New to Dark Alliance II is the shopkeeper’s workshop. During your explorations and battles you’ll come across special gems and rune stones. These can be added to slots on some weapons and armor to enhance their capabilities. Different combinations of gems and stones yield different results and it will take a little experimentation on your part to determine how they interact. If you choose to start upgrading your weapons at random you’ll need to keep in mind that you’ll have to pay for the service of adding gems and stones to an item and that it isn’t cheap. Before you complain too much about this new hit to your adventurer’s budget I should mention that bows and crossbows no longer require you to purchase arrows and bolts, so you’ll be saving some gold thanks to the new unlimited ammo feature of the game.

The necromancer and friend attack a fellow undead creature.

Like RPGs, Dark Alliance II includes interaction with NPCs. Unlike many RPGs, though, this interaction is limited. You’ll primarily converse with major characters in the game whose purpose it is to give you quests and to help the story unfold. You have some choice in your responses, but this is more to give an illusion of branching conversations than to actually affect the outcome of the conversations. The quests themselves usually involve the defeat of a powerful creature or the retrieval of a special item. All are pretty straight-forward and there is not much in the way of puzzle solving outside of flipping switches or finding keys. These and other RPG elements of the game are definitely on the light side, but that’s OK for a game that’s focused on the action of monster fighting.

Graphically the game maintains the standard set by its predecessor. The water effects are particularly impressive, as you and your enemies will leave a wake behind you and set waves in motion as you move across undulating pools of water. The lighting is also well done. Torches and other subterranean light sources cast of a suitable flickering glow, and the dungeons appear suitably dark and dank while still being bright enough for you to see everything. Conversations with major NPCs take place in an up-close, first person view and these NPCs are all modeled in 3D and have a wide range of motions while speaking.

Dark Alliance II allows for multiplayer play by supporting two players in the campaign. You and a friend can each create a character and take them through the game’s story together. This is a fun way to play the game, especially if you choose your characters and their skills to compliment each other. However, that’s as far as multiplayer support goes in the game. Support for three or four players would have been nice, but an online component is far more conspicuously absent.

If you’re looking for a deep RPG with extensive NPC interaction, tricky puzzles, and a deep storyline, you won’t find it here. Dark Alliance II is focused on serving up plenty of combat in fast-paced real-time battles against the Dungeon & Dragons monsters so many of us are so familiar with. In that regard it is a pretty darn good game and will provide some enjoyable hack and slash entertainment.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 87%.  Return to the Onyx Tower for some great dungeon crawling combat.

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