Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance 12+

This game has so many great aspects, it’s a decent port of the original. Game is clearly intended to be played with controller as touch screen can be seriously frustrating. Some obvious areas of improvement: interface scrolling, inventory especially are really cumbersome. Seems like a glaring oversight as a few scroll buttons on the gui would solve. As it relates to game control, touch aiming doesn’t work nearly as well as controller and with 2 of 3 chars being ranged, an aim-assist would do wonders. The rest of the issues are really with the original game, save check points, the frustrating thieves guild platform jumping, bosses that can one-hit kill your etc, all of which will tempt the less-than-committed to quit and not return. Aside from all that, it is a really great game, derived from great source content and the the OG RPG brand. I’m satisfied but not elated.

I was hoping for something like Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale but it’s really more like Diablo IIRC. Which I enjoyed as well, but know your audience! BG enthusiasts like the relaxed pace of turn based combat and puzzle solving and lots of control over character stats. This game has a lot of arcade style play. The disappearing islands have now gotten really old and you’re not even allowed to save whenever you want which makes it worse.

I don’t own a “game controller” but it looks like one will be required to play this successfully. The iPad controls are too clunky to do these precisely timed jumps. Certain controls don’t even seem to exist without a controller, like moving the camera lower so missle weapons can be used effectively. One’s finger tends to drift off of the attack button in the heat of combat so suddenly you’re swapping weapons or picking up stuff instead of attacking the guy trying to kill you.

Enjoying it, but not sure it will last. Going to try one of the other two (!) character choices.

Everyone has had their say on game control issues, and yes, the bow/arrow aiming is challenging but I think the other item to be addressed is the fact that the game is so short. I never played this as a console game, but I finished this with ease using the iPad controls, not a joystick. Addons? DC? I’ll play again with a sorcerer and see how that goes