Dark Cloud

"Hello, I'm suffering from terrible game syndrome"

Yeah, that's right. A FOUR OUT OF TEN! All these no good praisers of this game obviously haven't played a good game in ages, if ever because this game sucks it down 100%. And now I'll explain in great detail why it sucks so bad.

First of all, I've played this game to the end. I haven't beaten it yet as the last boss is sickeningly cheap. But the unbalanced gameplay comes later in this review.

What I liked: I liked the camera angle system, except for the fact that it gets 'stuck' when rotating sometimes (doesn't quite understand how to zoom in and out when it's being rotated manually a lot of the time). The actual controls for moving around and fighting are perfectly fine as it's easy to pick up, and you'll be fighting in no time. The building of cities back to normal is easy to do too, and some satisfaction can be derived from this, although it does get a bit tiring near the end. More on the tiring bit later. The sound effects were varied and slightly above mediocre (the most powerful machine-gun should've sounded a bit more like a 'most powerful weapon in the world' in my opinion though), and the music...well, considering how drawn out each area was, it must have been pretty good or I'd be insane right now. The ''Duels'' absolutely rock, although the set-up for telling you which button to push and when forces you to either watch the bar and win (missing all the cool action), or watch the action and lose. Had they done it more Dragon's Lair style, I would have enjoyed it more. Heck, had they put in more than 5 duels in the game I would have enjoyed it more.

What I disliked: I hate the designers of this game. Essentially they wanted to make a Zelda 64 clone, but no too much like Zelda so they wouldn't be slapped with a lawsuit. So they modified the game so it didn't have any of the perks that Zelda had, aka: a good game. Let's put this game into an analogy:

Let's say a game is a mammal. The skeleton of the mammal is the game engine. The flesh which holds the skeleton together is the plot. The organs which keep the mammal alive is the fun-factor (which includes gameplay, obviously). Finally, the skin is how it looks on the screen, visually appealing-wise. If this game was a mammal, it would be some skin hanging off a skeleton, with no much else. The plot is boring, recycled, and like the rest of the game, ''not enough''. Those two words there describe the game so well. Still don't believe me? Okay, here's a spoiler-free run through of the game, starting with a time spent percentage chart:

Time spent:
Running around dungeons (just running) - 70%
Fighting monsters - 8%
Assembling cities - 10% (including the 'get Atla' sequences)
Changing characters to solve the 'puzzles' - 8%
Dealing with the plot - 4%

As you can see, you spend most of your time running around dungeons. The dungeons are laid out as follows: 15-20 floors, randomly generated maps, 15-20 enemies per floor, 5-10 treasure chests, 3 of which contain items which are level specific (map, magic gem (like a compass), and keys). There are around 7 different enemies in each area with their own patterns. They start to repeat later in the game (but are...different colors!). So this is how a typical level would go.

Enter level 1.
Run around.
Fight monsters (note: monster battles are over in about 2 seconds because they die so quickly)
Collect Atla (each time you find a piece of Atla, you go through a 5 second animation sequence. Seeing as you pick up around 700 pieces throughout the game, you're spending approx. an hour of the game watching the Atla sequence over and over. Fun, huh?)
Find key for any locked doors and item to get you to the next dungeon level.
Go to next dungeon level.
Repeat 100 times.

It's the same thing over and over again, with different monsters and different wall textures. Oh and each dungeon level has the mysterious 'back level' which you can reach if you get a certain item. The chances of getting this item is very slim, so you probably will only see a back area once per whole dungeon in each part of the game...if you're lucky. The back area simply has upgraded versions of the baddies you usually fight, and slightly better treasure. Wow.

As you may or may not be able to tell, my biggest beef with the game was the ''Repeat 100 times'' part. That is not an exaggeration. The dungeons are long and tedious with no challenge whatsoever. Fighting a monster is as simple as lock on, and mash the attack button. Your main character does a 5 hit combo, but it only takes around 1-2 hits to knock down even the biggest monsters (excluding bosses). Monsters do crazy damage too, so you have to be very careful about being hit. To drag the game out more, your weapon has hit points too. This isn't like Vagrant Story (cough::ripoff::cough), where it goes down gradually and you need to repair every hour or two (real time). This is you have to repair it every 3 minutes or so. The biggest joke is that your weapons are more precious than your life. If you die, you just leave the dungeon with half you gold (which is never very much), and you can travel right back to the level you left off at. If your weapon breaks, it's gone forever. And your weapon can break very easily. In fact, since your entire attack power is determined by your weapon, if you primary breaks, you'll be spending hours getting another one up to par. Another wonderful (gag) feature it the thirst system. This was thrown in for no apparent reason but to annoy you. Apparently you must constantly be sweating/peeing in the game because you need to drink every minute (real time), except later in the game when you have a really big water meter - then it's 5 minutes. Like the weapon hit point system, this was put in to annoy the player more than make them think about how to strategically get through the game. I must stress this. ''This is a pathetically easy game! In an effort to make it more difficult, weapon hit points, thirst meters, overkill status effects, super damaging monsters, and stupid no brainer puzzles are set in your path. This doesn't make the game more difficult, gaming-wise. It just makes it more annoying, and really tests your patience. About the puzzles. They aren't really puzzles. Each Ally in the game has a unique talent. Being able to jump far, or being able to hit a stump on the floor (what a talent), or being able to light up a crystal which opens a door. In order to make sure you're using each character, these 'puzzles' are placed in abundance around each dungeon. So you're walking along for 20 seconds and come to a puzzle. Switch character, hit stump/fire magic/just hit the damn action button, and it's solved. Then you have to switch back to the main character because only he can collect Atla. What the heck is the point? Even if you wanted to stay on the character that solved the puzzle, you can't because you need to collect Atla. So there's no point, and it's just another stupid gimmick.

I would not even recommend you rent this game. You'll waste so much time trying to get through it, and you'll be left feeling empty after finishing it, wondering what the heck it was all for. It wasn't a difficult game. It wasn't a fun game. It was just plain time consuming.

And on an ending note, I'll briefly mention why the last boss is the final developer's slap in my face. He has an attack which he uses in abundance. It cannot be dodged. It cannot be blocked (in fact, almost nothing can be blocked in the game, so why they put a block button in is beyond me). It always hits, so you have to really stock up on food (healing stuff) to beat him. That's the only reason why he's hard. An undodgable, unblockable move. Excuse me, how is this fun again?

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/01, Updated 06/18/01