Dungeons and dragons and glitches, oh my!

Dungeons & Dragons or D&D has been igniting the imagination of fans across the world for nearly 75 years. I had admittingly always been a fan from a distance, the role playing, the swords and magic it all seemed so awesome. Sadly, I didn’t grow up with friends that were that deep into nerd things so I didn’t get to experience it until 2020. Same can be said of one Drizzt Do’Urden who I discovered quite by accident. I had always played the Dark Alliance games from back in the day. I can very vividly remember staying at a buddy’s house until the sun rose the next day play DA2. The game was set up like Diablo, in as much as it was basically a dungeon crawler power fantasy. Instead of you fighting one on one the enemy would just send waves upon waves of foes, in hopes of overwhelming the hero. Fast forward to 2020 and just like everyone else, I was trying to find new sources of entertainment, when a friend suggested The Crystal Shard trilogy. I was hooked before I even finished the first book… and now almost finished with book 10 of the series I can say without a doubt that these characters have become my favorites. Drizzt, the noble but misunderstood Drow, Bruenor Battlehammer, his dwarven friend and King of Mithril Hall, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor’s adoptive daughter and trained archer and finally Wulfgar, King of the Barbarians; taken in by Brunor as a child he looks to the dwarf as an adoptive father. These four are part of the Companions of the Hall and protect the lands of Icewind Dale and the folks of Ten-Towns.

In Dark Alliance players can choose to take control of one of the aforementioned adventures, all in a quest to stop the fiends of the realms from acquiring Crenshinibon. The sentient crystal has a never-ending hunger for power and the evil beings of Icewind Dale have formed this ‘Dark Alliance’ to acquire its power for themselves. As epic as this sounds the game doesn’t do a great job of really telling its story. Players can attack the various chapters in Dark Alliance in any order that they want. The map has 3 areas unlocked to start, each with 3 acts. Players will see a cutscene setting up the area but it doesn’t really tie into the main story. Nor does it even explain these villains’ motivations, one just has to assume that they want the shard for basic power purposes. Even once I unlocked the boss areas and defeated them the cutscenes still didn’t do a good job of really making a cohesive story, which is unfortunate given that these characters are literature legends. It’s still an entertaining game, but if you were coming in for an epic tale like one from R.A. Salvetore…then you are going to be disappointed.

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: XSX (reviewed), XSS, XB1, PS4, PS5
Price I’d Pay: $19.99

However, if you are looking for a dungeon crawler to play with friends that has a great loot loop then you will find some fun here. On first glance one would think that Dark Alliance is just a fast, action RPG; however, once you look deeper you find that it’s a bit more. The inclusion of a stamina bar for each hero makes combat more meaningful than just button mashing, almost taking on a ‘Souls-Bourne” approach but much less punishing. Combat becomes a bit more tactical as players mix in combos and abilities, all the while making sure they have stamina to dash out of the way of an attack. Each of our heroes has a different playstyle, Cattie-Brie is your ranged DPS. She has melee combos but the bulk of her damage is going to come from her bow. She can afflict statuses like frozen, or burning to enemies through her shots. She also burns through stamina, which may seem like it’s a bug but its by design. Cattie hits hard, and more often than not will critical strike enemies so in an effort to balance that power her harder hitting attacks will damage her stamina bar. What that means is the max stamina will be lessened by a certain amount to pull off the attack. It can be raised back up by using potions or feats (more on that later) but each hero has attacks that will damage their stamina. Drizzt is a ranger by trade and thus is very quick and agile. His duel scimitar fighting style is going to be melee DPS, but he’s a bit of a glass cannon as he can get in and deal massive damage but needs to dash out because of his low armor. Whereas King Bruenor Battlehammer is the tank of the group, he is armored from head to toe and carries a shield and axe. His abilities include being able to taunt foes or even buff allies with health regen among others. Lastly Wulfgar and his mighty hammer Ageis-Fang deal punishing blunt damage as a barbarian warrior should. Lots of over head slams, and of course spinning whirlwind attacks are the name of the game.

While each of the heroes have a different feel in combat, what will feel similar is the bugs and issues players will experience as they fight for Icewind Dale. Attacks are mapped to the right trigger for heavy and right bumper for light melee attacks. Each character has a ranged attack but only Cattie-Brie is built for it as the boys’ ranged attacks are slow and use too much stamina to be of any use. The issues with combat don’t come from mixing up the buttons for combos, but from the terrible AI that players will fight against. First off, the aggro range of each of the enemies is hilariously broken. It was possible to walk right up to some enemies while they just stand there staring until I hit them. While others like the giant lumbering trolls will ‘Scorpion’ spear me and pull me over there from 8 miles out. The AI is not affected by height either, if I had a Cattie I could have her stay just out of range of the enemy and launch a volley of arrows to kill them without so much as a wink from them. They wont move, or react and just stand and take hits until they die or my melee partners get tired and rush in and start whaling on them. Sadly, it’s also not uncommon to be fighting an enemy and die from a phantom attack even though nothing hitting.

