Dark Cloud 2

"Suddenly the word RPG feels like nostalgia"

The suprise hit of the year?.

I was confused when searching for this game on Gamefaqs - the game I purchased was titled Dark Chronicle, on here it's titled Dark Cloud II. I take it the game is the sequel to Dark Cloud then, phew. Dark Chronicle sounds so much better anyways, so there.

Personally, for me to buy this game took little interest. I mean, just to post a conversation, I think I asked people on several message boards to recommend the game even though I was only midly interested. How wrong I was going to be. Dark Chronicle is a leaf out of the new modern RPG's and one of the freshest ideas to thrift into the catergory of good, solid RPG's. Little hype, but big public interest made it a suprise hit, and the media couldn't stop rappelling their adoration for the qualities of this game. We could have a new saga on our hands.

The opening scenes of the game made me think that suddenly, Final Fantasy didn't really matter anymore. And for me, that's something. Each review I've done has always mentioned the double f word (What a great plug). The devastating truth is that Dark Chronicle is a reminder of what everyone use to enjoy in early childhood. The game resembles some epic adventure cartoon series you would have rushed home from school to watch before and after your dinner.

In short, this game is probably aimed for kids. But nevertheless, it's the adults who will appreciate playing it the most. It has that sparkle about it.

For me, it's a great memento. It lives up to everything RPG's can create without the major hype backing it. Not only is it innovating, diverse and gorgeous, it's one of the best on the market at the moment. DC has the childlike graphics, personalities, plots and every innocent trademark of an animated series. Even the sparkling intro credits, with the slushly song with the memorable events throughout the game. DC is outstanding, it really is. Even if the worries that the game is so inoffensive and detached from the cenus of the RPG market - Dark Chronicle has the suave to overcome these external opinions.

In fact, it's almost completely identical to Zelda. What the PS2 will never have is made up for by Dark Chronicle. Minor a few things and Dark Chronicle is almost one of the greatest RPG's ever put together - then again, almost.

The Adventures of Shera and her lackey

The game centralises around two characters. One is Maximillian, a young teenager bored with solitary life inside his hometown. Working together with his mentor mechanic, he discovers a way out of his town after being chased by an evil and vile, er, clown. However, on the other coin is Monica, from the future who discovers her Father being slayed and looks to the past to set out Max for his help. Both of them join forces to fight and return the planet to it's usual form, trying to piece together each thread of life to each town and fight off the Emperor Griffon. Max also has his personal quest to find his missing Mother, which I'm sure oedipus complex's can enjoy to their freakish hearts content.

Basically, this isn't major groundbreaking stuff we're dealing with here, but for kids and the nostalgia factor, it shares a lot in common with Disney (and Kingdom Hearts). The characters are more heartwarming than gripping, but they are magnificent for the point and feel to the game. That is an adventuring feel that surpasses it's predecessor and defines itself among Grandia and Alundra. It is a move on from Dark Cloud, which had an empty feel and hole in it's plot. The humour relies on the ludicrousy of it, and it's very lighthearted. You'll laugh when you didn't expect to and smile when you really didn't expect to. It's just that type of game that has the irresistable if suprising charisma.

Max has a personality this time (Huzzah! I hate main characters with no dialogue). And he's like Zelda but maybe a tad more naive. The earnest, very eager and typically brave traits will earn him a legion of Link fans. Younger fans will definetly warm to him while Monica jumps into the action very strongly, giving her a swift boost of power and strength in her character. In fact, some people rejoiced in the fact that they found that Monica might have well as been the more important heroine, as she's far stronger than Max as a character. She has the courage and sophistication as Zelda. For childlike heroes, they are no exception to those rules and appear to be likeable throughout - not bordering Harry Potter or Rupert The Bear for instance. And thank God for that.

Cel Shading for once prevails here

Graphic wise I've never seen anything so cute. Really, the cel shading of these 3D graphics work tremendously, there is a burst of outline in this contained in each character's visual, to separate them from the backgrounds, something that held back Grandia and Chrono Trigger's graphics from reaching their potential. The visuals of the backgrounds are just as stunning and they even more translate that Dark Chronicle is completely playful and lighthearted. It also further puts the game on comparison with Zelda, with it's recent game on Gamecube.

What I commend most is the fact that only the characters are cel shaded, transferring the surroundings to be a normal 3D world instead of a magnitude of technicolour eye stinging. For once I'll allow cel shading to breathe in the world of video gaming - for now.

