Reviews  •  Latest Reviews  •  Top Games  •  Forums  •  Screenshots  •  Hot Deals! PS3  •  Wii  •  PC  •  PS2  •  PSP  •  Xbox  •  Xbox 360  •  GameCube
Dark Cloud for PlayStation 2 Videos >>
Dark Cloud for PlayStation 2
View Screen Shots >>
Upload Screen Shots >>

Dark Cloud for PlayStation 2
109 reviews   4.15 of 5

Product Description

Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Sound

Some (just two) villages had memorable themes, dungeons had ambiant sounds setting the mood, and the occasional burst of song. Most music however included harpsichord or flute melodies which turned me off. I'd listen to the first few minutes in each area and turned it off when I couldn't take it anymore.

Gameplay

The general flow of the game: enter village area, enter dungeon, collect items and improve stats through combat, return to village, build town according to requests of villagers.
The dungeons are randomly generated upon entering them. Through exploration you collect items to rebuild the different villages you visit. When certain parts of the village are constructed, key events occur to further along the story.
Weapon attributes are raised by making the final blow to the monster. Different playable characters add variety to attacks and are interchangeable in combat, but their stories are not developed outside of their initial introductions.
The meat of the rpg aspects of this game lies in the developement, manipulation and enhancements of weapons. They gain experience and levels through fighting, statistical enhancements toward monster groups and elemental attributes through use of items, and can be refined to add statistics on other weapons. To balance the great abilities you can acheive with this system, weapons have hit points and can be destroyed if not repaired after use.
Most of the puzzles revolve around establishing the arrangement of the village buildings, inhabitants and landscaping to accomodate the requests of the villagers.(A must be by B, across from C and nowhere near D type logic puzzles)
The randomly generated dungeons are rather tedious and long after the first several levels. The bosses usually involve a pattern and use of different character abilities to defeat.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Sound

Hmmmmm....well, I'd like to say that this is where the game really grabs your attention, but once again Dark Cloud falls a little short. Battle sounds are roughly the same throughout the game, character noises are just short of annoying, and the lack of any voiceover work really kind of saddens the situation. The music is catchy at first, but since you're going to be in each town and level for quite some time, it may be known to cause insanity in some. Even now I can still here that confounded theme from Norune Village echoing in my head. At least the quality was crisp and accurate...

Post-Summary Summary: After reading this review, one might think that I don't like this game. On the contrary, I happened to enjoy this game incredibly, however, it failed to meet my expectations, and let's face it, this game had multiple weaknesses which I felt needed to be brought to light. It's a game definitely worth checking out, but it's most certainly not for everyone.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Dark Cloud is very straight-forward. Basic movement with the left analog stick, slash with your sword, lock onto targets, ala Zelda, and a couple of charge moves available, one of which is unlocked upon "final" completion of the first village. The dungeon crawling can become very repetitive at times, but leave it to good old Sony to add some frustration to make it interesting. While you are in the dungeons, you get thirsty. The level of thirst is indicated by a thirst meter in which your thirst is measured in water droplets. Each droplet gets smaller as time progresses in the dungeon until the droplet disappears. When your thirst meter runs out, your health will begin to deteriorate quickly unless you can find a "watering hole" so to speak, which also replenishes any lost health. Another drawback in dungeons is the fact that your weapon loses HP's as well each time you use it, and fast. Thankfully repair powder can be found or purchased which will fully restore the weapon, but beware, if it breaks, it's gone, which can be another frustrating aspect of this game when you've put a lot of time into building the weapon.
By the end of the game you will have 6 playable characters to choose from, so the dungeon-crawling monotony does have some relief, some levels of dungeons require the special abilities of the other characters, and switching between these couldn't have been made easier. Even though it's repetitive, it's surprisingly addictive.

Now let's go into another aspect of the gameplay. Geo-rama. Those of you familiar with Actraiser may feel right at home here. There are pieces of "Atla" in the dungeons, when found, are then used to rebuild the town and set things right again. A piece of atla can be anything from a house, to a jar, or even the townspeople themselves. The goal of this aspect of the game is to rebuild the town and it's citizens, then listen to the requests of the townspeople in order to recreate the town to their liking. It's not absolutely necessary to do this perfectly, but some of the rewards are worth it.

As for the fishing mini-game, this is something that's not imperative to successful completion, but it does help you gain items necessary to upgrade weapons at a faster rate. The gameplay mechanics are pretty basic, bait your hook, cast, and reel in when you see your bobber completely submerge.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Summary

What an exciting RPG for the Playstation 2 console! This game is strong in every single aspect: gameplay, graphics, and music. It may seem to be extremely similar to Zelda 64 but it's also different in many ways, and it has several new unique features that makes the game so interesting and appealing.