The hit detection and hit boxes are wildly inaccurate at times and more than once I died to attackers I never saw. The plus side, I suppose, is that it is possible to stun lock bosses and some enemies in corners and just pile on the attacks until they expire. But be careful because sometimes they will just teleport out of the corner and appear from behind. But still, even with all these issues the combat when its working is a lot of fun. The combos for each character are fluid, and in some cases a sight to behold in execution. Playing with friends or strangers via matchmaking is a must with this game as the characters skills complement each other to the point where it is really a detriment when one is missing from the party. Plus, because the game’s combat has so many issues, not to mention spikes in difficulty when fighting one enemy to the next; it just makes playing solo feel like a true chore. Not saying that it’s not possible, because you totally can but you will only be experiencing half the game if you do so.

Its really a shame the game has so many glaring combat issues because graphically its fantastic. I’m playing on the Series X and the characters and environments are wonderfully rendered. Which is good because players will spend a lot of time running around each level. Since this game is all about the loot chase, players will replay the same levels more than once trying to complete armor sets to make that perfect build. The game helps in this regard by telling the name of the set that I could hope to find in each area before venturing out. And venturing I would do as I searched each for crystals to upgrade my gear, gold to purchase said upgrades and of course armor itself. The game in this regard functions like Vermintide; that is to say that players can’t equip the gear they acquire in the field. Instead, once they finish a level they will go back to base and open their reward chest and identify the gear found on the latest expedition. Its not a huge deal, just worth mentioning that players will need to make sure they are well equipped because they can’t change anything once they embark. But the chase for the loot is a lot of fun, I enjoyed searching out all the hidden chest and things in each level. Of course, my face lit up with delight when I found a legendary because who doesn’t love those gold colored bits of loot? It is worth mention though that sometimes if I was playing with randoms, I may not have been able to search a level like I would have normally. The game has a tether system and once I got so far away from the host, I was teleported back to their side. And since there is no ping system in place, unless I was on a mic, I couldn’t indicate to the group that I had just found a big chest. Again, nothing game breaking but worth mentioning for those of us that are “loot goblins”.

After returning back to base victoriously players will probably have leveled up which means they have attribute points and feats to unlock. This is where the game really digs into that Dungeon & Dragon feel, as the character screen functions as a character sheet in the pen and paper RPG. There are the usual attributes to chose from like Strength, Constitution, Wisdom etc. The game does a good job of explaining what each stat affects and explains precisely how it can influence the play style. Feats are going to add passives to the build, be it 10% armor resistance or 5% melee damage increase players can tailor their characters to various specifications and builds. Once players put their points where they want them they can visit the merchant at base who will exchange crystals for upgrades to armor and equipment. The crystal system is pretty deep with them ranging from common to legendary for a total of 7 different currencies. But the game allows for upgrade or downgrade crystals by sacrificing some to get the ones needed. For instance, I could convert 7 epic crystals into 1 legendary crystal or start at the bottom and convert some common, into uncommon all the way to legendary. It’s a really unique system which always leaves players in a position to squeeze some upgrades for their gear out of each run depending on materials needed.

Ok…I know I talked bad about this game but I really do like it. Is it perfect, no but it’s a good time if you can get past the jank. All of the issues that this game has can be fixed with patches honestly. Yes, its sad that we have to keep saying that after the Cyberpunk debacle. Honestly this was a problem before that game and clearly will be one after, my point is I don’t want this game to fail because of all the negativity. The bones of this game are really good, the combat is impactful and fluid, the animations, character and enemy designs are all great and true to the books. The music is especially stirring on certain tracks and the end game loot loop is quite enjoyable…just the technical issues really dampen the fun to be had. The bright side is the developers at Tuque Games have been vocal on discord and other social media sites about resolving these issues. They have shown a true passion for this brand and even this game in as so much as adding free and paid DLC’s in the future. As I said this game is best experienced with other people, if you have friends get them to play it. Heck, if you are on Xbox you all can play with GamePass but if you have no friends like me then use the matchmaking you may have to struggle to explore levels but you will have a better time overall. In closing ill say it again, Dark Alliance is not a perfectly executed game but the fun to be had when everything works is worth enduring the little issues. It delivers a fun D&D adventure with some epic combat moments. Even with the issues that I experienced I think this is a solid game and with a bit more polish via patches will fit quite nicely among its dungeon crawler brethren.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.