The cutscenes are fantastic also, showing great movement from the characters. They are kind of exciting if you still watch Scooby Doo and Tom And Jerry and other cartoon shows. They show a lot more effort and attainment than Final Fantasy X-2 showed in their cutscenes e.g

Stuart: Hey Yuna, Tidus says he think you're butt ugly!.
Yuna: [Puts hands behind her back and bows]
Stuart: Rikku, you're going to explode in the next five seconds!.
Rikku: [Jumps and throws hand in the air]
Stuart: And Paine!. Er....I....has anyone ever told you you're interesting and meant it?
Paine: ...... [Folds arms]

My cruelty towards that game shall continue forever. Anyway, Dark Chronicle has a cast of cutscenes that could be watched over and over again, I think these graphics are some of the best use to date - and kids will definetly warm towards them with the brightness of innocence dawning on them. For older gamers, it is another aspect you may need to just put up with - but the value of this game is more than worth it.

What more could you want than to smash someone's head in with a wrench?

Aha!. We come to the best thing about the game. And yet again, Zeldaesque is struck. Except it feels like the Harvest Moon character on cocaine, heh, bout time that game livened up. You play in the format of an action RPG, like it's predeccessor and other hit games such as Vagrant Story, Alundra, Kingdom Hearts and wait for it, patient!, oh for God's sake fine, Zelda!. Happy?!. Sheesh, kids. But the battle system is fronted by an interface innovating invention and creative system, thus used in Star Ocean: The Second Story. This is practically vital in your battles, for upgrading your weapons and contributing to bosses. Before continuing, it's a positive thing to mention that the controls are a blend of simplicity - like most RPG's. Even the camera angle isn't tiresome.

First things first - the battles are quite fun, infuriating and very chill paced. You fight in dungeon areas, which change from level to level until you reach the dungeon boss. This makes the actual fighting the sole base, with each level variating in difficulty and stipulations. The suerve of each attack feels great. Hilarious when Max wallops someone over the head with his wrench, really. Another good inclusion to the value of Max and Monica is their special ability. While they each have their special fighting move by simply supressing the X button, they both have a counterpart in battle.

Max later on develops a walking tank of a robot named Steve that he can use to tear through dungeon levels. It will be a neccessity to defeat some bosses with this. The robot can have his own optional arsenal as well such as roller skates, samurai sword etc. It's very funny and a good innovation. Monica has a weaker ability, in my opinion. She has a monster badge that allows her to transform into monsters she fights. Dressed as a monster, she will have to get things for monsters by talking to them to gain more badges.

The lock on is especially helpful when dealing with an enemy and to save camera angle confusion. You also have a choice of primary and secondary weapons that have the same format that is on par with your health. Basically, when you use the weapons, there is a number that decreases, if it falls to zero, the weapon breaks. So you have to take care of them as do your health. But your weapons are most used to their potential by making them best used if you actually upgrade them yourself - you find items and synthesise them into ingredients to increase each attribute of the weapon such as attack, durability, beast, flame, cyclone etc, all attributes needed to level up weapons. It saves a lot of money, believe me.

As for the challenge, Dark Chronicle doesn't seem so innocent anymore. The first chapter swings well enough to give you the impression that you could take advantage but by the next chapters, the fights could be a struggle. This is excellent. It shows that looks can definetly be deceiving. Then again, Dark Cloud was a challenge as well. But nothing like this. The boss battles for instance, have their own weakness you have to exploit like for instance the first boss requires you to catch bombs and toss them. It's fun and less repetitive than other games. To add to that statement, if you die or leave a dungeon before it's completed, or even if you revisit a dungeon, the layout changes, giving you endless challenge and prevents you from ever getting the better of fights. Plus in each dungeon there are special requirements you can make such as fishing trials, and a time limit, or a restriction of character you can choose to complete. Doing so gives you medals you can trade in to gain special costumes and such. And yes, the characters have a range of good clothes. No more will RPG characters smell!.

But there is so much going on beside the battles. There is the invention system where you take pictures of surroundings and items and transfer them to the idea book where, if you have the right items, you can combine several ideas to whip up something and then invent it to aid you. It saves a lot of money you'll be using. This again shows much more depth to the game that will best appeal to the more experienced players - but it mimics a far more advanced and required system than from Star Ocean. It's not something I'd delve into in a first play but it's something that could be seen as an aftermath from the completion of the game.

