Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Instant classic"

Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance: 2, is one of the few RPGs of it's time that offers practically limitless hours of incredible, immersive gameplay.

Few games in it's era had such a huge story, and such a large amount of gameplay.

The majority of games that last over 10-20 hours on a console at the time were due to frustration, or repeating the same event over and over.
(keeping the kids busy and not costing too much)

The gameplay itself:
With the choice to play completely different gameplay styles depending on which class you pick, you also have quests designated to each hero, add to this a random drop system and the game will be different every time you replay it.

The game has a huge world, hundreds of areas filled with different bosses, different loot, and overall great content.

Very few games have I played that have gotten this genre right, especially at that time.
Not only is the main story incredible, all the dialogue is amazing, few games to date have gotten dialogue feeling so right.
The cut-scenes really bring through all the dialogue, and make it really feel like the game is alive.

You could easily sink hundreds of hours into this game, and still feel like you haven't explored every area, it has hundreds of nooks and crannies you'll never see the first time through.

Not only that, there are secret areas, and even secret classes for once you finish the game.

The visuals are stunning, even to this day they're impressive, it truly feels like an adventure game, the artists really spent a lot of time trying to make this game feel as real as an adventure could be.

Controls are pretty much as good as they could be on a controller, but probably would be even better on a PC.

Despite how huge this game is, there are virtually no bugs; that in itself is really a feat, considering how many bugs popular games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series have.

This game is one of the first RPGs to get it right, and would no doubt go on to inspire the RPGs we play today.
I could easily say this game would rival practically any RPG you'd find today, so if you've never played Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 2, go out and get it.
My PS2 broke down, and this year I ended up getting another one, just to play this game again. (it's not too hard to find, just check ebay or amazon)

All in all, this game really needed more publicity, in my opinion it's quite incredible that games that are so popular today, follow almost the exact same outline for this game, yet we don't have a sequel for this one.
For the year this game was released in, it truly was before its time, the graphics and gameplay were only starting to become truly popular, what we see in Dragon Age: Origins and The Witcher.

I really love this game, it's probably the best console game I've played on the xbox and Playstation 2, and it's disappointing that a sequel hasn't been made.
I had a huge amount of hype when I finished playing this game, as a cutscene makes way for the next game.

To sum up:
One of the best RPGs ever made.
Easily rivals almost any RPGs you'd find today.
Lasts well over 100 hours.
Deserved more attention.
Deserved another sequel.

I'd bet if they made another one, put some footage on popular game sites like Gamespot and Gametrailers, this game would become rapidly popular, an instant classic just like this one.

If anyone reading this has the power to make it happen, you'd have an instant hit, so long as you make sure to give it the publicity it needs, I know a whole bunch of people wishing Dark Alliance 3 would come out.