D&D Dark Alliance - co-op action brawler where you play Drizzt's party

[Abu Antar]

To be honest, if you bought this game, you deserve what you get. I don't even feel sorry for those that got it. It looked absolutely terrible from the start.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/125198-dungeons-dragons-dark-alliance-released-reviews.html

PC Gamer 82/100:

But bugs aside, Dark Alliance is a blast. It brings the world of Dungeons & Dragons to life brilliantly, with meaty combat, a gorgeous world, and some truly despicable monsters to carve up. It's a reminder of what makes the Forgotten Realms such a great fantasy setting, and a welcome chance to return to Icewind Dale, a place a lot of PC gamers, myself included, love. If you're more of an RPG fan, you might find the non-stop combat a bit much. This is a game about killing monsters above all—and it's some of the most joyously brutal monster-killin' on PC, even if you don't have anyone else to slay with.

IGN 4/10:

I badly wanted Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance to be an awesome co-op version of the pencil-and-paper tabletop RPGs I’ve loved for decades, but it just isn’t. It’s a bland, boring trek through repetitive encounters that’s filled with bugs and annoying design choices, and though it allows you to play alone you absolutely should not do that because it’s an imbalanced nightmare. I can praise its faithful look and feel, which captures much of what makes Forgotten Realms a great setting, but there’s very little else to recommend about this unpolished mess of a hack-and-slash RPG.

VentureBeat 3/5:

The more I think about my 20-or-so hours with Dark Alliance, the more I wonder if Tuque picked the right package for its good story about these characters. I get it wants to capture the flow-and-rush of combat that comes with Salvatore’s books, but do games both heavy in story and combat combos work? In this case, they don’t, because the combat doesn’t live to the story’s ambitions.

PCGamesN 5/10:

A cheeky take on Dungeons & Dragons lore isn't enough to carry the lacklustre combat, sluggish controls, and dodgy enemy hitboxes.

PC Invastion 3.5/10:

Dull and clunky, this is one hell of a weak, uninspired action game that's plagued with poor design choices and technical issues.

Shacknews 7/10:

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance delivers a solid D&D adventure, with exciting combat and a slew of monsters to take down. Though my experience was a bit dulled by crashes and some minor bugs, it certainly didn’t ruin the game for me. Dark Alliance fits in nicely in the pantheon of Dungeons and Dragons games.

 

[ferratilis]

Sometimes it feels like PC Gamer is trolling with their review scores. When everyone is slamming a game, they give it a high score. When a game is almost universally loved, they score it low.

And despite how stupid their reviews are, they stand behind them, firmly.
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/dragon-age-2-remains-the-boldest-of-biowares-rpgs/

 

[mediocrepoet]

To be honest, if you bought this game, you deserve what you get. I don't even feel sorry for those that got it. It looked absolutely terrible from the start.

Awhile back I was discussing co-op games to play with my wife and brought this up from the pre-release advertising and hype building runs since I'll occasionally pick up even clearly garbage games either to play with her or because they have a license I like. Her reaction was, "That janky POS? It looks like cheap garbage!"

 

[Yldr]

Despite the obvious corners cut it looks like this thing is going to be pretty popular simply because it exists at all.

Consider the basic recipe (independently of how well it's executed): full cooperative campaign, pseudo-RPG with free 3D camera, hack'n-slash with manual block, manual dodge, melee/range/magic always available, and unlock trees. It sounds absolutely obvious... until you start hunting for a new one to play. Off the top of my head I can think of less than a dozen, all of which of course we've already played to death.

If you're bold you can stretch the definition of "cooperative" to include MMOs, with all the unfocused design and retarded feature bloat that comes with the genre.

So this thing is probably going to have value simply by virtue of being a bottle of swamp water in a desert. It's still crazy expensive considering it looks like a budget War in the North, which I do like a lot but certainly has tons of room for improvement.

 

[Lautreamont]

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It looks really nice and plays smoothly on my mid-high tier PC. Combined with nice cinematics and all the enemy banter I really think they spent a lot of money on this.

Too bad they trusted some lame-ass developer who clearly never made a brawler before. Holy crap, whose idea was it to use an FPS control scheme (with strafing) for a melee action game? Instead of turning to attack in whatever direction you move as per the standard for the genre, you have to turn the right stick/your mouse to 'aim' your melee weapons, FPS style. This while the enemies are juking and bouncing all over the place. Unreal. It means all your attacks whiff as you go sailing past the enemies unless you line up perfectly. The game says it has combos but I couldn't really figure any out, there was no utility like trip move, guardbreak, pop-up, etc. Protip: increase camera speed past 90 or you won't be able to track the monsters.

