Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance - Fun 2 Player D&D Based Action RPG with Nice Graphics for Older Consoles.
The game has quite a bit more to do than winning it on easy mode and then moving on, unfortunately that is probably what many have done. However, after beating the game once, a completely new Guantlet level is unlocked. The Gauntlet is unlike any of the other levels mainly in that there is a time limit, limited resources, and no saving is allowed. It also introduces a new fourth character type, the ranger, Drizzit. Once completing the Gauntlet as Drizzit, a new Extreme game difficulty is unlocked. In Extreme mode, the magical weapons and loot are much better and the enemies much tougher. Any previous character may be imported into the Extreme mode, keeping all their skills and experience, but must start from scratch with no gear. After completing the game on Extreme, the new Drizzit ranger character will be unlocked to import and play in regular games.
Developing characters, playing with others in 2 player mode, and comparing characters, tactics, and magic weapons and armor with other players is where much fun can be found after merely completing all the quests. With the import feature, friends can load and play their characters together, trade items, and replay any parts of the game indefinitely. Much of the fun and customization comes from the weapons and armor used and the tactics used. Characters can also be developed up to level 40.
The game has several main weaknesses, the level cap at 40, cheat codes, import exploits, limited item memory, and horribly inefficient memory card use. Why did the developers limit characters to level 40? It would have been just as easy to leave leveling open-ended, as experience is still accumulated. Some players take pride in seeing how high they can go. Cheat codes always ruin gameplay and are impossible to resist when known. Only 128 items can actively be on the ground at once and 64 items can be saved on the ground. This is a small amount considering how large some levels are and the great number of items that are dropped. And lastly, the game uses 29 blocks of memory for every save. This is probably a programming error because there are also 29 saves allowed. The game was probably meant to use 29 blocks total for all 29 saves, not 841 blocks!
On the GameCube, this game received lower reviews than the original on the PS2, because critics were comparing apples to oranges; comparing the game on one system to another. These types of reviews are ridiculous and unfair, because the general public does not own one of each console to compare and play different versions of a game on. The Gamespot review is particularly bad in this regard. The only fair way to review a game is to review it against the other games on the same system. Unfortunately, the Gamespot reviewer had a problem realizing this and was not alone. As a result, even though the Gamecube version is nearly ever bit as good as the original PS2 version and a great GameCube game, it received significantly lower reviews than on the PS2.