Dark Cloud

The combat system is nearly identical to the one used in Legend of Zelda games for the N64. Players choose a target to lock on, and then whale away. Between rounds of slaying monsters, players will have to strategically rebuild cities to advance. Successful fishing trips will lead to valuable weapon upgrades. Some battles test your rhythm, requiring you to match button commands, similar to such games as Um Jammer Lammy and PaRappa the Rapper. Weapon management is a vital part of the game--weapons can break if not cared for properly, but you can also transform them into powerful objects of destruction by shrewdly managing upgrades.

The multifaceted game contains an excellent tutorial to help you learn its many aspects. While it has its imperfections, Dark Cloud is the best PlayStation2 RPG to date. It's perfect for the angling adventurer that likes to dabble in urban planning. --Raymond M. Padilla

Pros:

• Successfully mixes a wide variety of genres
• A deep and compelling weapon management system
• Great character design

• Subpar graphics
• Some unoriginal and outright goofy opponents
• Dungeon trolling can get tedious

The main thrust of the game is that you're trying to rebuild a series of homes destroyed by the Evil Enemy. To do so, you go slogging through nearby dungeons, finding home-bits like beds, lamps and so on, on your adventures. When you bring them back to town, you have to figure out which items to where to please the people. In addition, the houses themselves have to be placed so that the people are happy. Some people want to live near a stream, some want to have morning sun in certain windows, and so on.

Your weapons can be customized as you go, and need to be maintained. This gives you a bit of RPG-like control over your life, more in fact than most Zelda games provide to you.

In addition, there are some fun mini-games which help break up the dungeon crawling, and give you a bit of variety.

The game's provides much longer gameplay time (usually several weeks) than many other PS games on the market, meaning it's a good value for the price. Perhaps the only downsides are the graphics, which aren't top-notch, and the dungeon crawling being a bit tedious after several hours. Still, it's a good, fun game to play. Grab one for your PS library!


Shut up and read this!   May 6, 2001
C. Sonata (Holden, MA United States)
38 out of 46 found this review helpful

Whatever the people who gave this game 3 stars or less, TOTALLY IGNORE THEM! It's not necessarily their fault,though, for they have only read the Japanese reviews. The people who made this game didn't have time to include all of the details that they wanted to, in the Japanese version, because they had to make a deadline. But since the U.S. release wasn't for 6 more months, they added a lot more to this game. Such as: 35 additional weapons, nine new items, 18 new monsters, two new bosses, an additional form for the last boss, one new duel/event battle, 11 new fish for the fishing minigame, a revised lock-on targeting system, a new chest quiz character that offers you a choice between items, mystery circles that can help or harm your character, new expanded combo attacks for Toan and Ungaga, enhanced enemy AI, an enhanced weapon system, a bonus 100 floor dungeon called Demon Shaft, and lots of other minor changes. How do i know all this? Cause i have a subscription to the sweeeeetest PS2 mag out there, O.P.M.(Official U.S. Playstation Magazine)! Anyway, what's not to like about fighting through dungeons to collect Atla pieces which you use to build villages any way you want to? And who cares if the main character has a hat that looks like a turban with tube socks stapled to the back? There are 5 other playable characters in the game. I don't know about you, but I AM SO BUYING THIS GAME!


Perfect!   June 5, 2001
James L. Byrd (Houston, Texas United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I awaited this game for months! When I finally got it, I tore it open read the instruction book and was devistated! The magic system looked very complicated and other elements--like needing water, food and keeping weapons repaired--made me think that this game would be too complicated to be really enjoyed. I WAS WRONG! Once you start to play, you are lost in a three dimensional world of your own making. The graphics make you wish that Zelda had lived up to it's potential. This game is suited to all ages and playable for hours, especially if you have kids like myself. Dark Cloud is a cross between games. Like SimCity in that you can build your own world, that is, arrange elements (houses and rivers and trees and such) and collect items that affect the outcome of the story. This is well combined with the combat style found in Onimusha and magic systems as intuative as those in the better Final Fantasy installments. The camera angles can be tricky at first, but soon become second nature. The same with keeping your weapons upgraded and repaired. Everything blends with breathtaking imagery and FULL and CONTROLLABLE panoramic view.


Zelda + SimCity = Dark Cloud   May 30, 2006
Matt (WI United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I've been out on the loop when it comes to console gaming for nearly a decade. When I finally got back into the swing of things with the purchase of a PS2, this game was among the first dozen or so I've thrown into my library.

It was a launch release when the PS2 first came out, so I wasn't expecting much in terms of graphics, but who cares. This is a suprisingly fun little dungeon romp. Dark Cloud reminds me a bit of the old SNES games like "ActRaiser" I used to rent and play a lot. Not unlike "ActRaiser", the thing that sets this game apart from most other PS2 adventure and RPG games, and just other action / RPG games in general, is that this is sort of like two games in one. You must first dive head-first into the dungeon, clearing away monsters and gathering parts of the town that were sealed in spheres called "Atla" which are scatterd throughout the dungeon's floors. Battles are in real-time, making this more of an action-RPG or adventure akin to the popular 'Zelda' series. Upon exiting the dungeon then, you can switch to the so-called 'Georama' mode, where you can get as creative as you wish, placing down buildings, trees, bodies of water, and roads (a-la 'SimCity"), so long as you meet NPCs' requests. Example: In Norune Village, your (Toan's) mother wants you to place your house in such a way that the rising sun can be seen through the window. Meet requests such as this, and you'll aquire needed items to continue your journey.

