Review Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance reviews are out
- Thread starter Mercador
- Start date
Aldarc
Legend
“Getting killed” implies it was ever alive in the first place.
Imaculata
Hero
The Steam reviews for this game, which has been nicknamed Derp Souls, are absolutely devastating.
One reviewer described how a boss continued to attack him and a friend during the load screen, crashing the game.
The game also apparently has only 2 difficulty settings: too easy, and 1 hit kill.
A live stream by Eurogamer confirmed the many bad reviews. A buggy mess that is incredibly repetitive, and has terrible enemy ai.
To give you an idea of how bad the ai is: enemies often don't react when shot at. The only way Eurogamer got enemies to hit them, was to stand still and wait patiently for enemies to figure out how to path to the player, and then allow them to attack. It was just utterly broken.
No amount of bug fixing is going to make this a game worth paying for.
One reviewer described how a boss continued to attack him and a friend during the load screen, crashing the game.
The game also apparently has only 2 difficulty settings: too easy, and 1 hit kill.
A live stream by Eurogamer confirmed the many bad reviews. A buggy mess that is incredibly repetitive, and has terrible enemy ai.
To give you an idea of how bad the ai is: enemies often don't react when shot at. The only way Eurogamer got enemies to hit them, was to stand still and wait patiently for enemies to figure out how to path to the player, and then allow them to attack. It was just utterly broken.
No amount of bug fixing is going to make this a game worth paying for.
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Henadic Theologian
Hero
Looks like WotC put their money on the wrong horse this time and will lose big time.
They should have bought Larian Studios instead, yes it would be more expensive, but its actually worth it, the investment would pay off over time, instead they are trapped having to make DLCs for a game they'd likely prefer to dump right now.
I mean expecting an independent company with 1 minor game to its name and expecting it to turn out an AAA game was absurd.
This is going to eat into their profits and Chris Cox is going to have to answer for this sadly, if I was him I'd be looking for a buyer for Toque studios right now. It was just a really bad bet. There were many better investments tthenlike a small fantasy publisher that could have helped fix the disaster the D&D and MtG fiction lines have become, or Larian Studios, or Tactical Studios (makers of Solasta), etc...
I mean buying the studio before the game was out yet, why would they take that risk?
They should have bought Larian Studios instead, yes it would be more expensive, but its actually worth it, the investment would pay off over time, instead they are trapped having to make DLCs for a game they'd likely prefer to dump right now.
I mean expecting an independent company with 1 minor game to its name and expecting it to turn out an AAA game was absurd.
This is going to eat into their profits and Chris Cox is going to have to answer for this sadly, if I was him I'd be looking for a buyer for Toque studios right now. It was just a really bad bet. There were many better investments tthenlike a small fantasy publisher that could have helped fix the disaster the D&D and MtG fiction lines have become, or Larian Studios, or Tactical Studios (makers of Solasta), etc...
I mean buying the studio before the game was out yet, why would they take that risk?
They seem to keep making that very same mistake.
D&D should be a flagship videogame franchise. Instead, we get this. I had the chance to play it for a few hours tonight, and it is terrible. Repetitive gameplay, poor animations, laggy, clunky action... wow, it is really not a good game. I loved the old Dark Alliance games; this is very far from that.
I still have hope for BG3, as I liked DOS 1 and 2, and Larian at least has a good track record. But wow, was this ever a swing and a miss.
Imaculata
Hero
I can confim this. Heck, even the main menu does not run smoothly. What is it with stuttering flags in this game?
And the animations, and animation blending, look just terrible. Everything from simple running animations, to attack animations, looks really bad. When your character gets knocked down, there is a whole lot of jittering as you scramble to your feet.
The game never seems to run at a decent framerate, the online multiplayer is laggy due to poor netcode, and nothing about the gameplay feels satisfying.
At its core, this game should be a hack and slash dungeon crawler with lots of looting. But the loot is terrible, the fighting is terrible, and the dungeons constantly repeat the same enemies and puzzles.
You'll grow sick of fighting goblins and trolls, and of fighting the bosses... which are just reskinned goblins and trolls. There just isn't any enemy variety what so ever. The "puzzles" quickly become an annoyance too, because its the same damn puzzle over and over again.
Some people have praised the visuals and the level design, but no, they must have been just desperate to find a glimmer of positivity. Lets be brutally honest, the graphics don't look that great either. The character models don't hold up well from up close, hair on characters looks terrible, and there aren't really any great character designs. It all just looks very bland and uninspired.
The level design is boring. Everything is lit the same way, and is made to look like it was copy pasted together. There are rarely memorable landmarks or interesting sections. It feels like a machine cobbled them together, although that is being unfair to machines. Diablo had randomized dungeons and they were great... these dungeons were handmade!
Of all the characters you can play, I don't think the archer was tested at all. She is just broken. The gameplay is clearly designed for melee, and for multiplayer. A lot of enemies don't even react when you shoot them, allowing you to pick them off with no effort. Even the sound effects for firing your bow feel unsatisfying!
Oh, and there are parts where you can get an ai-npc to assist you! Hahaha. Prepare to revive them over and over and over again.
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Sorcerers Apprentice
Hero
Larian isn't for sale though, the company is the CEO's private project to let him make the games he wants to create.
Henadic Theologian
Hero
True, but there is still Tactical Studios, compare the reviews and popularity of Solasta to DA. If I was WotC I'd fix DA, cancel any DLCs with refunds, buy Tactical Studios, and merge Tuque Studios into it.
GreyLord
Legend
Sorcerers Apprentice
Hero
Tactical Studios was also founded by industry veterans as a means to make their dream games. The owners might be interested in the right deal with WotC if it would let them make official D&D games, but I doubt they have any interest in merging with the failing Tuque Studios.
Henadic Theologian
Hero
They aren't even in the same location. Tactical Studios hires other studios right now for certain elements, I was thinking they could shift that to Tuque Studios instead if WotC owned both. The employees of the studio should not be blamed for this, the expectations were unrealistic for them and instead of polish, they tried to make the game too big (a mistake TA studios avoided).
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah like I gotta be honest and page @Umbran here and say "Yup that's another mark on the 'WotC has no idea how to handle digital and their successes are pure luck' side of the score sheet" lol. Damn.
I mean, I did question the purchase, and they still don't seem to have an AAA number of people at Tuque (looked like dozens, not the 100-200 or more you need for AAA, last I saw), but it's a weird damn decision to even release it in this state. You could either keep working on it or quietly can it, and it would probably be less-bad long-term.
Yora
Legend
This had already become a meme 10 years ago...
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I mean, it's pretty okay? A solid 7/10.
Great though? No.
Solasta is a low-ish budget AA CRPG with a nice UI, good tutorials/introduction, mediocre-to-terrible writing, questionable but at least not terrible voice-acting, and bad (sorry but it is) visual design/graphics - they went for a semi-realistic style but they clearly didn't have the budget/talent to make that work.
The last time a even "good" D&D CRPG came out was the late '00s, with NWN2, and it wasn't very popular or well-known (perhaps because it was a pretty basic-looking RPG in the era of Mass Effect and Dragon Age). The last time a "great" one came out was over twenty years ago.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah I'm talking about the full-campaign expansions to be fair - at least one of them was good.(Also, NWN2 was awful!)
You should try it out. Mask of the Betrayer is one of the best CRPG stories out there.
