Retro Review: Dark Cloud (PS2)

I've played Dark Cloud personally maybe on 10 different occasions, and during all of those attempts to beat it, I've never gotten close once. I set out to finish it during May, when my Xbox had red-ringed and I needed something to pass the time with, and finally completed what I've only just found out is a fantastic game.

The game is amazing, and has not gone sour with age like most games around that era have.
(have you ever tried playing GoldenEye 007 recently? The characters are kind of hard to look at)

The game starts showing that this war general who's bent on conquering the world plans to do so by freeing this evil entity trapped in a jar named the "Dark Genie." Through a ritual in which many people dance in formation, the Genie is released.

(Looks cuddly doesn't he?)

Your main character, (the default name is Toan) is getting all set to go to the local festival when the general decides to start annihilating parts of the world he doesn't have control over starting with your town. (go figure.) Everything around your character starts blowing up, etc, you die. Except not really.

You're saved by a mystical being known as the Fairy King (which looks like a catholic priest oddly enough) who hands you the task to save the half of the world destroyed by the Dark Genie using the power of Atlamillia; a stone the kind embeds onto the back of your hand. After you get the stone, your warped back to your home town.

I have to say, in a forum I was once asked what my Top 5 First Level's in Video Games were, and Dark Cloud was really high on the list. Before the Genie attacked, your given this scene of a small town all preparing for a festival, there are houses everywhere, torches lit, and a huge bonfire happening, virtually the town looked alive.

(much like this.)

Once you gain control of your character, your dropped back into your hometown, and it's nothing but a flat plain for miles. It's virtually a blank slate all ready for your design. The whole point of Dark Cloud is to recreate all of these thought to be lost towns and cities into however you see fit. The Fairy King shows up mysteriously to tell you that he sealed everything that was about to be destroyed into Atla, that can only be opened using the main characters Atlamillia stone.

(nothing.)

To advance in the game, you have to collect all of the pieces of the Atla and recreate the lost cities. The Atla is all stored in the dungeons that are in the game, so you'll have to traverse the various floors of the dungeons in order to gain the elements back.

You aren't alone in this quest however, as you travel the game, you gain a fistful of allies. The allies being Xiao, the Catgirl with a slingshot; Goro, the kid with a hammer; Ruby, the genie with magic bracelets; Ungaga, the warrior with a staff, and Osmond, the space bunny with a gun.

The dungeons are randomly generated when you step inside, which can be nice, although they still have all of the same characteristics as Dungeons can get. There are always 15 enemies per floor, there are only as many pieces of Atla as it says on the floor selection screen, and you have to find the correct key item (dropped from an enemy) to open the door to advance to the next floor.

The gameplay is virtually how you would expect an adventure-RPG on the Playstation 2 to be, the analog sticks were moving and camera, and attack was with the X button. You found chests and items, and one of my favorite features that isn't in enough games nowadays, was the thirst meter. Normal people can't live without water, so why should game characters be the same way?

I wish I had one of these.

As far as stage design goes, the areas in which all of the cities and towns are placed are fantastic. You travel from the 1st level cave, to the forest, to under the ocean, to the moon, and as far as the buildings in the main city, that's all constructed to your own design.

While it is a good game, it's nowhere near perfect. For example, the attacks with all of the weapons are the same combo, except when you're using the jump attack. The other characters that you get tend to get a little boring and you wind up only using one character for the entire game.

Considering how long you're in some of these area's, the music gets a bit repetitive. Not that it's bad, it's just you start knowing every chord and on your 6th time out of the dungeon you start whistling it. While writing this I can still recall the music for Norune Village; the 1st stage.

(While writing the 'cons' of the 'pros & cons' part of this review, it's extremely hard not to say "Dark Cloud 2 was made better" as a reason for this game not to excel.)

The dungeons in the game, even with every single floor being randomized, all still look exactly the same as it was when you came in. Every area looks exactly the same until you hit the boss floor. So looking at that tends to get a bit dull.

The boss fights themselves were also not that great, as it mainly consisted of "use your newly acquired main character first to stun it, then use your main character to deal out a bunch of damage". The only boss that actually has some difficulty is the last boss, without going into too much detail, not a lot of players will be ready to beat him.

The game has a fantastic post-game dungeon called the Demon Shaft; a long tower filled with 100 floors of really hard enemies, all leading up to a secret in-game weapon and boss. I personally didn't try this section, but hearing from a friend of mine that also beat the game and the Demon Shaft, he says it's no easy task.

(100 floors.)

In conclusion, for a game where you go from a dungeon in a cave to recreate your hometown, to piecing together a giant robot with help from space bunnies on the moon, I personally think that this game is well worth picking up, especially if you just happen to find it in a bin somewhere, it's well worth the gametime to play.

Overall score: 7.5/10

Seriously. Space Bunnies.