by John G - September 11, 2004

The original Dark Alliance for Playstation 2 and Xbox was very popular. The game had pretty good visuals, decent story, engaging battles spread through many different locales. Not only that, it had a two player coop mode, to make things even better. Gamers were handed a cliffhanger at the end of that game, and now Dark Alliance 2 is here. Will your questions and thirst for blood be answered?

Hack and slash goodness

The hack and slash battles, which are the trademark of Dark Alliance comes back again. You will find yourself immersed into the same location you were in last time, although, as any Dark Alliance player would know, not as the same character, because they were put in a bad position at the end of the last game. As this new character, you have to fight off goblins, one of the easiest creatures to defeat, and investigate the happenings of a trade caravan that was attacked. Then you will go into their lair, kill plenty of monsters, and a boss, and save the surviving members of the caravan. Then on your way to Baldurs Gate you will also have to save a village that is being attacked. Did I mention that after all this, you are still not in act one yet?

Dark Alliance 2 is not really �long�, but it is of decent length for a game of its type. The battle system is similar to the previous. If you are a weapons oriented character, then you will be button mashing to swing your weapon. Then there is a skill system, nearly identical to Dark Alliance�s. You can rotate your different skills around, then when you have the one you want you can press the button on the controller to cast the spell, or use the skill, depending on what type of skill it is. Spells can be used to damage foes, or aid allies, depending. Skills that aren�t necessarily �spells� can help your character out. Example, there is a skill to turn one potion type to the other(alchemist skill). You can take out rejuvenation potions, and turn them into magic regeneration potions, and there are many other useful abilities.

Dark Alliance 2 ups the amount of playable characters from the start. In Dark Alliance, you got to choose from a huge amount of three, at least this time you have five to pick from. Dwarven rouge, similar to the dwarf in last game, a necromancer, who can summon things, a warrior who has the unique ability to hold two large weapons(two two-handed weapons), a cleric, and a monk. Character customization is the usual, gain experience, level up, then you get �skill points� that you can allocate to different possible skills you can gain/improve, different abilities costing more or less depending on use and power. Each character class has their own �unique quest�, which results in more experience gained, or new abilities to learn.

Once good, now dated

The graphics in Dark Alliance were pretty good. The sequel, two years later looks pretty much the same, so it obviously seems a little outdated, but the good thing is, it does not look really bad. The lighting in Dark Alliance 2 is pretty good, and the overall appearance really is not bad, but could have been slightly better. The environments are varied, and look good. You�ll be crawling around sewers, to alternate dimensions, to abandoned warehouses, and the usual caves and forests. The Xbox version does have some sharper graphics to it. Dark Alliance 2 introduces some new and familiar characters and monsters, which have decent design.

Sounds of war

Dark Alliance 2 bases it�s story progress on some cut scenes and spoken dialogue. The voice acting is good. There are plenty of new characters, along with some old characters, voiced by the people that did it in the previous game. The games music is pretty standard for its type. The music will get grander leading up to boss fights, and such. Your character every once in a while will shout out a cry as he fights off monsters, which is nice, but can get repetitive. The sound effects for spells, weapon hitting, and abilities are good overall.

Ambition to continue

Dark Alliance 2 gives dungeon crawling fans a good battle and treasure finding experience. The replay value can be good if you are willing to go through some tedious quests, with all five of the different classes. One interesting thing is the unlockable charactacters. You get one unlockable character after you beat the game the first time, and you get the second after beating the game on the hardest difficulty mode, which is only available after you beat it the first time. I won�t say who they are, if I did, then they would not be secret characters. Sometimes the battles become quite tedious, and it feels like this: move up a few steps, monsters come into the screen and you kill them, move up a few more steps, more monsters come, and repeat.

There are some new things implemented into Dark Alliance 2 that are different from the first game. The first is a new workshop feature. You can get rune stones, and different types of gems, and you can forge magical weapons/rings/amulets/armor. The type and amount of rune stones and gems used effect what kind of effects they will have. Only certain quality of weapons/armor/amulets can be upgraded though, but you will likely find them more often as you progress through the game. Dark Alliance 2 continues its engaging coop mode with two players. It works pretty much the same way as before, with a few minor changes. Instead of money being separated between player one and player two, it all gets added up together, so each player spends money from one big pile, instead of spending their own money.

Save Baldur's Gate

Game fans that are looking for a good story, stay clear of Dark Alliance 2. The overall story is much worse than Dark Alliance�s. In Dark Alliance you moved to multiple areas after each act, instead of staying in Baldur�s Gate. This time you spend all your time in a town in Baldur�s Gate. It�s also odd that the town looks much different than it did before. You basically find out all the good deeds you did in the first game actually made things worse. Most people would expect to find out what happened to the three heroes from last time, but in reality, you find out little about, and you do not encounter them either. You find out what happens to them right after, but not much else. Again, your objective is to save Baldur�s Gate, in an all too familiar fashion. But I won�t go any further into that.

Good gameplay, but unrewarded

The ending is another issue with Dark Alliance 2. You play through the game, get to the ending, and it is quick, weak, and poor. It accomplishes little, and leaves you wanting more. Giving out the ending would be pointless, but I will say that Dark Alliance 3 could be a possibility in the future. Overall Dark Alliance 2 has solid gameplay, decent visuals, a mix of interesting and tedious quests, and a shaky storyline. Anyone looking for a good action RPG should look into Dark Alliance and Dark Alliance 2. Dark Alliance players who haven�t played the sequel might want to look into it. To answer the original question, yes Dark Alliance 2 answers your thirst for blood, but it does not answer all of your questions.