Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Reviews
Check out Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 27 reviews on CriticDB, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has a score of:
Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game is a must-have for every D&D fan. The beautiful, full-color images that fill each page, and the history carefully told by the writers of the book, make this a critical piece for any collection. There is so much to learn about the worlds we have played through, and it gave me a new level of appreciation for the time and energy the creators put into the game to make it available to us as players.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance fails to live up to both the potential of its placement in the D&D canon and the legacy of the Dark Alliance name. As a mediocre-to-good game, depending on whether you’re alone or with friends, the whole experience is sluggish and dull in execution, and sails close to the average tabletop D&D session where you play for four hours and somehow only walk down a single corridor, but without the enjoyment that comes with that experience.
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While I’ve never gotten hugely invested in Dungeons & Dragons, I have played a few campaigns throughout my life and really enjoyed my time with it. The main reason I never got heavily involved with it had more to do with not having people to play with more than having a dislike for the game. So when I heard that Dungeons & Dragons was lending their brand to a new video game, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, I got really excited. Finally, a version of Dungeons & Dragons that I didn’t nee...
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Wanting something to be good doesn’t make it so. I have a deep enthusiasm for the D&D tabletop game, fond memories of the R.A. Salvatore-penned novels that introduced these characters, and I was even excited about the revival of the cooperative Dark Alliance title from 20 years ago – I am the target audience for this fantasy action/RPG. Those preconditions are enough to make Dark Alliance a passable adventure in its early hours, especially when enjoyed with friends. But the deeper I played, the more the level design, character progression, cooperative elements, story, and combat mechanics began to fall apart...
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Okay, I screwed that one up. Its other strengths are… Let me put it gently: there is some promise to its multiplayer. If its control issues are mopped up and the enemies recover from their collective hangovers, Dark Alliance could be reasonable fun with friends. For a little while. I guess.
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Dungeons & Dungeons: Dark Alliance brings co-op hack-and-slash action to PC and consoles. A decent multiplayer experience is overshadowed by a pithy single-player campaign and unrefined mechanics.
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At the moment, Dungeon & Dragons: Dark Alliance is just too rough around the edges to recommend, but some will be able get enjoyment out of it if they can work past its issues. As ever, it’s fun battling your way through dungeons with friends, collecting loot as you go – especially once you’ve powered up your characters and learned some new moves. But until the camera has been tweaked to give you a better view, enemy AI has been improved and bugs have been quashed, the action will always be accompanied by an element of frustration and disappointment. It...
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There aren’t many video games with Beholders in them. These nightmarish aberrations with their big eyes and tentacles are one of the most famous monsters of Dungeons and Dragons, even appearing as the monster on the cover of the 5th Edition Monster Manual, but few other games have taken a liking to them, and where they have, they largely failed to capture the unmistaken madness of them quite as effectively. Dark Alliance is a game with a Beholder in it, full of the terror and darkness such a creature should possess, much like the game itself.
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A tragically awful attempt to revive the Dark Alliance name, with horribly repetitive combat, empty storytelling, and a dragon horde’s worth of bugs.
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Read our Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance PS5 review and see if Tuque Games brought the everlasting Wizards of the Coast franchise to life, or if this is one release best left in the depths of the Icewind Dale...
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A game with solid offensive flow and a great soundtrack that is hobbled by a lack of quality of life features, poorly balanced combat, and atrocious AI.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance offers a decent arcade action RPG experience, but suffers from midbudget jank and some questionable combat elements.
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Dark Alliance is the type of game for people looking to blow off steam with their friends. It's such an exploration ride that I just wanted to keep playing it all day long. The fun combat and loot system kept me coming back even if it is a shame the story set in the D&D universe written by a prolific writer fails to live up to its potential. It's also baffling that almost no love was given to the game on the PS5 to utilize its power or even the DualSense controller. At $40 though almost all of its flaws...
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Playing with one-to-three other people online on its 15-hour campaign would have smoothed over some of its issues, but it wouldn’t have changed the fundamental problems that dragged down my enjoyment. As a single-player experience, it has bright moments but is quickly overshadowed by a dull story, unresponsive controls, repetitive level design, and lifeless encounters.
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The difficulty system in Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is the start of some major issues with the game, however. Lower difficulties will have enemy AI simply standing around waiting to be killed by three or four hits, while the higher difficulties turn these attackers into massive damage sponges that can make a simple 45-minute mission last hours on end. Playing around the center of difficulty options is where the game feels normal but new characters won't be able to handle this, which forces players to work through the lower levels of boredom just to earn better gear to take...
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Dark Alliance has the core of a fun game, but many design decisions and some very spotty enemy AI prevent the game from fully taking flight. While the game still feels early, there is some fun to be had running around and taking advantage of Dark Alliance's many issues. But with time, this game will become a mid-tier action adventure-which is exactly what it should be.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance takes up the D&D hack and slash mantle from the classic Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games from 20 years ago, bringing a new cast of heroes and plenty of co-op-focused fantasy brawling. As with the tabletop game it adapts, the experience is certainly enjoyable with friends, but a lack of polish and a repetitive gameplay loop drag down what is otherwise a fairly enjoyable experience.
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Offering up four-player online action in a familiar setting, D&D Dark Alliance looks good but is chock full of problems.
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A cheeky take on Dungeons & Dragons lore isn't enough to carry the lacklustre combat, sluggish controls, and dodgy enemy hitboxes.
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This game is a worthy successor to the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance titles. Though the combat can become a bit repetitive, it's fast-paced and engaging for the most part. While playing solo, it's fun and challenging, and it's easy to see how it would flourish with a full group of players. It isn't perfect, but the over-the-top voice acting and character models, respect for Dungeons and Dragons lore, and intuitive combat make for a charming package. It's casual enough for anyone to pick up and play while retaining enough Dungeons and Dragons standards to keep experienced players of the tabletop...
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Tuque Games must have rolled a natural 20 on their saving throw, because none of Dark Alliance's faults are able to bring the action-RPG down. It’s a solid cooperative dungeon crawler that’s positively dripping with D&D’s iconic Companions of the Hall setting and lore. The combat may take some getting used to, and putting your party together is more fiddly than it needs to be, yet Dark Alliance remains an entertaining adventure from beginning to end.
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Infested with bugs from start to finish, Dark Alliance is a button mashing affair that drops the 5E rules in favor of flash. The bosses are great, but the parts in between less so. Here’s hoping developer Tuque can pull this out of the Deep Wastes with their post-launch plans.
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Gut goblins galore in this lavish action RPG set in the frosty realm of Icewind Dale.
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Dull and clunky, this is one hell of a weak, uninspired action game that's plagued with poor design choices and technical issues.
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I really wanted Dark Alliance to good, and maybe it will be after some patches. The game looks beautiful and has solid performance, but for being so co-operative focus, there seems to be plenty of net-code and bugs that proved rather annoying. If you do jump in on Dark Alliance, I highly recommend the solo route as you’ll find most of those issues eliminated. But that honestly is an issue in itself, because this is D&D, and how do you recommend someone to play by themselves for a series known to be played in groups?
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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.
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With its frustrating controls, and questionable AI the enjoyment that can be gained from Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is severely limited. If a player is looking to romp through a strongly realized D&D world, and a classic story of heroes scrambling to stop the legions of evil, it may be worth keeping the game on easy just to enjoy the setting and story. However, if you are looking for a full-fledged action RPG experience there are far better offering out there.
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