At the beginning of most console’s lives, it’s not entirely clear what that console is capable of. Like, how could it possibly be better than the last system? Then a new game comes out that really showcases the new capabilities, and you go “Wow.” For the Playstation 2 RPG fans, many would say Final Fantasy X is that game. They’ve got a definite point. But there were earlier RPGs on the PS2, and the one I’m going to talk about today is Dark Cloud. This action RPG looked, to some people, like “just a way to kill time until FFX came out.” I’d like to take a quick look at this early PS2 game, to see what it did in a pre-Final Fantasy X world.
Dark Cloud starts out with a cutscene showing the villain reviving the Dark Genie, who had nearly destroyed the world long ago. Cut to our main character, peacefully enjoying a village festival. The Dark Genie strikes, and the entire town and everyone in it is destroyed. Or are they? An old geezer named the fairy king tells you that they’re all just sealed in big rocks, and that you can free them and rebuild the world. The rest of the game is basically you going from town to town, meeting people as you rebuild their homes. It doesn’t seem like much of a story, until the very end of the game, when you’re treated to a kinda cool fairy tale style story. No, I won’t spoil it, just letting you know that there is a little more depth to this game.
The characters are… well, kinda bland. They get a little dialogue during the time when you meet them, and after that they’re completely undeveloped. It’s too bad, because you’d think that some of them would have the potential to be pretty interesting, like the literal cat girl, the moon rabbit mech pilot, or the genie. I guess you get a little bit of personality from their minor battle noises and their play style, but… yeah, not much going here.
The main game follows this flow. You go into a dungeon, find seal rocks (Atla) rebuild as you can, get a new party member halfway through the dungeon, all while upgrading your weaponry. The dungeon floors are randomized, meaning you could end up with the exit right in front of you. You need a key obtained by defeating one randomly selected monster though, so no luck manipulation speedruns here. The biggest issue is that you’ve got three separate gauges that you need to keep track of per character. Character HP, thirst, and weapon HP. When Character HP runs out, you’ll have to leave the dungeon or switch to a different character. When thirst runs out, you’ll start taking damage every couple of seconds. When weapon HP runs out, your weapon disappears. This is especially worrying since powering up your weapon is the main form of leveling up in this game.
Ah, yes, the weapon level up system. When you use a weapon to defeat enemies, it gains experience and eventually levels up, though you have to trigger this level gain. Each weapon can equip a certain number of “attachments” which get absorbed during a level up, permanently adding to the capabilities of the weapon. You can also “build up” weapons after meeting certain prerequisites (fire element 15, beast attack 10, magic power 7, etc.), which evolves the weapon into a stronger weapon with higher max values. Some weapons have special abilities, which you’ll want to add in to other weapons by “status breaking” a weapon and turning it into an attachment. It’s pretty well laid out, but if you want to get a really powerful weapon, you’ll have to put in a fair amount of grinding.
Combat in the dungeons is adequate. You’ll probably want to use specific characters for specific enemies, because each character has a form of attacking that help kill certain enemies but makes killing others really hard. There’s some annoyances in combat, like trying to dodge attacks and the lack of a guard mechanic. It does at least have a lock on feature, which is a good thing. All in all, it’s good enough, but not perfectly polished.
The other main aspect of the game is the town building, which works something like a puzzle, where you have to fit houses and things around the requests of the residents. This can get pretty tricky, when three houses have to be around one thing in a certain orientation. Still, a seasoned player will have these puzzles solved without undue walkthrough consultation.
And now to talk about graphics. Wait, what? No! The game has graphics, they work for what they were intended, seeing the game, and that’s all you need! It’s no Final Fantasy X, but who cares?
Would I play this game again? Well… probably not from the beginning. This game rates more like “why play it from the beginning again? Almost everything good about the game is still accessible on my old save,” on replayability. Still, you might pick it up to finish up that optional end dungeon.
Well, it’s been an interesting voyage into an early PS2 RPG. For better or for worse, a lot of RPGs take their cues from the Final Fantasy series. Dark Cloud, however, came out before Final Fantasy X, and so entered onto the PS2 with a clear field. Though it’s got some failings, it does a lot of things quite well. The final rating I’d give for this game is 8.0. It seems to be really uncomplicated until the very end, at which point the rather weak story kicks into high gear. However, the character whose psyche you get the most insight into isn’t the main character. He’s not even playable. But the weapon upgrade system is good, the dungeon crawling adequate, and the world building simple and interesting.
How I broke game: When I played this game, I got Steve and a durable weapon while going through the first dungeon. Pretty lucky, but who cares? Well, I upgraded Steve to Super Steve, and then, going through the final dungeon, got another Steve. Lol.
Quick Tip: When combining weapons with canceling abilities, the one that is already on the weapon takes precedence and remains, meaning that you need to add the good ability before you add the bad ability.
If you liked this game, you might want to look at the following games. Legend of Mana has a similar world building mechanic, a weapon-making system, and an action RPG system. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is just a great game all around, and has similar combat strategies and complex boss fights. Dark Cloud 2 is just Dark Cloud with a graphics update (big whoop), voice acting (… okay), a little more of a story, and polished mechanics.
No comments:
Post a Comment