Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 Review
Nostalgia is a complex emotion. Thanks to our tendency to selectively remember things, past experiences often seem better than they were. This certainly applies to video games. Which brings us to Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2, which was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2004. Is it a country worth revisiting, or an empire best forgotten?
A viewer? Not so much
No such thing as a true remaster, the current release of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 scales up the resolution and that’s about it. If you’re looking for bright, new textures, detailed character models, or updated mechanics, you’ll be disappointed. Those PlayStation 2 era graphics haven’t aged well. Playing in 4K is great, but muddy and primitive textures don’t fare better in 4K, even if they’re a bit sharper. In fact, it just emphasizes how dated everything looks. While I played Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 on PC, I imagine those simple textures would be a lot less disappointing on the Switch in handheld mode, where expectations are lower.
But as we all know, games aren’t all about flashy graphics and impressive lighting. If an older game has a great story, cool characters, and clever design, we can overlook the visual flaws. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is a better case in this regard. Better, not necessarily coercive.
Still stylish?
For anyone in need of a refresh, Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance and its sequel are hack-and-slash action games. They are different from the mainline, turn-based Baldur’s Gate series, although both are based on the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, monsters, and lore. There are probably a lot of players who don’t care about that. They just want to play a dungeon crawler along the lines of Diablo in its early days. You know, for the microtransactions.
The basics are hack and slash 101 by default: you choose a character class from warriors, villains, wizards and necromancers and go on a quest. You can play couch co-op, but not online. If that seems a little behind the curve in 2022, it’s because almost none of the 2004 mechanics have been updated. So there’s no lock-on, and close melee feels incredibly inaccurate and unsatisfactory. On the other hand, you are rarely attacked by imposing large groups of enemies, and casters can be a fun class. The technology to address thousands of people just wasn’t there. If you enjoy dabbling in different classes, Dark Alliance 2 offers a slightly different mix of quests depending on the character you’re playing. For the time, the ability to tackle side missions in any order was pretty forward-looking.
The story itself is decent, filled with locations and characters familiar to players of Forgotten Realms/Wizards of the Coast products, though it never strays far from fantasy archetypes. While the paths through it are quite linear, there is a good variety of environments to explore and dungeons to clear.
While options for customizing the visuals or sound are bare at best, the controller support is good and button assignments can be reassigned. This certainly doesn’t seem like an important point for the marketing team to hold onto.
Not far enough
Like the recent re-release of Baldur’s Gate, it would be hyperbolic to call this new version of Baldur’s Gate 2 a “remaster”. Cleaned up is a more accurate description, with upscaled resolution and a few less fraying. At $30 US, it’s a mid-priced 18-year-old game that may still have some evergreen content, but is definitely a product of its time.
Players who delve into the historical origins of the genres they love will find Dark Alliance 2 worth playing. Anyone familiar with the mechanics and visuals of recent fantasy ARPGs is likely to grimace a bit. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance has enough compelling stories and characters to deserve a true remake or remaster. For the price, this version just doesn’t go far enough, even for players hoping for a touch of nostalgic nostalgia.
***PC code provided by the publisher for review***
The good
- Good story, interesting characters
- Decent quest design
- Fun battles at a distance
- Innovative crafting and weapons (in 2004)
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The bad
- Simple, muddy textures
- Primitive Character Models
- Melee fights are not fun
- Looks and plays like a 2004 game
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