The RPG first starts with a FMV scene. These dancers which gives you a scary atmosphere are dancing (obviously) and are worshipping this giant urn. We then find out a person wants to awaken the evil Dark Genie, who, according to legend, has unimaginable power. As the dance continues, the Dark Genie finally awakens and agrees to serve that person. The scene switches to a happier atmosphere, where local villagers are having a joyous celebration. The main character (Toan) is seen eating dinner with his mother when a girl runs in and hurries him to see the celebration. Toan rushes out and is enjoying the celebration when suddenly, giant deadly beams from the Dark Genie are unleashed unto the village, destroying everything into pieces.

Toan awakens to find the Fairy King standing before him. The Fairy King saved the world as the beams were being unleashed. Before the beams could reach the ground and destroy everything, the Fairy King sealed every single thing (whether it be houses, people, lamps, animals, fences, rivers, roads, etc...) into these giant round balls called Atla. Because of the tremendous explosions, the Atla were scattered around the world. Toan is given the Atlamilla, which has the power to open the Atla when touched. Toan is now given the responsibility of saving the world by finding the Atla and rearranging the world, and by defeating the Dark Genie.

Overall, this game is extremely addictive and fun! This was the first Playstation 2 game I bought and I love playing it!

Sound

The music and sound effects fit in perfectly with the game, with several different tunes that are compatible with the game scene. You can hear birds chirping when the sun first rises and night sound effects when it gets dark.

Gameplay

Toan first starts off in Norune Village (his hometown village), where there's nothing except the Mayor's House, which was one of the only things which did not get sealed into Atla. You get some temporarily unlimited supplies from the Mayor and walk into the Divine Beast Cave.

Dark Cloud has several special unique features. One of it being the entire battling system. It's battling system is similar to Zelda's, where you go around fighting enemies right away, instead of engaging battle with them such as in the Final Fantasy RPG's. However, in this RPG, your weapon actually gets worn out everytime you use it. This makes sense and is realistic. To fix it, you need to use Repair Powder on it; otherwise, the weapon may break. The weapon gains leveling points and you can upgrade it periodically. You can put Attachments onto it (Attack/Endurance/Speed/Magic + 1,2,3; Gems - raises several stats and attributes; Thunder/Fire/Holy/etc... - raises elemental attributes; Stone Breaker/Plant Buster/etc... - more damage to a particular type) and once you upgrade them, the attachments get absorbed into the weapon. You can also build up the weapon, or basically evolving it into a more powerful weapon once the weapon's stats reach a certain limit. You can basically build up a weapon into the most powerful weapon in the game, remembering to take advantage of the Attachments. In addition, you can also Synthespere your weapons (once they get to level 5 or higher), meaning you change them into attachments, which contains 60% of the weapon's characteristics. This way, the weapons with your hard-earned levels won't go to waste.

You also have a thirst meter and have to constantly refill your thirst through water or by going into a waterfall. There's a clock that advances quickly but different things can happen in different parts of the day.

I like the Georama part the most. Georama is where you open up the Atla that you find and you rearrange them onto the World Map. Once you put a house in, you can put the people who live in that house as well. Find that house and talk to the people to know helpful tips and hints, to see where they would like their house located, what items should be in their house, etc.. Once you give everything that person wanted, he/she will usually give you a reward of some sort. You can move the houses to your liking and can basically rebuild the world to what you see fit. *** Spoiler ahead *** Once you find the Pond, you can start fishing and gain fishing points, which you can trade in for special items. Once you find the Store Atla, you can buy and sell items, with the money you find from battling. Once you rebuild your village, you go on to another area, which looks completely different, so it provides a new atmosphere.

The storyline and the gameplay is unbeatable!!!
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Summary

Given the lack of quality RPGs on PlayStation2, the idea behind Dark Cloud seemed really good; take a tried-and-true gameplay formula (Zelda) and intertwine it with a mixture of innovation and elements from other genres. On paper, Dark Cloud sounds like a really cool game, and in early previews, it looked quite impressive. In fact, some of the gaming media (PSM among them) labeled Dark Cloud a venerable “Zelda killer,” the game that would give Nintendo’s popular elf a run for his money. Alas, somewhere between the game’s unveiling and its release, something went wrong; Dark Cloud is not everything the media made it out to be. Hell, it’s not even that much fun.