Dark Cloud had the Georama system that had everyone's tongues out. I mean, when I bought my PS2 my first game I lusted for was Dark Cloud, making myself an outcast against the Grand Theft Auto-ers and Metal Gear Solid's. But anyway, it's in this game and better than ever. Basically you collect missing parts of a certain village from the dungeons and place them back into the village. But what makes it more difficult is that you must also gain the materials needed for building. Doing so (and rearranging them to the asked analysis) will gain you more percentage and points. You also need to move in your collected supporting characters to live in the towns, you have to meet their tastes though. Overall I liked this, it produced a lot more fun than the battles (which was also good) and had their own difficulty.

The bummer is that sometimes you are required to place or clear certain tasks that aren't specified for the whole 100 georama points - leaving you to guess and constantly moving and switching things around, annoying you in the process. But please relish the fact that the villages you would normally visit in RPG's are made up of your own creations here. Something that the misunderstood RPG Maker tried?.

However, it's not all conventional though. Dark Chronicle has used the 108 stars of destiny theme from Suikoden and created a system where you complete tasks for characters to get them to join the magical train. Aahaha. Sounds crap but it's mighty useful. The supporting characters only provide you with items, they don't give you assistance in actual fights. Changing your character is used by pressing the analog button - so there isn't any turns in getting to grips with either Max or Monica.

The mini games (and partial challenges) such as the fishing and Spheda are fun. The fishing game is celebrated from the Harvest Moon and the latest installments of the Breath Of Fire series. Dark Chronicle lists endless tiny trinkets of fun to keep you innovated, including a fishing weigh in contest. The Spheda is a RPG modernised version of golf. The aim is to hit the Spheda orb into the distortion hole located around empty dugeons. The trick is to have the ball land into the hole without matching the colours. Such as, if the ball is blue and the distortion is blue, they will repel each other. Winning this gives you medals, and records.

All in all, I still stick by to my opinion that Dark Chronicle is the Zelda for the playstation. And I think the gameplay reinforces that amongst with the fact that DC definetly suprised a lot of people.

Ahem, er, well...

Aha...well, er, the sound. Right, from my previous comparisons of kid shows and Zelda, this makes no exception. Well, the music only makes this game more immature than it would seem to other games. For sure, the music bugged me to hell and back but that doesn't mean it was bad music. I just had to put the TV on mute in case anyone walked through the door. Really...for me anyways, it was embarassing so happy go lucky foresty picnic sort of thing. Bleh.

I took a second and concentrated listen to the music in the game and overuled that it is an acquired taste. Although the theme song "Time Is Changing, sung by Barbara Cohen is a nice little pop song (with the vocals sounding a little similiar to Chrisse Hynde of The Pretenders. Whatever the reaction is to any music of Dark Chronicle, it thankfully isn't the stronger aspects of the game.

However, voice acting is ta ta, superb. Max and Monica are equally convincing and hey, the guy who played Colonel Campbell from Metal Gear Solid appears as Cedric, while the actor of Liquid Snake performs a baddie. And video game regular Jennifer Hale, whose credits have starred in Planescape Torment, Metal Gear Solid: Sons Of Liberty, Tak Power Of The Juju and Grandia 2 (Hasn't she got other work lined up?). As you'd expect, the acting isn't dramatic but more wild and hyperactive like. Friendly and playful....and so on.

Sound effects sound good, with the right techs for the sword, guns and magic hitting the opponent and all. Aside from that, it's a bit Harvest Moon. You know what I mean?. Not much to comment on except that for what there is, it's all good-ish. Let's just move on shall we?.

I hereby rule the following -

Dark Chronicle isn't a love hate type of game like Kingdom Hearts. This is because you can become disillusioned by the innovating gameplay to cover up any queries about the maturity of the game. I really thought I'd enjoy this game because I loved Dark Cloud, and I thought I'd really hate it when I discovered that it was lacking that sophistication. But Dark Chronicle is something of a genius for it's action RPG genre. It definetly leaves no gaps for the missing Link of Zelda (Like that?). Without a trace, Dark Chronicle could easily be issued with the pretention that it's miles ahead of the recent RPG's as it's the only one that seems to shine for it's content. And without the hype to prove it.

I recommend this utmostly, above any other RPG that's out at the moment. In the UK, there are few and fewer on the market so alongside X-2, Unlimited Saga, Arc and Breath Of Fire V - buy this game instead, you'll both enjoy and feel glad that you have something of a collective memory of your childhood. And for parents - you're kids will love this game even more than breaking their beds and smoking pot, impregnating young girls, commiting assault under the influence of alcohol.....ah....memories. Just kidding obviously, but you get my point. Just enjoy. I did.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/04, Updated 07/30/04