Douglas's late game of the week: Dark Cloud/Chronicle 2

[Sim Kid]

Dark Cloud was one of the first games released for the PS2. It combined Sim-City-like elements with real-time combat and Dungeon stalking. Combining all 3 was a rather good idea, as Dark Cloud became incredibly popular, popular enough to make it to the "greatest hits" category.

Dark Cloud was also called Dark Chronicle.

Dark Cloud 2, the sequel to the first Dark Cloud, was released in 2003. Many Dark-Cloud fans were hoping that the flaws would be fixed, and that it would hopefully surpass the original in many ways. It had surpassed the original in practically every way possible.

The graphics are all very colourful and detailed. Heck, you can even equip clothes to a character and you see them wear them. It doesn't really matter which combination of clothes you can wear, but you can bet your bottom that you'll see them wear it and in cutscenes too. All the graphics are beautiful-The non-generic characters are all really detailed (Even though most, if not all of the moon people look exactly the same except for Pau) and colourful, and the backgrounds are also very good. However, there are quite a few drawbacks with the graphics-Mainly being that quite a bit of the monsters are pallette swaps, the backgrounds in the dungeons are all good except they are repeated alot, and that in the future sometimes, they can be irritating colours sometimes. Mainly in the future, especially in Luna Lab are where graphics are irritating colours and they sometimes make the text hard to read. Thank god for the voice-overs!

Dark Cloud 2 has a very great soundtrack-All of the boss themes are REALLY great to listen to (Especially Dr. Jaming's theme and Fire Close in on the Lighthouse) and really do fit the scene well. Sure, the dungeon music can really get repetetive sometimes and you will hear Max and Monica's battle cries more then their regular voices, but there really is some superb voice acting. The voices all fit the characters-And some people who watched "As told by Ginger" (I know everyone hated it-But you had to watch it to know it sucks. [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) may recognize a familliar voice when you first speak to Pau and another familliar voice from the pre-crap nick era appears later in the game. (I don't actually know who, but I KNOW the guy who did his voice also did a voice in a pre-crap Nick show)

The difficulty is one of the drawbacks. One of the biggest complaints I heard from the original was that some of the bosses were too hard. *cough*Ice Queen La Saia, Dark Genie, the boss in the Demon Shaft*cough* Here, all of the bosses are really easy (Except for some of the optional bosses, like Dark Genie who returns) and unless you don't know what you're doing, then you shouldn't really die or have much trouble. Even the last boss is easy, even though you have a time limit to kill it. However, they also fixed a flaw that made the first game much easier. In order to build up the second-to-last and final weapons, you have to kill a few monsters-most of which don't appear until chapter 6 or 7. That's so you won't be using Gameshark to get the ultimate weapons within the first 30 minutes and then take down all the bosses within just a few hits. It was a rather nice system to add so you won't be getting ultimate weapons by the time you finish chapter 3 if you're that dedicated.

In Dark Cloud/chronicle 2, your characters don't level up-You gain HP and defense by using power-up items like Fruit of Eden and Max and Monica's favourite foods (Potato pie and Witch Parfait). You have to do a lot of killing during the game-And that way you wouldn't be spending loads of time leveling up. What does level up actually is your weapons. Your weapons gain ABs (absorption(sp)), and you get synthesis points when they level up, and even some of their stats go up when they level up (That way you won't get stuck trying to get the Attack Stat up if you don't have power crystals, but after chapter 3, you can simply buy hundreds of Power crystals to level the weapons up quicker). When you have synthesis points, you can synthesize crystals and even useless-looking items to get the weapon stats up. When they meet the requirements for the next weapon, you can build them up. This was quite fun actually, but very time consuming when trying to get your projectile weapons up because they're so weak. (Though once you get the Jurak Gun and Grenade Launcher, Max'll shoot down everything like he's the Lone Ranger) You can beat the game with the second-to-last weapons, but it's easier to take down the last boss with your ultimate weapons.

Max and Monica respond to your controls very well-They all run at a decent speed and attack right when you tell them too. (Though with Max, there's usually a slight delay when he has hammers) With the Ridepod, you can't usually strike in combos. Of course, when fighting later enemies with the Ridepod, The propeller legs and the Nova Canon will be your best friends. Monster Transformation (Monica's skill) is only useful for getting a sundrop for chapter 2. After you get a sundrop from a himarra in chapter 2, there's really no use for monster transformation. That is because the monsters are WEAK! You can level them up by killing them as Monica and then have her change into a monster and grab the ABs, but seriously, Monster Transformation is more or less just voluntary(sp). It's not mandatory to do when completing the game like Max's Ridepod is.

