This review contains spoilers
Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II is one of the first games that spring to my head when I think of the PS2. As someone who was born only a year after the PS2 released, this game just feels very representative of the era to me: a short and simple hack-and-slash game where all you really need to do is go kill everything in sight (aside from the select few NPCs you talk to) and loot whatever you see. Of course, a lot of that is bias on my part, since I have very fond memories of playing this game with my brother when we were both kids. It makes for a great couch co-op experience, but I found its also still fun to blow through in single player even in 2023.
As far as this port job goes, it feels exactly like I remember it, just with the addition of keyboard controls and a few weird visual bugs that unfortunately popped up. The game did also lag a little whenever I skipped through dialogue just before certain boss fights, but it picks right back up once the cutscene ends. I will say that the current asking price is a bit too much in my opinion since this is pretty much an emulated PS2 game, but that doesn't really have to do with the game itself. The way the game looks takes a bit to get adjusted to. I think that cleaning up the visuals like this port did actually makes the game look worse than playing it on a PS2, if that makes sense. However, I am really satisfied with just how smoothly the game runs: there are virtually no loading times at all and saving is damn near instantaneous, unlike playing the original.
The gameplay is simple but effective. Press A (I played this on a 8BitDo Xbox controller) to attack, hold RT to block, press B to use spells, use up and down on the D-Pad to cycle through spells, press Y to jump. I think the only thing that might trip some people up is some of the actions mapped to the D-Pad, like how swapping weapons (if you've equipped multiple weapons) is on the left but toggling the mini map is on the right. Otherwise, its very straightforward. Admittedly some of my perception of the gameplay is colored by my class choice: as you'd expect in a game based on D&D, your choice of class affects how you play the game. I went with Barbarian, which is the prime candidate for any player that wants to just mindlessly attack everything in sight, and I like it that way. It might be just a tad more complex for people that play the Elf Necromancer or the Dwarf Rogue, but the fundamentals are still super simple. When you level up, you get points to put into abilities, whether they're passive or active. In my Barbarian playthrough, most skills were pretty obvious priorities: grab Death Blow for higher critical hit damage, grab that one passive that gives you a higher chance to get critical hits, max out your Barbarian's signature Rage ability, etc. I will say that I was surprised by the Rage since I'm mostly familiar with 5e (fifth edition) D&D; as it turns out, in whatever edition this game is based on, the Rage has you sacrifice defenses for more attack power, whereas in 5e you're both tankier and more powerful when you Rage. Barbarians also get a really cool ability called Hero's Arm that lets you dual-wield two handed weapons, which makes them really strong. I found that the bosses are a lot of fun, but most of them are either way too easy to just waltz in and destroy or are really hard until you find out the cheese you need to obliterate them. Any boss that uses melee attacks sucks at following you, so I took advantage of that with the last two bosses and ran in a circle the whole fight. They aren't quick enough to get right in your face, so you can just get free hits in while they're still trying to follow the circle you made. I think the only boss I actually had to think to defeat is the zombie pirate captain who has a bunch of mobs he can revive and make the fight a living hell. To beat that guy, you just need to lure all the other enemies away from the boss room and kill them first, then you can go give evil Captain Crunch an easy whooping. The structure of the game is split into acts: Act I, II, III, and IV. Act III is probably the shortest one since its just you entering all four elemental planes to kill one boss for each plane. Longest act for me was probably Act II, since you need to go through four different long areas with some diversions along the way to grab some special artifacts. The overall structure of the game after you rescue Randalla from the goblin camp in Act 1 pretty much just becomes "Talk to someone, they tell you to do a thing, go do the thing" on repeat, which might get on some people's nerves but I didn't mind it at all. Oh, also, the game has a pretty cool Workshop system that lets you upgrade your gear with a wide assortment of gems that each have different effects, so long as you have a Rune Stone available. You might be thinking the game is too generous with gold and potion drops early on, but don't underestimate just how expensive the Workshop can get and how many potions you'll drain through in some of the lategame boss fights. You also pretty much need to use the Workshop to make sure your gear is as good as it can be, at least in Act III and especially in Act IV. I went from having nearly 140,000 gold in the beginning of Act III to only around 30,000 by the end of Act IV.
The story isn't really anything special, but its still fun to go through. It takes place after the first game, as you might expect; basically, the vampire lord Mordoc (not Murdoch) has kidnapped the adventurers from the first game. His big plan is to take over the Onyx Tower after its previous ruler, Eldreth, was slain by the DA1 adventurers. You go all throughout the different lands of the Forgotten Realms to help the Harpers - pretty much planar peacemakers - with the ultimate goal of finding out what Mordoc is up to and taking him out, although the player character doesn't know who he is until pretty much the end of the game and they don't know what goal they're working towards until the beginning of Act III. You go to a surprising variety of locations; even just in Act II you get to go to some elaborate underground Dwarven ruins, a gothic castle with a dungeon underneath, a desert gorge crawling with gnolls, a cave near the sea, a fishman (or maybe they're frog men) religious temple, and a Lich's castle complete with an observatory at the top. Lots of classic, if not a bit tropey, D&D places to explore and tons of cool enemies to slaughter.
