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The majority of Dale II is portrayed in a top-down, slightly angled view, similar to that found in games like Baldur’s Gate and Diablo. Like most other games of the genre, you can scroll your mouse cursor over a building or person to get more information about it. Overall, the feel of the graphics helps communicate the “fantasy” feel, although the straight aesthetic impact of the game is not extraordinary.

However, one area where the game excels is in having multiple objects/characters moving at once. It is very common to have your party of six characters, enemies (I have experienced a half-dozen or so at a time), and spell animations all at the same time. Thankfully, the graphics keep moving along, maintaining the pace of the game. Given that Dale II’s combats require you to be able to keep running control of your entire party, this was an important graphical detail, and I’m glad it works well.

An additional area where the graphics help communicate the feel of the game happens later in the story. As your characters gain levels, they gain the ability to unleash multiple attacks per “round” (a given span of time). As you would expect, characters with more attacks receive more attack animations, but again this helps differentiate Fighters swinging away with swords from Wizards poking enemies with daggers.

Music & Sound

Frankly speaking, I usually do not put a great deal of emphasis on musical scores in RPGs. I find that, while a good score adds to the mood of a game, an average one is just background music—something that is nice to have, but also nice to shut off, depending on your mood. During the rare occasions when a musical score is exceptional, such as in Planescape: Torment, I appreciate the fact. However, on the whole, I and most other RPGers do not expect the music for an RPG to be exceptional.

That being said, I feel that Dale II has a very strong musical score. The music is quite emotive, and helps present the epic feel of the game. As a whole, I found Dale II’s musical tracks supported the game and enhanced the mood quite well. One concern I have, though, is that Dale II is a long game. Even though the music is pleasing to the ear, after a few hours in an area you may become tired of it.

The digitized voices and voice acting were also quite good. Although I found the voices and speeches for the Player Characters to be somewhat repetitive, the NPC voices were acted well, and the dialogue was well written. This added quite a bit to the believability of the conversations within the game.