Most of the time in the game, you will be in dungeons. You have to go kill monsters and find the gate key. Then you look for the Geostone, collect it, then move to the next floor. You can get medals by completing certain goals like "Defeat all without healing" or "Kill all using only the ridepod". This adds to the replay value, as you can get some really nice stuff by using the medals. There is also fishing in some dungeons, and fishing is executed very well. You put bait on the hook and let it out. It's quite fun to mix with the bait (Amazing what kinds of fish will actually eat a poison banana, huh?) and see what your fishing goal is, and the fish you catch can be used for the Finny Frenzy-Fish races. Once you invent an aquarium, you keep your fishies in there and you can feed them, breed them, and even make them fight like gladiators. Spheda is something you can also do in dungeons after mid-chapter 3. It's a golf-like sport where you have to send the sphere into the time distortion to repair it, and it has to be a certain colour before it can repair the distortion hitting it only a certain number of times. Great concept, but it's executed badly. I'm not too good with Spheda, because I can never really send it where I want it to go. Lots of others have had that problem with Spheda-And unless you're really good, do NOT even THINK about playing Spheda in Spheda hell-Err I mean Mt. Gundor unless you're really good. However, Ocean's roar cave is good for starters.

What also contributes to the replay value of the game is the camera. You can take pictures of just about anything and use some as ideas to invent things. Most of the time it's Ridepod parts. You can also take pictures of specific things called "Scoops". You can fill your album with scoops, give them to Donny, and then you can get every item in the game. Scoops and Ideas contribue greatly to the replay value.

Another one of the elements that made the first one so great to play was building the towns. Sure in the first one you were just putting the towns back together, but here you actually build. You have to use elements to build the towns and restore the origin point of a specific area in the future. What's an Origin point you may ask? Well, you may already know that what happens in the past affects the future. Take a look outside. Do you see any vegetation such as trees, grass, or shrubberies? *Cue dreadful sounding music from Monty Python and the Holy grail* The origin point of that vegetation would be when the seeds were planted. Say you were to go back in time to before the tree/shrub/flower/whatever was planted. You pick up a seed and pocket it. Then you go bakc to the present. What'll most likely be anything different will that the plant whose seed you took will not be there. The Origin point of that plant was erased, so the only way to fix it would be to return to the past and plant it. Return to the present, and there it is. Origin points play a key role in every time-travel storyline, though this is the first time I actually heard it used in such a way. Back on topic about the building, you can place the buildings and items you make in the geroma wherever you feel like it. Where you place them will sometimes raise culture points (Objectives are usually to get a certain amount). When you place houses, you can even move support characters from your hometown in. It's required in every geroma except for chapters 6 (Where there IS no geroma) and chapter 7 (Where you aren't rebuliding a town). It's also a bit fun to completley disorganize the towns and place the houses on huge blocks and then walk off. Almost every Geroma tries to present you with a challenge-In chapter 3, you have to level out 4 plateaus by placing the same weight on each plateau. In Chapter 4, everything has to be bulit on the water, and on chapter 5, you can't place wooden or straw houses there because of the embers and geysers. There wasn't really too much of a challenge, but buliding the towns was pretty cool. And I wasted like a good hour and a half in the rainbow butterfly wood trying to get geroma elements before I realized you could buy them from a guy in the train.

The storyline is another improvent. Time-travel plays a big role in this game's storyline. Max, the one chosen by the red atlamilla, has the power to go into the future while Monica, a girl from the future and the one chosen by the blue atlamilla, has the ability to go to the past. The game's antagonist, Emperor Griffon, has been destroying Origin points for what may be a threat to him. So as Max and Monica, you must restore the origin points while defeating his henchmen. They don't all turn out to be bad though-And if I were to share one of the game's saddest moments, i'll spoil almost all of chapter 5. It may look like a boy looking for his mother who's mysteriously left the town, but it turns out to be much more. Explaining where his mother is will spoil another big part of the story. If you are a fan of Time-traveling, you may like this plot.

Overall, Dark Cloud 2 is definatley a worthy sequel. Sure, Level 5 may be a neglected game developer, but this game is their most known game. Game Informer even put it in the "best games of this generation" in their issue. It certainly deserves to be among the best games of this generation like Kingdom Hearts, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Halo, Wind Waker, and of course Grand Theft Auto. Dark Cloud 2 is also here to show us that Dungeon Stalkers live on-They are not just a faint memory of the 16-bit era. (And thank god we don't have another dungeon stalker Shining in the Darkness. Only good for its time period) 8.5/10

Pros:
-=some nice graphics=-
-=Excellent voice-play=-
-=An awesome soundtrack=-
-=LOADS of replay value=-
-=Having fun with the camera and taking loads of useless pictures=-
-=rebuliding the towns=-
-=A very well thought out plot involving Time Travel=-

Cons:
-=Dungeons can be a bit repetetive=-
-=How easy it is=-
-=Pallette-swapped monsters have, unfortunatley, made their way into this era=-
-=Some of the graphics can be irrittaing colours=-
-=Max and Monica's battle cries can be a bit annoying=-
-=Spheda's a great concept, it's just executed terribly.=-

[Codiekitty]

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