Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II Review (Feo)
TL;DR An improvement over BGDA in all ways
Wot I liked
- WASD+mouse control scheme. It befuddles me that it is not the staple control option for all ARPGs;
- There're 5 classes which are quite fleshed out, especially in comparison to BGDA1;
- Arrows stick out of enemies' bodies;
- Very extensive crafting: there're dozens of modifiers enhancing the gear;
- Extreme difficulty has a point now: it allows you to upgrade gear to +15 (Hard's cap is +5);
- Extreme difficulty is basically NG+: tougher enemies, old character, more loot;
- The story is not so braindead and ends in a cliffhanger;
- You can actually fall to death;
- Combat is simple but fun and improved since BGDA1: block and strike, dodge range and magic.
- There is more than one build for each class - they are not much but the gameplay is quite varied. Jousting from BGDA1 was fixed, which is a plus in my book;
- There's some item customization (no description of what magic modifiers do though);
- There're actual feats that'd slightly change the way you play your "class";
- Monster variety has been greatly improved: there are different races, monstrous and otherwise, elemental, abberations and undead - it really looks like a D&D licence game.
Wot I disliked
- It did not look great in 2001, it does not look good in 2022;
- It is expensive. Charging a basically full price for a 20 y.o. game, which wasn’t hat good in the first place is madness;
- WOTC has no right to sell this game: it's been made by Obsidian 20 years ago. You'd rather buy some title that Obsidian owns to support the real developers not licence holders;
- Bladed weapons' (bastard swords, greatswords, etc.) textures are 2d and you can see how 2d it is most of the times. As a matter of fact all weapons are 2d but it's most obvious in bladed weapons;
- Sloppy gamedesign: subtitles cutoff, no item descriptions;
- Combat and pathfinding for AI is weird: you're going to see some weird dances;
- On harder difficulties there is a lot of downtime as you have to regen health: health pots are too expensive to heal in between battles and there is no rest mechanic. Besides the enemies have too much hp and dmg thus aggravating the problem.
To sum it all up, BGDAII is an example of how WOTC ran the franchise into the ground. BGDA is hands down worse than Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. It has nothing on ARPGS from other franchises. Its gameplay is better than Dark Alliance 2021, which only further proves my point.