GameCube NintendoSpin.com / Reviews / Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Posted on October 16th, 2004 - 3045 Reads

Rated Teen Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance GameCube Review

-- Written by Marc-André Sarrazin



 The Baldur's Gate series is very well known by the PC community. It is one of the best RPG's ever made, and it is based on the incredibly popular Dungeons and Dragons license. The story was excellent, the gameplay superb, and the music was some of the best we had ever heard. Seeing how popular it was, it was just normal for them to release a console version. Problem is that the way the game was made on PC, it would have been very difficult to port that on consoles. Some changes had to be made, but it was all good.

BGDA is an Action/Adventure game that still makes use of the AD&D rules, but a lot less than its PC counterpart. It's a hack and slash game, kind of like Gauntlet legends, but with a lot more depth. The story is also a lot more present as it plays an important part in this game. Unfortunately, since sales of the game weren't that great, we did not get the sequel so you probably will be disappointed when you'll see the ending.

You start the game in the town of Baldur's Gate and you quickly learn about some evil things that have been happening lately, and it doesn't take long before you become involved. Of course, there's an evil person somewhere and you'll have to fight the less important enemies in order to get more information and find your way to the end and fight it out with the big boss. The story is all told through cut scenes with dialogues, and the actors did a very nice job as the voice acting is top notch. It was good on PC, and it is as good on consoles, we are not getting a cheaper version.

You start with one of 3 characters: the archer, the fighter, and the sorceress. Of course each of them are of a different race, like the fighter is a dwarf and the sorceress an elf. They each have their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses, so you'll have to choose a character that you think best suits you. The more you kill enemies, the more experience points you get and you level up. By leveling up, you get points that you can use to learn new spells or new feats, and those can be quite useful later in the game. You also sometimes get the ability to add points to your stats so you can have more strength or intelligence for example, and you have to use them wisely as is happens pretty rarely and you don't want to use them incorrectly.

So as you progress through the game's 3 acts, you get new quests. That means you'll be meeting lots of dangerous creatures that want nothing more than to kill you. This is a hack and slash game, so you'll be pressing the same buttons pretty often. It does have a little strategy to it, especially on harder difficulty levels. You can block and use your special abilities strategically in order to defeat enemies more easily. And if you are playing with a friend, it adds even more gameplay possibilities as the fighter may be fighting while the sorceress is in the back using her spells and not getting hit.

You'll also be visiting shops very often to sell all the stuff you have in your inventory and buying better weapons and armors. You can also wear jewelry to increase your stats, and later in the game, as the weapons get better, some have magic capabilities to make the attacks even more deadly. It can add ice damage for example to attacks, or maybe perform more critical hits than usual. You get to equip lots of stuff like armors, shields, helmets, gloves, and boots. You'll also want to buy potions to use at critical times and also to refill your magic meter to perform feats and spells. There are different kinds of weapons, and some are faster than others so you might also want to think about that before buying them.

The areas in the game are pretty varied. You'll first be fighting in a town, in sewers, then in a snowy mountain, in a swamp and in dungeons. Some areas are pretty big but you can always use the onscreen map so you don't get lost. There are also lots of enemies and bosses and they are original too, all taken from the D&D universe. And for all of those out there wondering, yes there is a dragon in the game!

The graphics are good, even though it was first released on Playstation 2 and then ported to GameCube. Everything is very clean and there are a few subtle effects here and there. The water especially looks nice as I'd be walking in it for minutes because I thought it was simply amazing. Character models look great up-close, especially that woman in the tavern at the beginning ;). Everything is seen from the top so you don't really get to appreciate all of the fine details though. I know some said there were a few issues with the frame rate, but it's not that bad, nowhere near making this game unplayable. It might be a little bit disappointing to know that the PS2 version didn't have these issues, but we'll have to live with it.

Music is also very well done. It wasn't as great as previous Baldur's Gate games, but maybe it wasn't needed. This game is a lot smaller and it cannot compare to the others who might have needed a lot more variety. It does suit everything perfectly with lot of ambiance music or action music. Sound effects are you generic fighting stuff so lots of swords slashing and goblin bashing sounds. It gets repetitive, but it's kind of normal in that type of game.

So for casual gamers this game shouldn't take much more than 10 hours to complete, so it's not very long. There is an unlockable character though and you can have some fun completing the game on various difficulty levels and just leveling up and getting stronger. Some seem to have fun just trying to complete the game with all characters. The story is the same, but the challenge can be different. We will never get the sequel so we'll never know what happens next, but it's still a very good game on its own and I'd say it is one worth buying, or at least renting.

Recent Reviews

Page generated in 0.01767 seconds; 6 queries executed. Copyright © 1999 - 2007 Jesse MacVicar - All Rights Reserved.

Partners - Creative Uncut - Codename Revolution - Nintendo Wii News - PlayStation 3 - Nintendo Gamenet