Make no mistake: Dark Cloud is a blatant rip-off of Zelda, but with a few twists. The majority of the game’s core elements, including a few control nuances, were shamelessly stolen from Nintendo’s classic series. The game has the same action RPG feel prevalent in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (which is further enforced by the behind-the-back third-person viewpoint), the atmosphere screams Zelda, and the control scheme even features a few Zelda-esque features, such as a lock-on button. In essence, this game is a poor man’s Legend of Zelda.

However, there are a few things that make save this game from total damnation at my hands. While Dark Cloud borrows largely from Zelda, it does incorporate features found in games of other genres to create an RPG that tries valiantly to encompass more than one style of play. This game features the same RPG and adventure elements we’re used to, but it also incorporates a few strategy and simulation elements, as well as a comprehensive world-building system reminiscent of the SNES classic Actraiser. And for this, I should at least give Level 5 (the developers) a little credit; they did take an existing gameplay formula and try to enhance it through a number of other elements. Too bad everything fails in execution….

Graphically, Dark Cloud is very nice, easily one of PS2’s best looking titles. While other PS2 RPGs, such as Summoner and Eternal Ring, were a little rough around the edges in terms of graphics, there’s little to complain about in Dark Cloud. In fact, the only other PS2 RPG that looks this good right now is FFX, which isn’t even out yet (and in all honesty kicks this little game’s butt). The lighting is amazing, everything is nicely rendered, and although the dungeons can get a little repetitive after a while, they’re still nicely done. Animation is smooth, colors are vibrant, and while the cut scenes aren’t Squaresoft caliber, they’re still very good in their own right.

Unfortunately, the game does not sound nearly as good. There are few tunes in this game, and while they sound good upon initial inspection, they get very old very quickly. One can only take but so many flutes and mandolins before going insane. Also, it would’ve been nice if the characters of this game had been given voice actors (as it is, the game’s story is told through word balloons). Sure, there are over 100 NPCs in this game, but the DVD format was supposed to accommodate aesthetic features such as voice acting. Square can do it; why can’t Level 5?

Aesthetics aside, there isn’t much praise to give Dark Cloud. Here’s the basic plot of the game: the conniving Colonel Flag has released the Dark Genie, and has ordered it to destroy a nearby village. That village, which just happens to be the hometown of Toan (the main character), is holding a festival, which is interrupted by the Dark Genie’s attack. During the attack, Toan sees his girlfriend in danger. He goes to save her, but she disappears in a flash of light. Toan later awakens to discover that the guardian of natural spirits has encased her (and the rest of the village) in Atlas, and that Toan is responsible for rebuilding the village, as well as (you guessed it) defeating Dark Genie and saving the rest of the world. The story is very trite and really doesn’t venture into new ground, but I give Level 5 credit for incorporating the Georama feature into the plot.

Alright, now onto the actual gameplay. On the plus side, Dark Cloud controls very well; the layout is extremely user-friendly and the responsiveness is unparalleled. Sure, a few of the subtleties are directly from the Zelda series (such as the lock-on button and the inventory scroll), but overall this game has a very good control scheme. Also, Dark Cloud is difficult enough to be a decent challenge, but it’s not so hard that novices won’t derive any enjoyment from it. Enemies are well balanced, the game moves along at a decent pace, and overall this is one of PS2’s more consistent titles.

However, that’s pretty much where Dark Cloud’s strengths end. This game’s biggest flaw is its repetitive nature. As Toan (and a host of five other characters) you must fight your way through numerous randomly generated dungeons for long periods of time. This in essence makes Dark Cloud a dungeon-crawler, and dungeon-crawlers have always been regarded as the redheaded stepchildren of the RPG genre. This type of game has its fans, but this game is way too redundant for me to be one of them. Not only does fighting your way through the same 18-level dungeon time after time get old, it becomes almost painful after a while. This game takes on average 30 hours to complete; you’d think Level 5 could come up with enough motivation to incorporate a little variety. As it is, Dark Cloud is light on depth and replay value.

Another huge flaw is the game’s reliance on micromanagement. Now, I know RPGs emphasize micromanagement to some degree, but this game ventures into the realm of being anal. An interesting twist to this game is the fact that your weapon can take damage (much like you) he more it’s used. To keep it from damaging, you must constantly repair and upgrade it. A nice touch, to be sure, but it gets pretty annoying having to repair your weapon after every two or three battles. Also, Toan requires food and water to keep his health up. A nice, realistic touch to the game (elves hafta eat too), but again, Toan needs food and water so often that it becomes more of a chore than an important part of succeeding in the game. Veterans of the genre will undoubtedly take to the micromanagement quickly, but novices will be left looking for a game that’s more user-friendly.