Overall, my appreciation for this game is definitely boosted by my nostalgia for it, but I still think its just a really fun time and a symbol of a bygone era. Earns a solid 4 stars from me.
As far as this port job goes, it feels exactly like I remember it, just with the addition of keyboard controls and a few weird visual bugs that unfortunately popped up. The game did also lag a little whenever I skipped through dialogue just before certain boss fights, but it picks right back up once the cutscene ends. I will say that the current asking price is a bit too much in my opinion since this is pretty much an emulated PS2 game, but that doesn't really have to do with the game itself. The way the game looks takes a bit to get adjusted to. I think that cleaning up the visuals like this port did actually makes the game look worse than playing it on a PS2, if that makes sense. However, I am really satisfied with just how smoothly the game runs: there are virtually no loading times at all and saving is damn near instantaneous, unlike playing the original.
The gameplay is simple but effective. Press A (I played this on a 8BitDo Xbox controller) to attack, hold RT to block, press B to use spells, use up and down on the D-Pad to cycle through spells, press Y to jump. I think the only thing that might trip some people up is some of the actions mapped to the D-Pad, like how swapping weapons (if you've equipped multiple weapons) is on the left but toggling the mini map is on the right. Otherwise, its very straightforward. Admittedly some of my perception of the gameplay is colored by my class choice: as you'd expect in a game based on D&D, your choice of class affects how you play the game. I went with Barbarian, which is the prime candidate for any player that wants to just mindlessly attack everything in sight, and I like it that way. It might be just a tad more complex for people that play the Elf Necromancer or the Dwarf Rogue, but the fundamentals are still super simple. When you level up, you get points to put into abilities, whether they're passive or active. In my Barbarian playthrough, most skills were pretty obvious priorities: grab Death Blow for higher critical hit damage, grab that one passive that gives you a higher chance to get critical hits, max out your Barbarian's signature Rage ability, etc. I will say that I was surprised by the Rage since I'm mostly familiar with 5e (fifth edition) D&D; as it turns out, in whatever edition this game is based on, the Rage has you sacrifice defenses for more attack power, whereas in 5e you're both tankier and more powerful when you Rage. Barbarians also get a really cool ability called Hero's Arm that lets you dual-wield two handed weapons, which makes them really strong. I found that the bosses are a lot of fun, but most of them are either way too easy to just waltz in and destroy or are really hard until you find out the cheese you need to obliterate them. Any boss that uses melee attacks sucks at following you, so I took advantage of that with the last two bosses and ran in a circle the whole fight. They aren't quick enough to get right in your face, so you can just get free hits in while they're still trying to follow the circle you made. I think the only boss I actually had to think to defeat is the zombie pirate captain who has a bunch of mobs he can revive and make the fight a living hell. To beat that guy, you just need to lure all the other enemies away from the boss room and kill them first, then you can go give evil Captain Crunch an easy whooping. The structure of the game is split into acts: Act I, II, III, and IV. Act III is probably the shortest one since its just you entering all four elemental planes to kill one boss for each plane. Longest act for me was probably Act II, since you need to go through four different long areas with some diversions along the way to grab some special artifacts. The overall structure of the game after you rescue Randalla from the goblin camp in Act 1 pretty much just becomes "Talk to someone, they tell you to do a thing, go do the thing" on repeat, which might get on some people's nerves but I didn't mind it at all. Oh, also, the game has a pretty cool Workshop system that lets you upgrade your gear with a wide assortment of gems that each have different effects, so long as you have a Rune Stone available. You might be thinking the game is too generous with gold and potion drops early on, but don't underestimate just how expensive the Workshop can get and how many potions you'll drain through in some of the lategame boss fights. You also pretty much need to use the Workshop to make sure your gear is as good as it can be, at least in Act III and especially in Act IV. I went from having nearly 140,000 gold in the beginning of Act III to only around 30,000 by the end of Act IV.
The story isn't really anything special, but its still fun to go through. It takes place after the first game, as you might expect; basically, the vampire lord Mordoc (not Murdoch) has kidnapped the adventurers from the first game. His big plan is to take over the Onyx Tower after its previous ruler, Eldreth, was slain by the DA1 adventurers. You go all throughout the different lands of the Forgotten Realms to help the Harpers - pretty much planar peacemakers - with the ultimate goal of finding out what Mordoc is up to and taking him out, although the player character doesn't know who he is until pretty much the end of the game and they don't know what goal they're working towards until the beginning of Act III. You go to a surprising variety of locations; even just in Act II you get to go to some elaborate underground Dwarven ruins, a gothic castle with a dungeon underneath, a desert gorge crawling with gnolls, a cave near the sea, a fishman (or maybe they're frog men) religious temple, and a Lich's castle complete with an observatory at the top. Lots of classic, if not a bit tropey, D&D places to explore and tons of cool enemies to slaughter.
Overall, my appreciation for this game is definitely boosted by my nostalgia for it, but I still think its just a really fun time and a symbol of a bygone era. Earns a solid 4 stars from me.