Howdy Gamers
Last week I was surprized and excited to stumbled upon this title on the steam store.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1695830/Baldurs_Gate_Dark_Alliance/
Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance is a hack and slash action rpg/dungeon crawler set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragon's campaign setting. It was originally released way back in 2001 for the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox.
I had no idea a remaster was coming to steam. I found my self paying the full price of £29.99 without even thinking about it.
I bought this game for the PlayStation 2 way back in the winter of 2001 and I have very fond memories of playing it. It was the very first Dungeons and Dragons /Wizards of The Coast game I ever played.
Back then words like Baldur's Gate and The Forgotten Realms were totally new to me.
I had only really played Jrpgs on the PS1 and 2 , Final Fantasy games were the only experience I had of console rpgs before playing Dark Alliance.
In the video above I complete the first 2 quests of the games main story line.
I've never played as the Elven Sorceress so I decided to play as her this time.
We are playing on hard mode for some extra challenge. I hear there is an extreme difficulty mode which makes the game 10 times harder but I believe we need to complete the main story to unlock it so I figured getting used to hard mode is going to prepare me for extreme mode.
Our story begins on the streets of the city of Baldur's Gate
Our Elven Sorceress is attacked by thieves and has her money stolen.
The thieves are part of a new guild that are working for this sinister looking fellow...
This game has a lot of great voice acting, this guys voice is suitably deep and villainous...
A couple of guard's from the Night's watch turn up and the thieves run of
They suggest we get of the streets and take refuge in the Elf song Tavern
The tavern is called The Elf Song due to it being haunted by the ghost of an Elven maiden. Every so often a hauntingly beautiful song will flow through the tavern. Some say she sings for a lost love, a soldier who died defending Baldur's gate.
This is our main hub in Act 1 of the game, behold the Beholder over the fireplace...a very neat touch.
These 2 characters are our first 2 quest givers.
Alyth the bartender needs us to slay some rats in the cellar. Rats, every rpg has a rat quest in there somewhere. It seems somethings been driving the rats up out of the sewars,Its mostly like this new thieves guilds hiding place.
So first things first, we need to get the key to the wine cellar from Ethon.He normally collects the wine but he has been unable to of late due to the rat infestation.
Ethon gives us the wine cellar key and a rusty dagger and we head down to eliminate some rats.
Our first fight is with a giant rat. Im happy to find this game shows damage numbers. I love seeing damage text in rpgs, it makes weapon and spell upgrades feel more satisfying.
Pressing the options button on the game pad brings up our characters inventory and information panels.
This panel shows our available weapons
This one shows our current armour
This is our characters stat sheet
This panel shows our current quest objective.
This last panel shows the spells we can buy as we level up. As an Elven Sorceress we start out with burning hands which we can us by pressing the B button on the joypad. We can only have one spell ready at a time but we can cycle through them quickly using the dpad.
This gif shows the burning hands spell.We hold the spell button down to shoot flames from our palms.As we level up and gain more mana the duration of this spell gets longer and the flames become more deadly....I am tempted to shout Dracarys every time I use this spell....
The spell effects and lighting have been upgraded for this PC remaster. They do look alot prettier than I remember them being 20 years ago. This makes replaying this classic all the more enjoyable.
All gifs featured in this post are made by me. I'm a gif geek,I love making them and this game in particular is perfect for doing so.If you like a slick and sexy gif stay tuned for more. I have a feeling I'm going to do my best gif work to date with this nostalgia filled game :)
In a treasure chest we find a sword which is a slight upgrade to our rusty dagger. Weapon upgrades are not to frequent in this game and finding a new weapon is always satisfying.
This panel in the top left hand corner of the screen shows our health ,experience and mana. Health and mana regenerate over time and can be replenished with potions which can be found in breakable objects or dropped as random loot form enemies.
The shoulder buttons of the joypad are used to drink potions making it easy to access them mid fight.
The way water moves in this game blew my mind 20 years ago. Even today it still looks impressive. I had to make a sexy water gif to show it of :).
10 more rats to kill and that should be enough to thin their numbers then we can head back to Alyth in the Tavern.
Dracarys rat fiends!As the last few struggle to get through the door we smoke them with burning hands.
Its time to head back to the Tavern.
We found a recall potion which can be used to return to the main hub of the current act. Lets recall back to Alyth.
Every so often we will find a save point in the dungeon. There is also one in the tavern. If playing on hard or extreme mode your going to want to save often.
Talking to Alyth completes the first quest and rewards us the sewer key,75 gold and enough experience to hit level 2.
I picked magic missiles for our lv2 spell. These missiles home in on the enemy and come in really handy later on.
This first quest covers all the basics of the game the only other thing to mention is the trader. He can be found in the tavern. This is where we sell our unwanted loot and buy sexy new weapons and armour.
I bought a Masterwork staff which was a pretty big upgrade. Burning hands and a Masterwork staff for cracking skulls ,now I feel like a real Elven Sorceress.
Overall I am happy to have a remastered version of this game with some upgraded spell and lighting effects. The game still looks dated but I like retro style games so for me that's not an issue.
The game play is simple but addictive. The spell/ability upgrade system keeps things interesting and is based on Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition.
The voice acting is really well done here and the story is a classic D&D adventure.
If you enjoy games like Diablo or Path of Exile or if your just a fan of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting your likely going to find alot to enjoy here.
I dropped all the other games I was playing around with to dive into this one on the day I picked it up.I was VERY eager to get some footage to share with you guys.
So far I'm really enjoying this nostalgia filled trip down video game memory lane and I'm eager to get on to level 2 of the sewers' asap. I plan to play the Dwarven Fighter on extreme mode after I complete the Elven Sorceress playthrough.
▶️ 3Speak
