Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance finally released this week and it divided many D&D fans. On the one hand, there are players who are overjoyed to finally receive an action-packed RPG set in the Forgotten Realms after years of turn-based, tactics-focused titles. On the other side are those who are slightly disappointed with the streamlined role-playing mechanics and the game's lack of a memorable plotline.
Tuque Games' latest project is definitely a mixed bag. While it may be plagued with annoying technical issues and disappointing in terms of the depth and complexity of the story, Dark Alliance excels at what it set out to do: providing an enjoyable, co-op action RPG that is deeply ingrained in the lore of Dungeons & Dragons.
10 Loved: Iconic D&D Characters
One of the best aspects of Dark Alliance is the fact that it remains truthful to its source material. The inclusion of iconic characters from Dungeons & Dragons into this action RPG is the most outstanding example of how well the lore of the Forgotten Realms was turned into a core part of the game.
The four playable characters, Drizzt Do'Urden, Bruenor Battlehammer, Wulfgar, or Catti-Brie, are iconic Forgotten Realms characters who have appeared in the Icewind Dale games and various D&D books. In Dark Alliance, each one of them corresponds to a different class, seamlessly integrating those characters into the co-op action game systems.
9 Didn't Like: The Story
The plotline of Dark Alliance, while tied to the brilliant Icewind Dale Trilogy novels, is largely straightforward and forgettable, which is a shame considering how lore-rich and fascinating these novels (as well as the Icewind Dale games) are.
That is not to say that there aren't any references to the books or previous games set in the Forgotten Realms in Dark Alliance. There are plenty, and those who are familiar with the previous works will surely have a blast catching onto them. Unfortunately, they don't contribute much to improving the overarching plots of the game's campaigns, which serve as a mere background for the on-screen mayhem.
8 Loved: Level Design
Nowadays, the market is being flooded with so many massive, open-world titles, that it has become incredibly difficult to satisfy gamers with the level design in some of the more linear games. Contrary to the sandbox-style productions, games that make use of many closed-off levels, need to put a lot more effort into making their settings as detailed and fun as possible.
Thankfully, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance developers have done an incredible job designing each individual level. Players can feast their eyes on the colorful, beautifully realized Forgotten Realms locations that are fun to traverse through and full of throwbacks to the game's source material.
7 Didn't Like: Technical Issues
Sadly, well-designed levels have not saved the game from a myriad of glitches and bugs that it suffers from. Some of them can be game-breaking, forcing players to reload a past save, effectively setting them back and reducing their enjoyment of Dark Alliance.
The technical problems seem to be prevalent regardless of the system that it runs on, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, players with high-end PCs will find the bugs and glitches (at least the really annoying ones) to be much less frequent than on consoles.
6 Loved: The Combat
Aside from Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, which came out back in 2001, the vast majority of RPG games set in the D&D universe have implemented turn-based combat systems, mirroring the dice-roll mechanics from the tabletop titles. With the arrival of Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, the developers needed to make a difficult transition to an action-focused combat style.
Thankfully, the developers from Tuque Games were able to successfully implement the current hack-and-slash combat trends in their title. The combat controls and animations are clearly inspired by games like Dark Souls or the most recent Assassin's Creed games, which is great, as that fighting style corresponds really well with both the co-op mechanics and the action-packed core of Dark Alliance's gameplay.
5 Didn't Like: Uninspired Exploration
Although the individual levels in Dark Alliance are masterfully designed, there is, unfortunately, not much to do in them. Of course, much like the majority of modern titles, the game does encourage the players to stray off the beaten path and explore its secrets.
The problem is that those secrets are very repetitive and dull to uncover. Most of the time, they are simply similar-looking chests with some valuable loot or gold inside of them. Sometimes they are locked away until the players beat all of the nearby enemies. Either way, completionists who pick up Dark Alliance, will find themselves stuck in a loop of performing the same actions over and over again to get that Platinum achievement.
4 Loved: Music And Sound Effects
Even though many parts of Dark Alliance's gameplay fall short of players' expectations for this spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, the game perfectly captures the mood and atmosphere of the Forgotten Realms with its grandiose and varied soundtrack.
On top of the music, the game's sound effects, especially during combat, have been flawlessly fitted to the gameplay and remain extraordinarily faithful to the lore descriptions of particular creatures and characters, which is a rare occurrence in modern combat-focused titles.
3 Didn't Like: Solo Gameplay
It was never a secret that Dark Alliance was a game designed specifically around the concept of co-op gameplay for 2-4 players. However, since the option to play solo was allowed by the devs, it could have been executed in a better way.
Playing Dark Alliance by oneself can be a very daunting task, especially when players come to face hordes of enemies at a time. The power and numbers with which hostile creatures swarm the screen are rarely adjusted to how many players face them at any given moment.
2 Loved: Special Abilities
The inclusion of character-based special abilities in Dark Alliance was definitely a breath of fresh air, especially in comparison to the last action-RPG title with the Dark Alliance tag.
The unique skills, such as Drizzt Do'Urden's "Blink", add variety to the gameplay and are capable of causing some serious damage, often decimating large groups of enemies, making them more manageable to take on. Managing and frequently using special abilities is paramount to succeeding in this game, especially on higher difficulty settings.
1 Didn't Like: Clunkiness
While many of the game's features are very well-designed and detailed, there is still a certain lack of polish that remains very noticeable when playing D&D: Dark Alliance.
Controlling the character or interacting with certain elements of the game's world feels unresponsive and clunky sometimes, especially in tight spaces. Hopefully, this will be fixed in upcoming patches, as these kinds of issues are reminiscent of the PS3/X360 era in video games and distract players from what is otherwise a very enjoyable co-op title.