Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

The game itself is excellent and the port was okay for me at least when playing with an Xbox 360 controller. Better than the first game but the latter 3rd felt a bit rushed to me. More classes and each class has more options than in the first game. Definitely recommended but wait for a sale.

I remember playing the first Dark Alliance as a kid, but I never played the second game. All I have to say is "WOW". This game, even in 2024, is incredibly fun and addicting. The only gripe I have is with the combat being really precise. Even with the Barbian, you have to be at the right angle to hit the enemy. Other than that, this game is great and I'm holding onto hope that this series gets a reboot.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the price of this game and claiming that you can find the original for cheaper almost anywhere else. If you've ever been interested -like me- in picking up this game these past 10 years you would know that this is just not true. I had been meaning to purchase a copy of this game for the original Xbox and PS2 for a while and whenever I would go into videogame stores or search for it online, I would be always be taken aback by how much people were asking for this game. (Usually $50 or 60+ USD) As someone who has been interested in the price of this game over the years, I can tell you that the price -while still too high- is still better than what you can find pretty much anywhere else at the moment. Hopefully, with the release of this port we will start to see that price drop the same way the price had dropped for the first game after it was re-released. All things considered, I believe that the prices people have been asking for this game speaks to how highly people regard it. It is definitely one of the best games in this genre.

Tested running the native Linux version on a Steam Deck, and on a desktop with Pop_OS 22.04 and Windows 10. I have previously played this game to death on the original Xbox version, mostly in co-op, so it's likely tinted with a lot of nostalgia, but I think it's a great game. There are no added frills here - no extra content, no DLC, no microtransactions (thankfully!). The original game still stands up on its own, so if you liked it then, you'll probably still like it now. If you've never played it but would enjoy a fairly casual hack-'n-slash that's good in single-player and great in co-op, give it a go. The game does need a few fixes for this port though; in co-op, players don't share gold like the original game, and there seems to be no option to toggle this. Multiplayer is, like the original release, local only - you'll need two controllers and play on the same screen; no online multiplayer is available, which is a shame but somewhat expected of a straight port. If there were online, I'd expect it to be cross-platform, which is a bigger task - perhaps the developers will add this, or a mod will enable some of the options which would have been nice-to-have on a modern PC platform. Overall it's still a solid game, nitpicking aside.

I'm back in time and enjoying it.