Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

Written by Chris Reiter  on April 06, 2004

Full Review: Baldur forgot to lockаhis gate again.

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PlayStation 2: Born to America on October 26, 2000. This date, is a day worth remembering. Sony cutting its one million hardware shipments by half, hundreds of people selling PlayStation 2 units on eBay for around $1,000 or more, the significant lack of more killer apps at launch time...and the many game delays that pursued thereafter. Known to many as one of the worst platform launches in game history, the PlayStation 2 system gradually became the best-selling console that it is today. This achievement wasn't led alone by the obvious facts that the system is the successor of the widely popular PlayStation, or that Sony launched the PlayStation 2 a year before Microsoft's and Nintendo's future viers ever saw daylight. It was because of all the must-have game titles that packed more than just one destructive punch, which occurred throughout the system's process of seeing itself become this powerhouse of entertainment. And one of its main key factors toward domination that still plays a role regularly in opposition to a seemingly vacant vastness on the competition's part is that the PlayStation 2 simply put out and is still putting out the big names and numbers of some of the hottest RPG games to arrive this generation. As the PlayStation 2 has seen its share of formidable RPG fare, one of those games was an original take on Interplay's revered PC dungeon crawler, styled after the classic board game, Dungeons and Dragons. It was then in the autumn of 2001 that Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was realized to be another memorable step to fame for the series, and it is now that Interplay presents the sequel to one of the PlayStation 2's first RPG hits to enthrall gamers everywhere, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II.

A journey awaits you in the famed port town of Baldur's Gate, adventurer. Picking up directly from the beginning of the end in the last game, it's now that the three former heroes who had set out to rid evil from the land and to aid people in need (while making a little pocket change on the side), have been imprisoned by their foes. A city without saviors is a slow but certain death. What's worse is that evil has returned to the fold. It kidnaps, it kills, it steals, it ponders in the darkness. Fortunately, you are one of five new heroes to arrive in Baldur's Gate in order to amass what fortunes you can come across, while enabling your unique abilities for the betterment of mankind (and more importantly your wallet). As a barbarian, a monk, a necromancer, a dwarf, or a cleric, step up and step out to seek your destiny to let the rule of evil know you're coming to put it back in its place.

Not a turn-based RPG, not a strategy RPG, not even an online RPG, but an action-packed hack-and-slasher at that, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is a stretch mark off of something big. Possibly the most acclaimed action RPG franchise of our time, the spawn of Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance, came to the PlayStation 2 three years before in fanciful fashion, and now returns a second time to bring forward the same justice. The biggest question is: how well does an RPG made for PC crowds translate to console gamers? While it's arguable that rampant monster killing and treasure collecting is a bit on the shallow side when there's a significant emphasis of the game focused less on the storyline and more on the gameplay, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II easily translates onto the PlayStation 2 quite well.

Much like its former outing, Dark Alliance II starts the player (or players) out with their pick in choice of a hero to use. Unlike the former though, Dark Alliance II expands on itself by removing its original three characters from the picture (a human archer, an elven sorceress, and a dwarven combatant), and packs on a few more pounds by now including five brand-new characters into its sea of lard. Of these five picks are Dorn Redbear, the human barbarian, Vhaidra Uoswiir, the drow monk, Ysuran Auondrilm, the Elven Necromancer, Borador "Goldhand," the Dwarven Rogue, and Allessia Faithhammer, the cleric of helm. And yes, I did say "players" earlier. Same as the first Dark Alliance, in this second outing you or a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a cousin of the friend who knows this really hot chick you like and you're too afraid to ask out, but she's coming over to your house anyway to "play" with you, can all rest assured that two gamers can venture through the game of Dark Alliance II simultaneously. Selecting whomever character you want doesn't really matter that much, as the story doesn't drastically change much for each component. What matters is that each character is unique in their own methods of doing.

