting with the higher difficulty, but playing with numbers can only do so much. The fact remains that most enemies either swing sticks or sling stones. It doesn't matter if I'm facing goblins or knolls or skeletons or arachne or grung or- ack! Maybe a spellcaster finds their way into the fray, but spells are just fancy-looking stones. Now if these predictable foes were arranged in ways that were creative, or even had numbers beyond "meager", then combat could've been really engrossing. Instead, I just cleared hallways like I would in any other dime-a-dozen Hack & Slash RPG.
Now there are a few times where things got annoying, which is a word with one less syllable than interesting. Bottomless pits make their return. One dungeon in particular is suspended in mid-air, with rock-tossing tornadoes trying to knock heroes off of narrow bridges. There's also a lich that chases intruders around. The only way to defeat him is by smashing all of his urns. It's silly, but considering it's the closest thing to a boss fight I can remember, then it must count for something.
Yeah, basically everyone you'll fight with is a dork, especially if you've got a powerful hero like Vhaidra. That exploit I mentioned in the first game's review also works here. Run in circles, punch bosses in the back of their stupid heads, you'll figure it out in no time. Anything that walks on four legs is just a big target for a knife barrage. Mordoc's second form is a bit of an ass, but only because he can heal. Stretching a 30 second fight into a couple minutes isn't enough to make me give a damn about him or anything else.
Though this game doesn't fall off a cliff in the third act like its predecessor, it also doesn't do much in the way of climbing. Everything looks cheap and... kinda ugly. I have no business commenting on this stuff - especially if you ever saw my ghastly face - but environments and character models look really bad... even by 2001 standards. Yeah, I'm saying Dark Alliance 2 looks worse than its predecessor. The atmosphere is less impressive all around. That feeling of "just going through the motions" hits early and never lets up. Believe me, I was thrilled to discover that this incarnation of the Onyx Tower is much smaller than before. Trudging through a couple of immensely dull penultimate dungeons was sapping my soul energy.
There's other stuff I could complain about, like recall potions still sucking and a shopkeeper who never shuts up, but I'm going to leave it for another lifetime. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 just isn't where it needed to be. Vhaidra kicks a ton of ass, and I imagine everyone else has equally good builds that make smashing hordes enjoyable for a time. Imagining is all I'll do, because the thought of leading a new character through tired locales and loser monsters without so much as a rare drop to look forward to has left me wondering if I ever truly enjoyed Hack & Slash RPGs. Maybe I do and just have a funny way of showing it. Maybe I don't and I've got a brain forever broken from the thousands of hours it spent drowning in Diablo & Phantasy Star Online clones.
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| At least give me something for slaying this dragon. Damn! |
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