Ubi Soft recently sent us a preview copy of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance for GBA, which they will be publishing in early 2004. Unfortunately, our copy of the game does not save correctly, so it isn’t possible to get to later parts of the game. From what I’ve seen of the beginning, this is an amazing port that will amaze fans of the dungeon hack RPG sub-genre.

Dark Alliance was the first console game in this series, which had previously been very successful on the PC. The console version eventually reached all three major platforms, and there will soon be a sequel released on PS2 and Xbox. But the original is also being ported to Game Boy Advance, and the results are extremely impressive. The game looks and plays almost exactly as before, and the quest has actually been expanded in the two years since its console release.

The graphics are probably the most impressive aspect of the port. Despite switching from polygons to sprites and losing the movable camera, the GBA version looks remarkably close to the original. Each character (fighter, archer, or wizard) animates well and has a seemingly real-time shadow cast against the floor. The many lighting effects have been imitated convincingly. Your character’s appearance even changes as you equip different kinds of armor and weapons. The environments also look great, very gritty and realistic.

Dark Alliance’s gameplay has not changed much either. The game is very much a dungeon hack, meaning that most of the game is spent crawling through various dungeons, killing monsters and finding treasures. Other than a few story bits here and there, that really is all there is to it. And it’s a lot of fun. Dungeon hacks usually have a way of getting under your skin until you become addicted to leveling up, getting deeper into the dungeons, and finding the very best equipment. Dark Alliance does well in all of these areas. It doesn’t have a hugely involving story or crazy mini-games, and the real-time combat is very simple. One button attacks, and another button switches among a melee weapon, bow, or magic spell. Hit detection and enemy AI can still be abused in the handheld version; if you lure an enemy over to a doorway that it can’t go through, you can stand on the other side and just whack away from safety. The game plays just like other dungeon hacks like Diablo or Dark Cloud, except that dungeons aren’t randomly generated. That means there are sometimes puzzles and traps built into the level design.

Of course, not everything could be ported over to the GBA. The great voice-acting of the console version has been replaced with simple text, and the music is still very sparse, so this game won’t require your headphones. Also, it’s very unfortunate to see the two-player cooperative mode taken out, as it seems well-suited to the GBA platform and was one of the most popular things about the original version. I still think Dark Alliance will appeal to many RPG fans who want something a little different to play on the road.

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