New Dark Alliance gameplay trailer released, highlights boss fight gameplay



Those waiting for the next installment in the Dark Alliance video game series got another peek at the game in action today. The upcoming co-op action role-playing game had a new gameplay trailer release, focusing on boss combat this time around. The trailer highlights a full party in battle with one of the game's bosses, Hagedorn the Beholder. The brief look offers a glimpse of the characters in action, as well as giving a taste of what types of abilities the iconic Dungeons & Dragons monster will possess in game.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance will release on June 22nd, 2021, for the Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and on Steam.
 

Xzi

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A lot of people seem to be expecting this to be bad or hoping for it to be bad, but I still like what I'm seeing so far. The graphics and animations aren't the best around, but that's second to gameplay, which looks really fast and fluid.
 
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A lot of people seem to be expecting this to be bad or hoping for it to be bad, but I still like what I'm seeing so far. The graphics and animations aren't the best around, but that's second to gameplay, which looks really fast and fluid.
The only sin is it doesn't seem to be releasing for switch despite looking like a switch game
 

AamitMorthos

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IDK how I feel about this. I thought it was gonna be like the old ones but then read that it wasn't and was like "eh ok, it'll look into it", but I didn't think it would be like this.
 
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IDK how I feel about this. I thought it was gonna be like the old ones but then read that it wasn't and was like "eh ok, it'll look into it", but I didn't think it would be like this.
I wish it were top down
 

FAST6191

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I got Nier flashbacks watching that. A curious choice of gameplay style to copy given the previous series history but could still be good.
Also possibly the first time I have seen a Beholder in anything vaguely resembling an action game be depicted as an enemy worth considering/taking seriously rather than just fodder or maybe light boss fodder.
 
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I grew up on a newer version of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, in PC Gaming form, so I played Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor before I ever got hold of Dungeon Hack.

That said, there's more playability in the latter Game to the former; to this day one of my favourite 3DS Titles are the Etrian Odyssey franchise and their Persona spin-offs, so it was sad that the Dungeon Hack formula never got an Official, autostereoscopic version for this Handheld.

There are definitely bad versions of the aforementioned Dungeon Crawler format, more so when they try to reimagine the story with modern graphics, but this franchise was capable of making Dungeon Hack and Etrian Odyssey is a modern template of how to do it right, so I don't see the benefit of continuing on this Diablo-esque playstyle.

I'm also under no illusion of representing majority voice in the Demographic they're aiming to please.
 

FAST6191

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Isn't this the gorgon from Legend of Mana?
No that is a beholder, generally held as being made for Dungeons and Dragons and something of a key feature of the lore there. Indeed if you go look at the hot moment that they did the whole open game license thing then beholders are very much excluded from it as they presumably wanted to keep it back for themselves.
https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/blogs/news/how-to-use-the-open-game-license
I don't know if Legend of Mana had something similar -- lots of such games will grab creatures from all sorts of mythologies and not necessarily care that much or realise that it is in fact a modern invention rather than an ancient one.
That said plenty of ancient things have eyes on stalks, multiple heads (see hydra) or wavy things coming out of stalks (see medusa, also frequently depicted as a disembodied head) so could be more that.

More generally as sort of note above then beholders if you go look at rule books, stories and more are typically painted as truly fearsome creatures in the D&D lore (seriously potent magical beings intent on manipulation and power). Most games however just treat them as a nice looking boss monster (emphasis on mindless monster) or maybe have some juvenile ones as a basic mob enemy which is a bit of a pity.


It looks great. Though, I'm still confused as to what the game actually is? Is it a MOBA, an MMO, or a single player RPG?
Last time ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/dark-alliance-release-date-announced-gameplay-trailer-released.585019/ ) they noted co-op as a thing (you can see various friendlies in that too)

To that end probably more of a co-op hack and slash (think Ninja Gaiden, Ninety Nine Nights, Bayonetta) action dungeon crawler (as opposed to some kind of mouse killing exercise like the earlier games in the franchise*, Fate, Diablo, or earlier Sacred games, earlier Dungeon Siege** or similar) with probably some kind of RPG mechanics wound in there to unlock moves, stats and whatever else.

*confusingly now they are known as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2, and different to both the modern Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate games on the PC at the time of those releases which are more turn based and conversation driven CRPGs (indeed the devs/publishers, see Black Isle Studios, were variously responsible for Planescape: Torment, the Icewind Dale games, Fallouts 1 and 2, and said Baldur's Gate titles so bit of a pedigree on that front).

**I truly hope we don't get a dungeon siege 3 style kick in the teeth here. My cynicism is not quite all consuming at this point but it might be if this is as much of a slap in the face as that was and they did also take the "make it more actiony" path.

The whole beams of light and dodging things there reminded me of Nier as I mentioned above. Curiously many don't seem to consider it a hack and slash game (I went through a bunch of lists of such games as I could not remember its name immediately and it did not feature in those) which is odd to me. However the reason I was thinking Nier*** is the devs of that one specifically said we were looking at shmups and the sort of dodging/placement/pattern recognition it has is much like those and indeed what that trailer above and the previous one also reminded me of. Most things similar (think something like Lord of the Rings War in the North, which is still a wonderful game and also features a decent co-op mode) don't lean nearly as heavily into patterns and placement as those, and instead maybe once a few animation cycles or if you get close might have an area of effect thing.


***skip to around 57 minutes, watch the following fight and tell me you did not think something similar to the trailer above


Anyway I am waffling so will leave it there for now.
 
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Kraken_X

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The first two Dark Alliance games for PS2 were some of the best couch co-op out there. Each player had completely separate progression, and even shops were split screen so that each player was fully in control. One TV, one copy of the game.

This sadly looks like every other multiplayer game nowadays where each player needs their own $60+ copy of the game. That means I'd have to spend hundreds of dollars to convince friends to even try it, and so it goes into the pile of hundreds of other games where that is the case.
 

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