Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Reviews
I wrack my brain trying to figure out Dark Alliance’s strengths, and I’m not coming up with much. The level design works surprisingly well for multiplayer. I was afraid looting would fall by the wayside, but every time a fight would wrap up, everyone would run off in different directions and grab chests before finally moving on. I didn’t feel like things were getting missed. Well, except for the shoes that would pop out of chests some other player would open. Those just rot, forgotten on the ground.
The single positive thing Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance does is end, though sadly, not nearly soon enough.
D&D: Dark Alliance is a game that is designed for those who already know the intrahistory of the Dark Elf and who know how to forgive the failures in the gameplay. With all this, if we are consistent, we are facing an enjoyable proposal, especially in cooperation with four friends.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Just like with tabletop D&D, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance requires a party of friends to truly enjoy this buggy experience. Otherwise, it's just a source of frustration.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
While there is some depth and enjoyment deep within the heart of the multiplayer experience, Dark Alliance fails to provide the engrossing gameplay experience that is required in order to sustain the sort of long-term community clearly desired by the game’s creators.
Dark Alliance is a game that seems destined to be forgotten, which is a shame because there's a lot of old-school PS2-style fun to be had. Once split screen is patched in we can see ourselves going back to it regularly in order to relive those couch co-op days of yore, though the game is enjoyable solo as well if you choose your difficulty setting wisely. It's nothing to set the world on fire but it's a perfectly enjoyable throwback to dungeon crawling hack-and-slash classics that'll work for you all the more if you've got a group of friends who yearn to go back in time to a simpler experience. Future content updates will only improve Dark Alliance and we'd urge you to give it a try for yourself.
At the moment, Dungeon & Dragons: Dark Alliance is just too rough around the edges to recommend, but some will be able get enjoyment out of it if they can work past its issues. As ever, it’s fun battling your way through dungeons with friends, collecting loot as you go – especially once you’ve powered up your characters and learned some new moves. But until the camera has been tweaked to give you a better view, enemy AI has been improved and bugs have been quashed, the action will always be accompanied by an element of frustration and disappointment. It might be a good idea to wait for a patch or two before jumping in, basically.
I just didn’t expect it could be this bad. Dark Alliance is a functionally broken product. When enemies simply ignore you as you carve their health down to zero, when there’s so little to the game that that’s all you’re doing, and when the multiplayer experience is only superior because it’s a chance to share the misery with someone else, some passable graphics and one neat checkpointing system aren't anywhere near enough to redeem this game. This is the poorest handling of a license since Superman 64.
Dear Dark Alliance: those of us that were fans of the original PS2 game and the Dungeons and Dragons franchise came ready to enjoy you. You waved your fancy pedigree and showed us your impressive environments, only to disappoint us once we paid the price of admission. So, fix the AI. Balance the single player game or ditch it entirely. Let the players create real characters that express themselves. Above all, kill the bugs. Do those things, and maybe we’ll come back, because it could be a nice little house to live in for a while.
Dark Alliance lacks in diversity, with bugs littered throughout making it near impossible to remain immersed for more than 10 minutes at a time, if that. You will undoubtedly expect either a successful homage to Dungeons and Dragons or a high-quality action RPG with influence from that scene - at this stage, it does not quite deliver either.
Dark Alliance is a dull and unpolished multiplayer action RPG with repetitive and glitchy combat, broken online connectivity, unbalanced solo play, and more than enough technical issues to put off anyone even slightly interested in checking it out.
Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance is a double-edged sword. The setting and the characters are sure to appeal to an R. A. Salvatore fan, and there are hints of a fun, entertaining game here and there. But they are often overshadowed by the many issues, such as extremely poor enemy AI and questionable design choices.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A tragically awful attempt to revive the Dark Alliance name, with horribly repetitive combat, empty storytelling, and a dragon horde's worth of bugs.
I wanted to love Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance so badly. I grew up reading R.A. Salvatore’s novels about Drizzt and his companions. Baldur’s Gate was my first CRPG that I ever played. The original Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and Dark Alliance II are probably my favorite games from the PS2 era. But sadly, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance just misses the mark in so many categories. It was a slog to get through, and there is almost no reason for me to ever pick it up again.
Dark Alliance lacks compelling narrative and gameplay variety, despite being steeped in lore from its source material.
With some friends, you can have a lot of fun exploring Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance without needing to roll any dice, but inconsistent combat and frustrating bosses make the experience more of an ordeal than it should be, not to mention unenjoyable by yourself.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has the potential to become a fun showcase for the long-running franchise. Despite the issues, none of these are game-breaking bugs, and it is a passable RPG. Now we just have to see if Tuque Games has what it takes to turn things around. Fans of Dungeons & Dragons, of which there are untold millions, will love the lore and story of Dark Alliance. Who knows if their love of the franchise will translate into enough sales to warrant a sequel? If so, then there is a lot of work to do, but we've seen plenty of comebacks before, and we'll no doubt see more in the future. With any luck, in the not-too-distant future we'll gather 'round the virtual campfire and enjoy a higher-scored adventure in the Icewind Dale thanks to the lessons learned from Dark Alliance.
The Dark Alliance revival lacks finesse, and local co-op, but give it time and it's not without its own charms.
It's difficult to recommend Dark Alliance to anyone else than biggest fans of Forgotten Realms's lore. The game definitely lacks of polish and doesn't shine at all when you talk about its gameplay, graphics or even its multiplayer options.
Review in French | Read full review
At its best, Dark Alliance reminds me a bit of the classic arcade game Gauntlet. Those games were a blast to play with friends but were a frustrating experience when attempting to run solo. I have enjoyed every minute of Dark Alliance that I played with other players, whether it was with friends or random online companions. However, the single-player experience of Dark Alliance was miserable, at best, and should be avoided by anyone who wishes to have a fondness for the game.