Dark Alliance - "Icewind Fail" @PC Invasion

PC Invasion has reviewed Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance and dubbed it "Icewind Fail". The game is mostly negative on Steam.

The aggro in Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is odd in general, though. Enemies often don't react even if you're right in front of them, as they'll just stand around a lot of the time. I've slaughtered entire groups of foes without them moving a muscle. Larger enemies pose more of a threat, mostly because the game's hitboxes are unpredictable and attack animations are janky. There's a dearth of enemy types, and it won't take more than a few hours before you've seen nearly everything the game has to offer. The entire experience is predicated on fighting the same few enemies in boring locations.

This is one of the clunkiest action games I can recall playing in recent memory. You can block, parry, and dodge, but there's no canceling your attack animations. Each character has a couple of skills, plus an ultimate, but they vary in effectiveness. Their cooldowns are also too long. I wish Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance had skills like an ARPG, but you'll mostly just be button mashing. Things are better when playing with others, but the combat was never remotely enjoyable to me. Playing solo is also mostly awful, so I strongly suggest you go with a group.

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Well, I don't think anyone here is going to find this too surprising.

Here are all the high standards of Wizards of the Coast. This is how this legendary party of beloved heroes led by Drizzt, in this legendary scenario known as the Icewind Dale is trashed and whored about by their creators, including the writer R.A. Salvatore, just to milk some money at the expense of some random studio that offered themselves to do it. Watch and rejoice, righteous paladins of DnD.

And when you are done, maybe strut over to spend a few hundred bucks worth of microtransactions on Idle Heroes of the Forgotten Realms.

By then you might be feeling that Larian shouldn't be doing BG3, not because the BG franchise is too high a standard for Larian, but because Larian is way too successful to get themselves involved with a Wizards of the Coast franchise.

Here is the quote that ultimately sums it up for me "less of an RPG and more like a modern Gauntlet game than anything else. It focuses on action, but said action is quite unimpressive"

Glad I just replayed (and yes, overpaid) for the 20 year old game on Switch and can give this one a pass!

Originally Posted by Nereida
Here are all the high standards of Wizards of the Coast. This is how this legendary party of beloved heroes led by Drizzt, in this legendary scenario known as the Icewind Dale is trashed and whored about by their creators, including the writer R.A. Salvatore, just to milk some money at the expense of some random studio that offered themselves to do it. Watch and rejoice, righteous paladins of DnD.

And when you are done, maybe strut over to spend a few hundred bucks worth of microtransactions on Idle Heroes of the Forgotten Realms.

By then you might be feeling that Larian shouldn't be doing BG3, not because the BG franchise is too high a standard for Larian, but because Larian is way too successful to get themselves involved with a Wizards of the Coast franchise.

Completely agreed. Wizards of the Coast is a major fail right now and I only hope Larian is able to keep the standard of bg3 up despite them.

https://youtu.be/jIEOF-Aa1Rk

Just about sums it up

Lets wait a few patches.

Originally Posted by Silver
Completely agreed. Wizards of the Coast is a major fail right now and I only hope Larian is able to keep the standard of bg3 up despite them.

Or more exactly, that the D&D remains recognizable despite Larian and without WotC's direction

I was surprised to hear, in one of Larian's interview, that WotC was happy about their personal implementation of the D&D mechanics. Either WotC didn't really know the details, or they were more concerned with the settings.

Perhaps the relaxed stance comes along with the 5th edition and the desire to please as large a community as possible.

Originally Posted by Silver
Completely agreed. Wizards of the Coast is a major fail right now and I only hope Larian is able to keep the standard of bg3 up despite them.

You do know Wizards of the Coast is making tons of money with table-top D&D. It's more popular than ever. They do need to wake up on the old video game front. The D&D brand is Hasbro's biggest moneymaker.

Originally Posted by Hastar
You do know Wizards of the Coast is making tons of money with table-top D&D. It's more popular than ever. They do need to wake up on the old video game front. The D&D brand is Hasbro's biggest moneymaker.

Yes I'm referring to the videogame realm where they routinely pozz things up and I am aware of the tabletop success thanks.

It's what I expected a mediocre Hack and Slash action game.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Review Roundup

• ACG
  
• Destructoid.
• Dungeon Fighter
  
• PC Gamer
• PCGamesN
• SkillUp
• TheGamer
• VentureBeat

Originally Posted by Nereida
Here are all the high standards of Wizards of the Coast. This is how this legendary party of beloved heroes led by Drizzt, in this legendary scenario known as the Icewind Dale is trashed and whored about by their creators, including the writer R.A. Salvatore, just to milk some money at the expense of some random studio that offered themselves to do it. Watch and rejoice, righteous paladins of DnD.

And when you are done, maybe strut over to spend a few hundred bucks worth of microtransactions on Idle Heroes of the Forgotten Realms.

By then you might be feeling that Larian shouldn't be doing BG3, not because the BG franchise is too high a standard for Larian, but because Larian is way too successful to get themselves involved with a Wizards of the Coast franchise.

100% agree I felt the same way after NWN 2.

At that time they released the hated 4th edition that was made for MMO games. They stopped licensing SP games and focused on MMO's as well. Their decisions baffle me.

Originally Posted by fatknacker50
https://youtu.be/jIEOF-Aa1Rk

Just about sums it up

21:23 "Dungeons and Dragons Dark Alliance is available for $40, that is a complete waste of your money. It is also available on GamePass both on XBox and PC, that is a complete waste of your bandwidth to download, and a complete waste of your hard drive to store it."

That's worse than I had anticiapted, honestly. I thought it'd be a moderately fun but soul-less action RPG, as the previous Dark Alliance ones.

Ouch.

And the score on Steam is "mostly negative", while their previous game was rather well received with a "very positive" all-time score. What happened, bad inspiration?

Originally Posted by Redglyph
What happened, bad inspiration?

Perhaps some "If they can play Drizzt & the gang, they'll buy every crap!" thinking?

Ouch. And just when I thought my expectations couldn't be lowered any further, this article comes along.

Ironically only PC Gamer seems to have given a good score for this game: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/d…critic-reviews

What's going on? That guy probably never played tabletop DnD nor read the books?

Originally Posted by largh
Ironically only PC Gamer seems to have given a good score for this game: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/d…critic-reviews

They scored it higher than Mass Effect: LE

Originally Posted by largh
Ironically only PC Gamer seems to have given a good score for this game: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/d…critic-reviews

What's going on? That guy probably never played tabletop DnD nor read the books?

I don't think it matters if you played DnD, the game is horrendous in every way. I think he probably didn't play it at all.

Not surprised this is a stinker. The trailer video was a potent psychic attack on my RPG sensitivities.