Dark Cloud

"By taking rarely used elements from other games Level-5 creates a unique and enjoyable experience"

Dark Cloud marked Level-5's debut into the videogame industry in December of 2000. Dark Cloud is by no means an innovative game, however they take elements from other games that are so rarely used and blend them together in a way that makes the game both enjoyable and a unique experience.

Dark Cloud is a dungeon crawling action-RPG, however it will very quickly become apparent that combat is not the main focus of the game. Fighting is a fairly simple procedure since each character can only have a single type of weapon (e.g. a sword, magic, hammers, etc.) that can either do a normal attack or a charged power attack. Enemies can be auto-targeted and you have the ability to block most attacks, so unless you are either surrounded, grossly outnumbered, or in a tight space you will not be in too much danger.

There are a variety of different enemies and each dungeon has a unique collection of monster to deal with. The uniqueness of the enemies comes from more than just different looks and strength/defense levels - there are numerous physical and magical attacks, tactics, weakness, and so on. Each floor also has a special back room, which has the same enemies, but they are all much stronger than in the main area.

Since combat is not a major issue you're probably wondering what exactly it is you'll spend countless hours doing. The main focus of the game is rebuilding cities around the world after they are literally wiped off the face of the planet by the Dark Genie. Fragments of the world have been sealed in large orange & yellow orbs known as Atla. Being the Chosen One that you are, you are the only one able to unseal the Atla and save the world. Fragments of the world consist of everything from buildings, people, rivers, trees, and so on to parts of buildings such as a staircase or lamp. There are six lands to rebuild and amazingly enough, six dungeons to go through. Each floor has a certain number of Atla for its corresponding land allowing you to slowly rebuild. Rebuilding the lands introduce new characters and plot elements to the story as well as giving you access to key items needed to get through the next floor.

The first five lands are cities, each of which has a different (and yet rather cliché) culture such as a rural mining town, a castle town, forest dwelling, and so on. The fifth and sixth areas involve the same system of rebuilding via Atla, but since it don't want to give anything away, I'll just say it's not cities you're restoring. The main story revolves around Toan (the chosen one), however there are five other playable characters that will join him in his quest. Each of these characters has unique weapons as well as a unique special move that can help you get through the environment (one can jump gaps, one can break magical barriers, and so on). Additionally these characters each have different strength and weakness, so some are strong but slow, others favor speed over strength, and some can use projectile weapons. The characters are also involved in the sub-plots that take place in their lands which, combined with their different personalities, adds a bit of variety and development to the game.

Since all of the Atla is in the dungeons, you will have to spend a lot of your time exploring them. Each dungeon consists of twenty or so floors as well as a final boss. While you only have to go through each floor once to collect the Atla, it will be necessary to go through each floor multiple times in order to gain money and collect experience. This would get extremely monotonous (or should I say more monotonous that it is) except for two factors: you can go to any previously completely floor instantly so if you want to fight the strong enemies on Floor 18 you don't have to go through the first seventeen each time and floors are randomly generated (a concept taken from older games such as Dragon Crystal and Azure Dreams) so you are not doing the exact same thing each time. Each floor map is created when you enter it, so you will face a different setup of enemies and all of the treasures, back floors, entrance, exit, water, and locked doors will be in a different place or in the case of the water and locks, may not be there at all.

Each dungeon uses the same system of random generation, but with a different look. For example in the Mines you need Tram Oil to get to the back floor, a crest to exit the level, and waterfalls for water, but in the next dungeon (the forest) you need a magic leaf to get to the back floor, seeds to exit the level, and ponds will be your source of water. Despite the new looks it can get really repetitive since you are basically doing the same thing over and over again.

Unfortunately only half the time you spend in the dungeons will be exploring; the other half will be spent backtracking. When the game generates the maps it creates them in a way that all of the hallways and rooms branch off from a starting point. As a result you will usually have to go through the entire floor to get the key and then walk back to the exit. It gets really annoying when you want to be is a couple feet away, but you have to take a three-minuet detour because there is no hall connecting the two rooms.