Other reviewers have probably already elaborated on the story end of the game, so I'm just going to run down technical bits:

- Graphics -

Again, as stated, this was a launch release, so these are first-generation PS2 models here. Nothing spectacular to write home about, but for what it is, and when it was released, Dark Cloud does offer a fair amount of detail. Toan's (your main character in the game, I'm using default names) clothes move as you move...little details like that, along with the (to my eyes), realistic-looking water and waterfalls that go with them. Because the dungeons are randomly generated maps that use the same graphic sets, things can get a little redundant here, especially for longer dungeons, but at least they keep to the themes presented. Caves look like caves, castles look like castles, and so on.

- Play Control -

Controlling your character is fluid. Tilt the stick a little, Toan walks. Tilt it all the way, and he runs. it took me a bit of time to get used to the fighting mechanics, but after a few battles, it comes easier to you. The annoying part is the camera, which I wish had a little more control especially when locked onto an enemy. When I lock onto an enemy and I am attacking, sometims the view swings around to where I can't even see my playable character, forcing me to 'unlock' from the enemy, and swing the view back around. This can make boss battles insanely difficult. "Georama" mode is explained in the game itself, though it's just simple 'point, pick up and drop' simplicity here.

- Sound -

There's no voiceover work here, but then again, not many PS2 games that came out in the first wave of releases at least up until Final Fantasy 10, had voiceacting in them. The only things hinting at a characters 'voice' would be the grunts or squeals you hear when attacking enemies, or being hit. Ambient noises sound like they should....running waterfalls, torches along the walls, and out in the towns you hear the wind, the birds, and (at night) crickets chirping. Other sounds (the clashing of swords, bombs blowing up, etc) are your standard fare.

- Music -

A few early PS2 games brought over MIDI sequencing techniques used in older (pre- Year 2000) PC games, the SNES, and PSOne. Most, if not all games today use CD (also known as "RedBook") audio, or in the case of most PS2 games now, DVD-Audio. Dark Cloud is one of the few that used an 'old-school' approach to the music, which while the indidual songs can get a little repetitive, there are some enjoyable tracks in here.

- FMV's -

This is sort of a new category for me. Old-school RPGs didn't have the technology avaliable until the PSOne, to go beyond just various sprite movements and LOTS of text to lay out the story. Final Fantasy VII, as we all know, broke that barrier and brought some of the first use of Full-Motion Video (FMV) intertwined into the overall game story. It seems no RPG developers have looked back since.

The same here is true for Dark Cloud. The minute I booted up the game, chose my options, and hit "Start", I was Wow'ed by what I saw. Though voice acting would have made things flow better like how they do in FF 10 or other-like games, for a first-gen PS2 release, this isn't bad at all. Fluid movements, cel-shading, and not in Dark Cloud, but rather in other games, bits of anime cutscenes. Technology for FMVs has really taken leaps and bounds in advancement since the mid/late 1990s and it shows even in an older game like this.

- Overall -

Dark Cloud, taking into account when it was released, is a title worth having. It's not the longest of RPGs out there.....you can probably clean house in under 30 hours if you just blaze straight through without getting any extra items other than those you need to complete the game, but length doesn't always make a great game. Shorter games are more concise and quicker paced. The battles and dungeons can get repetitive for some, and they did for me, so that may diminish the 'fun factor' a bit, depending on tastes. Otherwise, this is an overall, very good, and very underrated PS2 title. I recommend it to those getting a (late) head start with the PS2 RPGing experience, or those looking for a little break away from the redundancy of the Final Fantasies and Kingdom Hearts of the RPG world.


Combination of tried and true RPG standards   July 19, 2001
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

While there may not be a lot about this game that isn't recognizable, I think that it's the combination of elements that make this a great game. It does follow the examples of many of many other RPG's (Zelda 64 for example) I think that the end result is a fun playable game.

I have about 30 hours on the game so far. There are several small puzzles that were fairly easy to figure out but I enjoyed them more then some of the illogical and almost impossible ones I've seen in other games.

The graphics were quite nice and the movies were nicely made if a bit long (especially in the beginning).

The world creating section is excellent. Searching out parts of a destroyed world and not only recreating it but also making it better is one of the most enjoyable and original aspects of the game.

My favorite part of this game is the dungeons. While the levels in a single dungeon are very similar to each other, I really liked the way the layouts changed every time you entered it and the way that you never knew what you were going to get out of it. The monsters are interesting and I liked the way that you had to figure out which of your characters worked best and with which weapon.

This is a game that anybody can beat if they work long enough - the challenge is in beating it fast. The fun is in creating a world, characters, and weapons to do it. All in all this is a game that can be enjoyed by anyone from the age of 10 up. I really liked it.