Though all of the game's adventurers can equip all same kinds of weaponry and armor at some point except for a certain few, the distinction in their attributes' best excels in what origin they are from. The barbarian and monk, for starters, are most effective when relating anything to do with melee combat. They'll learn special abilities assigned to them that exceed their fighting styles accordingly. The difference between them really is that the barbarian exemplifies in weaponry status, while the monk is better off with using her arms and legs to do the dirty work. The necromancer and cleric balance out the magic acts. These two react to combat at a bit of opposite ends, as the necromancer is stronger at using magical attacks than he is without. Charms can allow him to perform such awesome feats as reanimating corpses to do his bidding or manipulating the enemy so that they'll turn over from the dark side and into the light. The female cleric on the other hand is much better at rallying against enemies from a closer range, though her line of defensive spells isn't powerful in the sense that they're used offensively. Where the rogue falls into place is as the stealthy treasure hunter of the lot. He's not only the single character able to sneak up on the enemy, but he's best with ranged weapons and can also disarm traps (things like floor-mounted, fireball spitting statues, spinning blades, and ground sprouting spikes of death) standing in his way.

About the game's combat though...it's a system that not being too deep, seems to work out. Even yearningly so. Utilizing its predecessor's format, Dark Alliance II can be seen in a top down, isometric view the whole way through. While put into this perspective, the formula remains the same. After accepting missions from characters inside the town of Baldur's Gate (and other times elsewhere), you'll traverse a series of dungeons, one after the next. Not necessarily always "dungeons" per se, but enormous structures like manors, forests, caverns, laboratories, ancient ruins, and such that are all separated into sectors your character (or in a two-player game, characters) needs to navigate their way around to put an end to hordes of evil monsters, people, and the bizarre (included in this category would be floating furniture), all the while storing more trinkets and treasures into your pockets. Item gathering is important because of the many components to find along the deeps of lairs after being left behind from the death of a fallen foe, from smashing open a crate or a barrel, or reaching inside a treasure chest. Stuff like weapons, armors, health or magic restoration vials, and gold at times, are some of those articles for the taking. Spread out in a vast array of these objects are various axes, swords, spears, bows, daggers, gloves, helmets, boots, body gear -- all of which will progressively get better as you hunt for and pick up more and more advanced tools of the trade. That's part of where the desire to continue along your journey sets in; there's so much ground to cover and so many knickknacks to retain, that you'll be driven to see what you'll see coming up next.

The other part is situating your character as the extraordinary adventurer he or she has been destined to become. This happens through gaining experience in battle. Every dungeon in the game contains passages brimming with opposition that will attempt to take your progression down a notch. Even though they are many and you being one or two, you're the one(s) who can arrange for stronger offensives and defensive items, level up, and use status gauges to your advantage(s). At the very top of the screen are three colored bars: one red, one green, and one blue. The first bar, red, counts toward your health. The green one uses magic. And the blue one is strung to string out a boost of speed. Decrease in these meters happens naturally; when enemies hit you, when your hero conjures up a spell, or when activating the learned speed boost ability that temporarily allows a character to dash. Each bar is rejuvenated automatically, or otherwise in the life bar and magic bar's case, by using their respective replenishing containers. On the other side of the screen is an outline of the dungeon's map, which increases in size as more veins are traveled down. Through these exits exist the monsters you'll need to take on if you're going to succeed successfully, either by magic or by sheer force.

Both venues of attack are broad, in that there are tons of spells characters can acquire in addition to the many weapons laying about. The only method to getting ahead, whichever of those two paths you prefer more, is that not to rush into every situation. Sometimes creatures of a lair will be waiting, say, in a large congregation of two groups of archers placed behind walls of boxes. In the center, there may wait mobile opponents with swords or axes in their hands. Slowly eliminating each enemy one by one, by walking up to each and chopping them up while safeguarding yourself (or simply letting some approach you from a distance beforehand, which they do) is a better means of keeping your adventurer's body intact rather than quickly being pummeled to death by dozens of flying arrows. Knowing when to block, how to manage your life, and when to attack can save you more times than you can count. Completing quests usually involves defeating a boss and his or her minions at the very end of the maze too. Once a boss is done away with and everything in the dungeon is dead, you'll be able to return to Baldur's Gate where you can collect a hefty amount of experience and gold for your troubles. The gold can be put to good use in buying better weapons, better armor, or even to mold specific weapons by combining stone materials and the weapons you find together to finalize a stronger form. Experience points though are spent on growing a character's blossoming attributes. Improving your character's attacks or defense, learning new feats, and also expanding your load capacity (since each item is marked by a specific amount of weight, and characters can only carry so much) are some of the routes to go when evolving.