While the map generation could use some improvement it does not suffer from any flaws that would make the game unplayable. I have never encountered a problem such as room being inaccessible, keys being placed behind locked doors, objects placed off the map or on top of other objects, or any of the hundred other things that could have gone wrong. The only problem I have ever encountered is the PS2 not drawing pieces of the floor for some reason. This only happens with sections that are far away, it occurs rarely, and since it fixes itself when you approach the missing sections, it does not affect the game.

Aside from the occasional drawing problems Dark Cloud is a decent looking game, especially in the towns. A lot of detail is given to each character, building, tree, river, and every other object. Many of the different object react to changes from day to night-stores will close at night, homes will turn their lights on, etc. The dungeons and enemies are also textured and detailed very nicely, however because maps are created by assembling pre-fabricated sections, everything tends to look exactly the same after a while.

Perhaps the endless dungeon crawling wouldn't have been as bad if there was more of a challenge, but Dark Cloud is really easy once you've gotten used to the gameplay. The main reason why the game is so easy is that there simply aren't enough enemies on each floor. Each floor will have twenty to thirty enemies spread out over a large area. As a result you will spend a lot of times in massive areas with only three or four enemies along the sides. Floors consist of a series of large rooms interconnected by tunnels/halls/paths and enemies generally stick to the rooms. As a result there are very few instances of having to fight through tight spaces or worry about being attacked from multiple sides at once. As if killing things wasn't easy enough it is not very difficult to overpower your weapons or use characters with projectiles to take out enemies that are really far away. The boss fights are a bit more challenging, but each boss has a specific pattern than can be memorized, and if you're strong enough you can beat them very quickly.

What can make survival a bit of a challenge is the fact that there are a lot of statuses to keep track of compared to other games. Not only do you have your character's hit points to watch out for, but your weapons also have their own hit points, and you have a thirst meter, which will cause you to loose life if it runs out. Unfortunately this leads to being frustrated and annoyed more than anything since if your weapon breaks you loose it forever, and some of the weapons take a long time to build up (as in the entire game) so if it breaks you will probably end up preferring to restart rather than remake it. The thirst issue is also frustrating since water sources are completely random, so you might get one every floor or have to go on through five or six without one. This is mostly a problem in the beginning since weapon HP and thirst is probably a new concept for a lot of people and you don't have enough money yet to buy enough supplies. This ability to re-enter the dungeon at any floor also means you can leave, restock your supplies, and save after each floor, making it more of a time consuming nuisance than a challenge.

As I mentioned earlier you will have to spend a lot of time building experience, but it is the weapons that get the experience, not your characters. Each weapon has its own attack and defense, as well as strengths against certain types of creatures, and an elemental base. By building up a weapon and added gems, crystals, and other magical items onto them you make certain attributes stronger. When a weapon has the right attributes it can be transformed into more powerful weapons with different max stats and capabilities. Very few weapons (and none of the most powerful ones) can be bought, stolen, or found; you have to buildup your weapons.

Conclusion

There should be a rule that any person who labels an unreleased game as killing a massively popular classic should be exiled from the internet. Whenever this happens it ends up being one of the most hated games ever because people are either so hyped they are inevitably disappointed or they can't stand the status of "their" game being challenged. Dark Cloud was labeled a Zelda-killer so it quickly became disliked after it was released, but for people like who bought it simply because it was cheap and they need a new game, it is possible to enjoy this game a lot if you have no expectations of a "killer."

Dark Cloud takes elements from Vagrant Story and Azure Dreams, among others, and manages to create an entertaining game. Dark Cloud is far from perfect and by no means innovative, however numerous characters and a complex weapon system are enough to keep someone entertained. This is not the game that will turn someone who doesn't like RPGs into a fan of the genre, but action-RPG fans will enjoy this medley of innovative systems taken from the last generation of games. Considering how new copies of Dark Cloud now cost under $20, this is a great game for anyone on a budget or just looking for a cheap source of entertainment.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/04