Now onto the Georama feature, which is regarded by some as the best feature in the game. With this feature, Toan locates Atlas while fighting his way through the various dungeons. In each Atla is a part of the village, whether it be trees, rivers, buildings, or what not. Once Toan returns to the village map, you can go into Georama mode and begin rebuilding the village with your obtained Atlas. This feature is nice for a number of reasons (personally, it adds a bit of nostalgia; I loved Actraiser), but even this feature isn’t without its flaws. The process is extremely simple (a little too simple) and there is absolutely no strategy involved. These two things combine to make rebuilding the village just as tedious as fighting through the numerous dungeons.

All in all, I’m disappointed in Dark Cloud. Like many others, I was looking forward to what was supposed to be Sony’s Zelda killer, but what we got instead was an average, dull RPG on a console full of average, dull RPGs. In my “PlayStation2 Games of 2001” feature a few months back, I named The Bouncer and Dark Cloud as two of the games to look out for. I was already wrong about The Bouncer, but now I’m sorry to say I was wrong about this game as well. The game’s visuals are pretty much it’s only high point, and overall this is a very dry, redundant experience. Don’t believe the hype; if you truly have an interest in Dark Cloud, rent it first and save yourself a good chunk of cash.

Breakdown:
CONTROLS: 4/5
DEPTH: 3/5
REPLAY VALUE: 2/5
ORIGINALITY: 2/5
STORY (RPG'S ONLY): 3/5
FUN FACTOR: 2/5
GRAPHICS: 5/5
SOUND: 2/5
OVERALL (NOT AN AVERAGE): 2/5

BOTTOM LINE:
Dark Cloud gets points for effort, but fails in execution. Definitely not what I was hoping for.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Sound

The Sound was not anything special either. The only way you could hear the sound was if you stood still, because all you heard was the of your clogs or shoes or whatever they were.I wouldn't consider the sound good. It was pretty horrible. Just put the sound on mute.

Gameplay

Gameplay is vague and too simple. But the unique ideas for gameplay start to get on your nerves and you start getting bored of the cheap ways to drain your HP and to get you out of the dungeon about 4 or 5 times ( Depends on how many levels there are because you'll probably have to come out every level. Having a sword HP is just plain stupid. You cant buy anything and you hardly get anything in the dungeons. As for the water factor, it sucks too. You only have a certain amount of water you can have. So...once you run out of water,you have to go ALL the way back to where the water source. The gameplay also sucks.
Also, the Georama feature was the only nice thing, but it doesn't support all the rest of the horrible gameplay.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Sound

Perhaps the Achille's heal of Dark Cloud, it's sound is neither great nor terrible, it's quality residing firmly in the "pretty good" category. The sound effects do the job, with swords clashing and characters grunting during battle. Some may find the few repeating songs found here to be boring, but I feel that they are engaging and do well to immerse the gamer in Toan's world.

In conclusion, Dark Cloud breaks little new ground and yet draws the player habitually back into the mix. From one game lover to another, if you enjoy high adventure and intelligent game themes, you'll find a lot to love in Dark Cloud.

Gameplay

Dark Cloud begins slowly, with all of the standard "evil needs some whuppin" cliches intact. You are Toan, survivior of a vicious onslaught by an evil genie which has apparently obliterated everyone and everything else in sight. Fear not, brave soul, because a wise magician has encapsulated all of the significant aspects of each individual village in "Atla", and these Atla are dispersed throughout the dungeons of the land. Your quest then, is to recover each piece of Atla, and return it's contents to it's appropriate place in it's village. To do so is to make the world right again.
The game follows a fairly linear path towards redemption. You generally traverse a multi-leveled dungeon,vanquishing all who would stand before you, in an effort to collect all of the Atla which is scattered about. After completing a level, you have the choice of either returning to the village that you are reconstucting, or advancing to the next dungeon level. If you choose to continue the rebuilding process, you return(magically, of course) to the town and are given a chance to plunk down houses, inhabitants, rivers, etc. This aspect of the game, which some have decried as derivative of Actraiser, is quite involving. I found myself looking forward to exiting the dungeon areas so I could return to "my" town. Each house or building usually is complete after 4 or 5 Atla retrievals, and the owner will usually reward you with a valuable item which aids you in your epic quest. I found this aspect of the game to be maddeningly addictive, so complete was my immersion in the towns's revival. That's not to say that the Atla retrieval is boring or perfunctory in the least, though. As you hack and slash your way through a level, in great Zelda-esque fashion, you must constantly be aware of a number of variables. Obviously, your health needs monitoring. But you must also keep your character(and there are SIX playable ones) from becoming too thirsty by either visiting a water source or using a water container from your inventory. Lastly, you also need to be aware of your weapon's hit points. That's right, your weapon has hit points, and unless you periodically rejuvenate it with repair powder, it will break and revert to it's original form. This last aspect can prove aggravating, as you may find yourself with a broken weapon which you just spent
hours building up. I found that it lessened the seriousness of this happening to simply save after each level. Overall, the gameplay melds a number of different genres into one fun and addictive package. It may not have the most original parts, but Dark Cloud manages to pull them together very well.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Summary