It's just sad. They were clearly waving around a bucket of cash on this, you couldn't get Platinum Games? They made a fucking Transformers game for Christ's sake!

The rest of the game's design is mobile inspired. Pick a mission, pick a difficulty level, grind for loot, can't manage any aspects of your character outside of the hub (not even to look at your stats), it just screams phone game.

At least its not another Souls-like, I guess? Eh. What a shame.

 

[Oracsbox]

As it's free on game pass...I'm playing it now

...sometime later...



This has to be one of the biggest piles of shit I've played in some time, voice acting is awful, animations terrible, graphics subpar and gameplay is poppamole mobile tier with terrible AI...annnnnnnd uninstalled.

I'd rather spend time looking at pictures of kittens..

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tuque Games

Headquarters
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Every.
God.
Damn.
Fucking.
Time.

Behind 90% of the world's shittiest games stands a Canadian studio. What is it with fucking Canadians shitting up everything they get their hands on?

 

[Gerrard]

Sometimes it feels like PC Gamer is trolling with their review scores. When everyone is slamming a game, they give it a high score. When a game is almost universally loved, they score it low.

That's exactly what Jim Sterling used to do at Destructoid for clicks.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

To be honest, if you bought this game, you deserve what you get. I don't even feel sorry for those that got it. It looked absolutely terrible from the start.

Awhile back I was discussing co-op games to play with my wife and brought this up from the pre-release advertising and hype building runs since I'll occasionally pick up even clearly garbage games either to play with her or because they have a license I like. Her reaction was, "That janky POS? It looks like cheap garbage!"

Yeah I had the same. I had my wife look at this game and say, "This is terrible, this is awful, incorrigible, offensive. To forget this nightmare ever entered my mind I will need to cook a full course square meal and bake a lovely dessert all just for you. After maybe you can give me a full body massage and make furious love to me in every room."

I mean, that's what she'd say if I had a wife.

Or a girlfriend.

Or anyone at all.

 

[Fedora Master]

Just play War in the North, it's literally the same concept but with LOTR and actually playable.

Now close this shameful thread.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Tuque Games

Headquarters
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Every.
God.
Damn.
Fucking.
Time.

Behind 90% of the world's shittiest games stands a Canadian studio. What is it with fucking Canadians shitting up everything they get their hands on?

Government subsidies.

 

[JDR13]

Easily the best RPG since Fallout 3. Pure incline.

 

[AliceAlcina]

They managed to buy enough reviews to sit on mixed score, on steam, lol

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Review from someone who thinks it can't be recommended for now but could be fixed, followed by 3 hours of gameplay (campaign already finished)

 

[JDR13]

Review from someone who thinks it can't be recommended for now but could be fixed

There's no fixing this.

 

[lametta]

This made me want to play some coop brawler game. Maybe I should wait for summer sale(today or tomorrow?) instead buy hunted the demon's forge for cheap, profit?

 

[mediocrepoet]

This made me want to play some coop brawler game. Maybe I should wait for summer sale(today or tomorrow?) instead buy hunted the demon's forge for cheap, profit?

Or you could get that Capcom Beat em up. Collection or whatever with Final Fight, Knights of the Round, etc. Or the Dungeons and Dragons arcade set with Tower of Doom and Shadows Over Mystara. Etc.

I mean, assuming you wanted to play a good game.

 

[lametta]

Or you could get that Capcom Beat em up. Collection or whatever with Final Fight, Knights of the Round, etc. Or the Dungeons and Dragons arcade set with Tower of Doom and Shadows Over Mystara. Etc.

I mean, assuming you wanted to play a good game.

that sounds even better

 

[Yldr]

This made me want to play some coop brawler game. Maybe I should wait for summer sale(today or tomorrow?) instead buy hunted the demon's forge for cheap, profit?

If you have War in the North, Cursed Crusade, First Templar and Demon's Forge [late edit: Fable 3 too], you have pretty much every vaguely similar game that matters, hence why I expect Dark Alliance to easily find its place despite its shortcomings.

Damn I wish the Souls games had normal coop.

 

[Dexter]

Who moved this shit to the General Gaming section? Get it back to GRPG!

 

[Ebonsword]

You know, there's always been bottom of the barrel trash being released under the D&D license, but I think this 'game' brought an all time record low.

I won't blame you for not remembering it, but Iron & Blood is still probably the worst D&D game of all time.

 

[deuxhero]

There was the PoR "sequel" that killed your harddrive.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I won't blame you for not remembering it, but Iron & Blood is still probably the worst D&D game of all time.

I do remember the Dragon Magazine advertisement for Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft, although at the time I never saw an actual copy of the game or any information about it: