Random_Coffee: I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2, which is pretty awesome. I completely forgot Baldur's Gate had a console hack n slash spin-off, but I came across it recently and was positively surprised. I'll try to get the first one as well, but it's pretty rare, and prices aren't great.
From what I've seen, prices are a lot higher for
Dark Alliance 2, so if you got it fairly cheap, you're lucky. The first one was reissued as a 'Greatest Hits' title on the PS2, which probably means it originally sold enough to have all kinds of copies floating around for sale. Currently, the cheapest price Amazon shows a used copy of the second game being sold for -- for me, at least -- is about $29 U.S. (though a Japanese import copy is almost $10 cheaper); the first game, on the other hand, can be had (again, used) for under $10.
But regarding the
Dark Alliance games themselves: I can recommend the original
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as a really fun hack 'n' slash. I played through it several times over the course of a decade or so, and the gameplay still holds up. There were aspects of the sequel (which I never owned, only borrowed from a friend) that I liked, but also some mildly annoying elements; however, I never finished it with even one character, and I didn't put anywhere near the amount of time into it that I put in to its predecessor or, for that matter,
Champions of Norrath. Suffice it to say, though, that they're both really fun...as long as you don't expect anything like the experience of playing the PC
Baldur's Gate games.
Speaking of
Champions of Norrath, I can also recommend that, as well as its sequel,
Champions: Return to Arms. Basically, it's the same kind of gameplay as the
Dark Alliance games, but based on
EverQuest instead of D&D's Forgotten Realms. The loot in these games is a lot more varied and interesting than in the Dark Alliance titles, and parts of some levels in the first game were even procedurally generated (making the save file stupidly huge). Also,
Return to Arms was one of the comparatively rare PS2 games that let you import your character from the previous game, which was kinda cool.
Other decent pseudo-isometric-perspective ARPGs that I played and enjoyed on the PS2:
-
The Bard's Tale -- I've never played any of the original
Bard's Tale games, but I know they are not the same kind of game; however, judged on its own merits, this game is pretty good, and does some things very well. The combat is actually fairly challenging, the game is generally quite amusing, and -- despite the fact that it's largely a loving parody of RPG and fantasy tropes -- the world is a lot more unique than a lot of much more self-serious RPGs can manage. And you've gotta love the fact that Cary Elwes voiced the snarky, self-involved Bard, and Tony Jay was awesome as the condescending Narrator who detests him (and can be heard by the Bard!).
-
X-Men Legends &
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse -- Really fun team-based superhero ARPGs, but they're apparently a little buggy -- my playthrough of the second game was actually halted by one of these. There are also some occasional lapses in quality (certain bits of voiced dialogue sounding as if they were recorded from a call from a pay phone) and confusing inconsistencies in the UI (some character dialogue boxes must be cleared with the confirmation button in order to see the next bit of dialogue, while others are on an invisible timer, and you never know which is which, so it's all too easy to accidentally skip some text you hadn't yet read while trying to clear a box that just went away on its own). All in all, though, still very worthwhile games.
-
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel -- Not to be confused with
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. This is to the two original
Fallout games as the
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance titles are to the original
Baldur's Gates. The difference here is that -- although its RPG elements are dumbed down even from
Dark Alliance (let that sink in) -- it's got way more dialogue than
DA. It's tougher, too, in part because (in my opinion) the engine is more suited to melee combat (who knew that pseudo-isometric-perspective game engine + manually-aimed projectile weapons = you'd better get good at dodging?). Let me put it this way: I bought it for less than $10 in a bargain bin, and -- for that price -- I wasn't disappointed.
