Another disappointment is that the boss creatures are not very hard to defeat.  You can defeat some of them in your first try, while it only takes a death or two with the others before you figure out how to take them out.  If you're looking for a real challenge, you must first complete the game to unlock the Extreme mode, which cranks up the difficulty by a factor of ten (or so Interplay claims).

One big beast.

Contributing to the game's enjoyment factor is the quality of its graphics.  Torches flicker and give off a soft glow, and as you walk through pools you can watch the water ebb and see the wake you create.  Your character's appearance changes to reflect the armor and weapons that are equipped.  Your character and the monsters have a lot of frames of animation, and all move and fight smoothly.  There are also a lot of death animations, so after a battle with a horde of monsters you don't have to look at a sea of corpses all in the same death pose.  The one downside is that the game seems to suffer an occasional framerate stutter, which is strange since the game does not have the same issue on other systems.

The game's environments look great, and are packed with little details that bring them to life.  NPC conversations take place in a first person view, and the NPCs' character models are very detailed and animated.  The spell effects are terrific too, such as the glow given off by a magic missile or fireball.

The game's sound deserves mention as well, as the environmental effects and subtle background music are excellent.  The game gives you a taste of what's to come right from the start with the hauntingly beautiful singing heard drifting through the Elfsong Tavern.  All NPC interactions are voiced, and the voice acting is top notch, really helping to bring the NPCs to life and imbuing them with personality.

In a nice touch, Dark Alliance supports mutliplayer play in a two-player cooperative mode.  You can make your way through the game with a friend instead of taking on the quest solo.  This is a great feature, but it would have been nice if you could play with up to three other friends.  Perhaps this limitation is a result of the fact that the game first appeared on the PS2.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 86%.  If you like your RPGs heavy on the action, Dark Alliance provides some great monster-kicking gameplay.

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