It was only yesterday when I was mumbling something about the games on this 1001 list getting more familiar to me. The next game is so familiar that my one memory of it from nearly twenty years ago is that I was borrowing from a friend and I'm relatively sure I returned it a week later having completed it.
But that really is my one memory of it. I can't remember how Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance plays. I don't recall its plot. I don't even recognise areas from skimming through speedruns. Did I actually complete this as a teenager? Did I even play it at all? I'm sure I remember the cover and the name...
Whatever is going on in my memory, it's time to refresh it with a playthrough.
Frustrations
I've got a second-hand copy of Dark Alliance for the PlayStation 2, and I've got a PlayStation 2 all the way over there to play it on, but for the sake of easy screenshots, I'm emulating it. Or so I thought.
It turns out this game is one of those that play nice with emulators... providing you know precisely what you need to do to get the damn thing going to any playable standard. The game would stutter and drop more frames than it even had to give whenever there was a flame on screen. In a fantasy setting based on the Forgotten Realms campaign from Dungeons & Dragons, that's a problem - there's a lot of fire.
An hour of tweaking this and that, following years old threads and YouTube tutorials, looked to be going nowhere until I ticked or unticked the one thing that needed un/ticking to run this game without problems. Finally, after multiple false starts, Dark Alliance was playable.
Except that I have frame blurring of some description turned on, rendering many of these screenshots a blurry mess. Sorry.
The game starts with a character select screen, and you might argue that it's not much of a selection. The archer doesn't strike me as useful in what I think is an action-heavy, in-your-face, type of affair. The sorceress doesn't appeal for similar reasons, and I think spellcasting might be a hassle, which leaves me with the dwarven fighter, who then gets mugged by what I assume to be the villain of this adventure.
No screenshots of that. Sorry.
The first interaction you have with the locals is with the owner of the tavern, someone of sizable influence, with significant problems of her own.
We start in a tavern staring at some eye candy who tells us we might try wading through the sewers for the thieves who knocked us senseless and stole our cash because they use the tunnels to move around the town.
Rats. Why did it have to be rats? Why rats in the cellar of a tavern? What clichéd fantasy adventure is this? Have hundreds of hours of D&D storytelling from previous epic adventures not given gaming a better starting point than a tavern cellar full of rats? Come on now!
The voicework is alright, not that we seem to have any voice to go along with our responses, but that alone can't save this game from its generic opening. Let's go slay some damn rats.
Fun Times
I swear to all that is Holy I've played this game before. Why can't I remember it? Dark Alliance is an action-RPG that brings Diablo-like dungeon crawling into the world of Baldur's Gate. Consoles had to do things differently, especially at this stage of their existence, and that meant the mechanics from the Baldur's Gate games on the PC had to be switched up, and characters had to be manipulated via a controller.
The result is an almost arcadey dungeon crawler style of game, but full of quests to complete, equipment to find, wear, use, sell on, spells to learn, abilities to level into. It's D&D, and it's Baldur's Gate, but not as you know it.
Controls are simple. X is your attack, R1 blocks, Circle is used for spells if you have any, Triangle allows you to jump, everything is picked up or interacted with by a push of the Square button, L2 and R2 will enable you to quickly chug health and mana potions... every button has its use, and it's pretty easy to adapt to.
Moving around the 3D environments is a doddle, and you've even got camera control for looking around corners and into the darkness. The layouts of this cellar might make an architect look puzzled and give other game developers an example of how not to do things, but they're readable, and there are lots of smashable objects in them to have fun with.
It's a game where you don't have to think about what you're doing. There are a lot of buttons, sure, and there is probably a plot that you'll want to keep track of, but down in the cellar, it's just me (and a companion, if the multiplayer co-op is your thing) and a bunch of rats. As a quest, quite dull. As a mindless distraction from the world, not bad at all, though I was never quite sure of where my hits were going to land, or what I was aiming at.
As you go through the place, hoovering up all kinds of item drops like any other RPG, it's perhaps wise to take a moment to look through your inventory and reassess what you're wearing. After all, you might have picked up an excellent weapon without even realising it if you were just racing through the rats with only death on your mind.
Now armed with something more substantial, the rest of the rats won't be bothering anyone anymore.
That sounds like my second objective then, but I did find a bottle of wine that seemed significant enough to warrant a pop-up box. I wonder who wants it?
Marvellous. Next to our drunk friend is the merchant. I don't know where he's carrying his stock, but I'm sure I could trade out some crap for something more useful.
Back in the cellar/sewer, I'm reminded that I definitely have played Dark Alliance. Probably. All because I recognise these water physics. They're not perfect, but I'd seen nothing like them on the PS2 before. I remember that impressing me, way back when. There are some areas later on that show off some excellent lighting too, so it feels a little like a tech demo.
Another blurry image there, though. Sorry.
Further Frustrations
While I'm sure the voice artists are trying, the animators aren't. The cutscenes exist, and that's about as friendly as we can get. They're not going to blow you away, certainly not from what I've seen so far. That's Ethon, who needs saving, so we better get to it.
Turns out blindly charging a bunch of Kobolds with a Warhammer isn't the best strategy. Maybe I should coax them out one by one, and remember to down a load of these healing potions as and when. It's not like I need to stop fighting to do so either - just press R2.
Further Fun Times
It's an impressive looking game, this. There's not a whole load going on, I suppose, but it's detailed and snappy. It's responsive and dynamic and would need to be if two players were jumping around the place being attacked by many multiples of enemies.
There must have been fifteen spear-chucking ne'erdowells guarding the levers to a door I needed to get through here. How I wished I had a ranged weapon... Lots of arrows in my inventory, but no bow. After a few attempts at thinning the heard, I eventually pushed through, and it wasn't long before a boss fight.
Further Frustrations
It wasn't anything special to look at, or even take part in, however. More a case of spamming X and R2 until the job was done, less than a moment later. Still, one prison key, and one prisoner to free...
Well, at least the writing is improving.
Final Word
At this point, about an hour in, with just as long trying to get it going, I'd had my fill of Dark Alliance. I liked how easy it was to get into, but didn't like how repetitive it was. The characters and the locations look great, clichés aside, but I'm killing rats and wading through the sewers. Where's the grand adventure that Baldur's Gate offers me in other games?
I've skimmed through a speedrun of this game, and I don't recognise a whole lot of it. Hardly anything, really. Maybe I played a sequel. Perhaps I never completed it at all. Those water physics, though...
Whether I played Dark Alliance in the past or not doesn't matter any more. I've played it now, and I'm asking myself whether I'd keep playing it, and the answer is probably not. It's not a bad game by any means. If you just want to jump into a fantasy RPG world and just start swinging, then the arcade-like, action-heavy nature of this game might appeal.
If you want to do that with two players, then Dark Alliance will definitely appeal. How many action-RPGs are couch co-op? I don't know of any. Dark Alliance might not have it in the plot department, but it's got something in its gameplay. It's worth a shot to see if you like it, but I don't blame you for not wanting to finish it.
Which I have. I'm sure of it...
Fun Facts
The game was such a success that it was going to be ported to PC by CD Projekt. A PS2 dev-kit was smuggled into their offices to aid with the port, but it was cancelled long before anything would come of it.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, developed by Snowblind Studios, first released in 2001.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2001, via emulation and teenage memories. I think.