Dark Cloud 2
In Search of Mother

Review by Chi Phan

Dark Cloud first came out for the Playstation 2 during it's early days. For an early rpg on a new system, it was unique and quite interesting to the point that a small loyal fanbase was forming. The game for the first time presented to rpg gamers an action rpg game where you can create your own world. This was an rpg of it's own kind. No other rpg had done anything similiar to this. And the overall effect was that this unknown rpg game got some good reviews and word of mouth. 2 years later and it turns out that Sony has a gem of an rpg in it's hand. And Sony rarely has rpgs of it's own other than from third party developers. The good thing about sequels is that it allow game developers to try and improve on things that they weren't able to do the first time around and get rid of stuff that didn't work the first time. So what's the end effect? A bigger Dark Cloud game with more advance world creations and weapon customizations. Not to mention more extra sidequests gameplay. But does bigger mean better? That's for you to find out so keep on reading.

Feel my weapon. Time Travel The presentation of Dark Cloud 2 story is base on a narration point of view like with Final Fantasy X. The story is base on 90% voice acting which is done exceptionally well. It start off with the main character Max narrating his adventure to save his world. In a small town of Palm Brinks, Max had decided to attend the circus which was in town. While touring the circus, Max accidentally overheard a conversation between the boss clown of the circus name Flotsan and the mayor of Palm Brinks. Apparently Flotsan was threatening the mayor into finding a stone amulet hidden inside Palm Brinks and warning the mayor to make sure that the people of Palm Brinks remain inside Palm Brinks so that they don't see what had happened outside of the town. This then brought about Max's curiosity on what this stone amulet is that is hidden inside Palm Brinks and what had happened outside of the town. Max and his friend Cecil decided to resurrect the railway and travel outside of town to find out what the mysterious boss clown meant when he said that things had changed in the world. While trekking across the railroad, the train was attacked by the boss clown, Flotsan. Flotsan, upon seeing Max soon realized that the stone amulet that he was looking for was the same amulet that Max had worn around his neck since Max's childhood. This was news to Max and Max quickly decided to defend his life and the amulet from the boss clown at all cost. Max being no match against Flotsan was about to be defeated on the train when a mysterious female warrior showed up out of nowhere and defeated Flotsan and saved Max's life. After the battle with Flotsan, the female warrior introduced herself as Monica. She quickly revealed that she was from the future and had travel back into Max's time to help save the her world. You see.. in the future, an Emperor by the name of Griffon is trying to conquer the world in Monica's time period by reshaping history into his own image from Max's time period. Emperor Griffon is doing this by changing the origin point of towns and key places in Max's timeline which in turned effected Monica's timeline. The only way for Monica to save her world is by going back into Max's timeline and restoring the origin points of towns and places that Emperor Griffon erased in Max's timeline. Monica explained that the only way to restore these origin points is by finding Geostones and releasing them. Once the Geostones are released, Max and Monica needed to recreate the towns again as they once were before Emperor Griffon erased them from history. With this grim news from Monica, Max decided to join forces with Monica and help her restore the origin points and fight Emperor Griffon. Now as you can see. The sub-plot is pretty much similar to the first Dark Cloud in finding Geostones and restoring the world. That's expected as that's the basic gameplay is about. But overall the story is still a disappointment. It's an improvement from the first game but it's not much of an improvement. For some reason, the Dark Cloud series has problems in providing a good solid rpg story. I guess that's due to the fact that the gameplay over-shadow the story so much due to the fact that the story has to be base on the way the gameplay is set up. The story is pretty much a light story to help give flow to the gameplay. But as an in-depth rpg story like other rpgs, it's not one. I also find it disappointing in the story end game boss as well. It's almost as if they decide to put an end game boss just for the sake of having one. The overall Dark Cloud 2 story feels more like a bunch of mini stories being crunched into one story. And it comes off a little fragmented. Still there are some good spot in the story such as the Sage Crest mini story inside the big story. I kind of enjoy that mini story alot. And that's what Dark Cloud 2 is played out like..different mini stories inside one story. It's better than the Dark Cloud 1 story but still needed improvement.