Sadly for players who aren't RPG-savvy, Dark Alliance II is without any tutorial whatsoever. In fact, the game starts off right in the middle of the action, letting those who play it be the judge and the juror for whom is who, what, where, why, how, and when. But, after maybe half an hour tops, a better understanding of the game starts to sink in. Even without a bit-by-bit guide for knowledge, the schematics for the game are practically very common. Where X is for attacking with a weapon, the circle button is for exposing a selected magic ability. Choosing what ability that is, derives from the directional pad, where you can also toggle between map settings and prearranged weapons (namely a short ranged and a long ranged one). With R1 you can even aim a ranged weapon with a red laser to point the way (or to block, if you have a swinging weapon selected instead). L1 can shift, and the bottom two back buttons are for returning your health's status back to normal. Square initiates every action, and to jump that's a press of the triangle button. Lastly, the analog sticks control both your character's movement and the camera that can roam within a 360║ range. As you can see, the game may sound complicated (every button is used for something) and may be a little daunting for those who aren't familiar with games like this one. In terms of accelerating in both knowing how to play the game and accumulating a general skill for it all, however, Dark Alliance II isn't a game that remains too hard or too simplistic. The game sets itself on a scale that measures out just about right the more you play it, and the more you become a real hero.

Assuming the role of this hero also means you've got to look good doing the job. It's nice that the second Alliance is able to do so, in some ways at least. In its overall demeanor, Dark Alliance II isn't the juiciest specimen to come out of the oven. What looks more like a title released around the PlayStation 2's launch, the game discards broader intricacies with lesser refinements in its outdated, up above viewed environments. You'll wander through these corridors inside buildings with modeled bookcases, tables, breakable boxes and barrels all along the walls, and inside caverns with giant crates stacked around, and outside in mountains regions with lots of rocks and trees all in different places. Decent texturing, light sources (candles, flames), and even superb liquid effects, such as fluid sewage water, can be found in all of these areas to breathe a refreshing format of serenity into the life of the game. Here's the thing though -- the same game engine that was used for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is now used here in its sequel. That means that most of what was used in the original game has come along for the ride here too. Which is not a bad thing at all. The game is nice to look at. It's just that as a sequel to a game that was of the "standard" at the time three years ago, don't expect for this outing to have anything to do with redefining the way we look at games today.

With that said, the character models while in play degrade the quality of the visuals for the most part. Don't get me wrong, though. The characters here aren't warped so much so that your eyeballs will vomit colors you've never even heard of whenever they're on the screen. But, being inside an isometric view, everything's so small, and other than your adventurer guy or gal (or both) being there, there's a lot of enemies that, pertaining to the type of dungeon you're in, will appear in only a few forms, all of which are mostly the same sets of small figurines. Those that you battle all have sort of a dry essence about them too, in that since you can't really see them up close, the models aren't all that elaborate in design. However, there are moments when you'll visualize other folk, the important ones anyway, in a fuller fitting. When opening the in-game inventory or chatting with a mission giver, you'll have a larger window open to browse upon your hero's front end or the NPC's closer details (complete with fine facial expressions). There are also some animations present to compliment the moving movers in this game -- which isn't much, but at least they're there to work with. Strolling along and swinging your sword, leaping in the air to get on the other side of a box-blocked path, guarding from rows of enemy attacks, and putting your magic touch to work through several elemental spells all have little motions for all the little bodies in the game -- all done favorably enough not to worry.

An odd air drifts through sound in this land of Baldur's Gate. Inconsistent, the orchestrated musical power that climbs in a climatic tension wherever your party is led to, dies off suddenly for minutes at a time. Then the score returns along later, almost out of nowhere for no reason at all. This offbeat pattern is a bit awkward, but that's not to say what's there to listen to is of poor taste. Outside the music are some portions of voice bits and some of the commonly heard outcomes to each aftereffect. Weapons that swoosh or weapons that push (out items); feet that step in or out of a water's depth; and enemies that scream or magical effects that cream are all aspects that will emit viable noises for what are to be made of them. Speaking lines for the game's story-related characters aren't around as much as they should be, though. Because of the relative lack of a storyline, you'll only get to hear some well formulated dialogue from a divergent cast of unknown actors usually when speaking of a mission's matters. Otherwise, you'll mostly hear your own character's words that spring up on their own from time to time, and aren't too varied, but do add a bit of witty flavor to his or her feedback in the fight to stay alive.