This month’s game of the month (September) was Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. This game was the console ARPG (along with its sequels and in-engine-siblings) that blazed the trail for Blizzard to eventually release Diablo III on consoles (to great success). And also a kind of inciting event for the fact that we now can play Diablo and other ARPGs portably on Switch and Steam Deck (on controllers) and the like, which is awesome.

The first in this duology on the sixth generation consoles (appearing on PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube) and GBA in de-made (but still complete form) gave us the setting and storytelling of Baldur’s Gate crossed with the looting and dungeon crawling of the PC Diablo games, along with a set of controls that didn’t fight the player the whole way.

Although we discuss some friction and trouble with how this one has aged for a modern player (since 2001), we agree in the end that Path of Exile I and II, shiny modern examples, owe a few something to this game and the Snowblind engine games that came after it. The core appeal of the ARPG is still there (and attacking us seemingly randomly when we hit the button).

Check out the liner notes for the usual ephemera and links around our playthrough this month.

And join us at the end of October for our conversation around Absalom a roguelike beat-em’ up from the people that made Streets of Rage 4 and other favourites of ours.

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