Having never really gotten into either one of the Zelda games on the N64, I found it hard to develop an interest in Dark Cloud. Everyone was touting it as a “Zelda killer”, saying that it’s gameplay would be unlike anything else. Many publications went berserk, saying that Dark Cloud would be the first game to really sell PS2 systems. As a Funcoland employee, I can assure you that statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. The particular location I work at has sold only 4 of our initial 12 game shipment. I wasn’t one of the 4 people to buy one, because it just didn’t seem like my type of game. I did always consider it if I had the money-but I was just never able to actually break down and buy it.

I finally decided to give Dark Cloud a try after I noticed it in the used PS2 section at my local Funcoland. After about 3 hours with the game, I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised. I did notice, however, that the gameplay idea isn’t new-I’ll elaborate on that later.

I found Dark Cloud to be a wonderful action-based “Sim-RPG” of sorts-it’s not a traditional RPG, and it’s not your basic hack-n-slash game, either. The mix of the two styles; along with the remarkable Sim City-like Georama mode, make this a gameplay experience that will please most RPG, action, and simulation fans. It’s not surprising that so few people have picked up this game-it’s definitely not for everyone.

I won’t bother with telling you the story, I’ll let you figure it out on your own.

Basically, rent this one to see if you like it. I took a $40 gamble on this one, and luckily I’m enjoying the game. Of course, I usually buy just about anything…..

Sound

Music and sound effects are also average. Nothing spectacular.

Gameplay

Anyone who played the SNES back in the day should fondly remember the small title Actraiser. I remember it well-Destroy the monsters in an action scene, help the townsfolk build a city. Repeat until the game is finished. The whole idea wasn’t very deep, but the balance of gameplay made Actrasier one of my favorite games of all time. Actraiser 2 wasn’t the same, though-but that’s another story for another day.

Dark Cloud is eerily similar to Actraiser. The battle scenes aren’t quite the same since there is a little bit of exploration involved. This is where the game falls a little short. It’s fairly redundant-kill monster, look for atla orb, kill monster, look for key, use key to go through locked door. That’s basically the bulk of the battle/exploration. The breakable weapons and duels with enemies make this a bit challenging, but it’s actually fairly easy. Granted, I’m not very far along, but I don’t see it getting too much harder.

Georama is the saving grace of this game. The ability to construct towns in any way you see fit is an experience unlike any other. Give it a try and see for yourself.
Would you like to Comment?
Join VideoGameReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.

Sound

The music is ambient and it fits the mood of the environment but it gets repetetive because the same loop (although it is nice) plays over and over every time in a dungeon. I liked it better in Ocarina of time when every dungeon had its own great music! The footsteps sound nice and so do the squeaking bats and the sound of Toan wading through water. The sound is hust awesome.

Gameplay

As I said before, the gameplay is the best thing about the game. You must go through each dungeon collecting atla to rebuild towns (atlas can contain a house, a person, or person's belongings)
and hacking away at all sorts of monsters to get things like money, elemental gems and dran's crest (there is one dran's crest on almost every floor of every dungeon and u need to get it to go to the next floor of the dungeon. To add to the challenge, you have a thirst limit and Whp(weapon Hit points. You start out with a thirst imit if three. It takes a few minutes for ou to get thirsty and then u must get water or your health will start going down. Every time u hit an enemy, your weapons hit points go down by 1 or more. When a weapon's hit points are at zero, it will break and disappear(your default weapon wont disappear, though). When you are done rebuilding a town, and you walk into it and begin talking to the people and visiting the shops and going inside the houses and walking on the roads and fishing in the ponds you will be ovrjoyed that all this was donr by none other than yourself! Building up wepons is very fun. Once a wepon's Absorption meter is full (it increases every time you kill an enemy) you cna upgrade it and it will become more powerful. Once a weapon goes to level 5, u can status break it. This means it will change into SynthSphere that holds 60% of the weapons power. U can then put that synthsphere into another weapon to make that other weapon more powerful! When a weapon's stats are high enough, u can build up to a more powrful weapon!
Would you like t