Who are you? Nothing has changed much here. Presentation of characters was a weak point in the last Dark Cloud game and it's still the same here. The thing about action rpg is that the game mainly focuses on one character. In this case, it focuses on two main characters, Max and Monica. The developement of these two game characters as a whole is done quite well but characters need a supporting cast to bounce off of since the overall main cast is very limited. Max and Monica each come alive with their own unique voices and personality. As the story progresses, you'll learn more and more about them in terms of their background. But inorder for the overall story to really have interesting characters, you need these characters to interact well in a group environment as part of the story. In this case the support cast comes from your support party members. Problem with the support party is that they have little to no effect on the story at all other than to tag along and provide certain abilities that the gamers may or may not find useful. These support characters can be played by nameless sprites. Outside of Max and Monica, there's basically no other characters that are really involved in the story. And for me, there aren't any characters here I have any interest in. Good developement of Max and Monica but that's about it.

Need a worm? Graphic is a definite improvement from before. Not to say that the graphic was bad before. Before the game was all in smooth texture 3-D polygons. Now while the smooth rendering of the 3-D polygons remained for the background scenaries. Character designs are now done in cel-shading. This is probably one of the best cel-shading around in terms of character designs. Each character are design exceptionally well and they blend in perfectly with the background. The problem with cel-shading is that if done wrong, the characters can come out looking like cardboard on a 3-D background. That's not the case here. The characters look very 3-D. And the black outline that you would normally see on cel-shading is kept to a minimal that you hardly notice the black outline at all. Add all that to the wonderful use of colors in the game and you have yourself one of the best looking rpg game around. The game just look so rich overall with the use of different colors and the very smooth rendering of character designs. Just a beautifully design game. Add in some FMV and it would be perfect.

To the death! The theme of the music is a little bit different this time around. Instead of the arabic theme of the first game, this game takes on a more pop theme. I guess you can call it a pop theme. I'll just call it that since I can't really describe what the theme is. The overall tunes are pretty good. There's a full english theme song which is sung and written very well. You can only hear it during the opening and ending credits though. For in game music, there is however one really great tune that I really enjoy out of all the tunes. It's the tune that plays at Kazarov Stonehenge. Oh how I really love that tune..it's a very sad tune somewhat and plays perfectly during the Sage Crest storyline. In fact it's that tune that define the key emotional moment during the Crest storyline in the game. And I always said over and over again. When you have one or two tunes that will define moments of the story sequences, you got some pretty good music. And in this case, there really are some very good to great music in this game. It was also very nice to hear the Dark Genie theme from the first Dark Cloud game as well.

Good memories of the past You're not dead? Game Information    Genre: Action Rpg    Publisher: Sony    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 502 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Vibration: Yes    Dual Analog: Yes    Digital Control: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: February 2003 For those that loved the gameplay in Dark Cloud 1, fear not as pretty much everything returned this time around but with added improvment which made the gameplay even bigger than before. So let's get started. The main basic part or aspect of the gameplay is the same. You have dungeons in various regions of the world. Inside these dungeons are numerous stages that you, the player, have to complete and clear. You explore the stage which is like a big maze, find the Geostone, and the key to open the doorway to the next stage. At the end of the dungeon is a boss fight. Very similar to the first Dark Cloud. This is an action rpg game so fighting is done from a third person view. You would hack, bash, kick, and slash the monsters. You still have the usual big super move attack that your fighters get. But this time around, you can do combo attacks which you couldn't before. And just like with the first game, you can switch characters during battles in the stages. But the difference here is that when you are switching characters, it's more or less to get an advantage toward a monsters base on the weapon you are attacking it with since some monsters are more weaker against certain types of weapons. Monica uses a sword and magic. Max uses a gun and a wrench/hammer. In Dark Cloud 1, switching characters are base on using their unique abilities to open up certain areas of the stage. Here they simplify it more since there are only 2 characters to work with. In addition to the weapons, each characters have a unique ability to help fight against monsters. In this case, Max can ride the Ridepod, a machine that is made to fight against other machines. While Monica can transform into other monsters and use their abilities to fight against monsters. These are some of the added new features. Now to help you further on your quest to save the world, you are allowed to carry along with you during your trip into dungeons, one support member. These support members can be recruited from Palm Brinks. Each suppport member has one unique ability that can help you during your journey into the dungeons. Abilities can range from healing your characters to reviving them. Choose the support character that is most useful to you. Overall, the exploring of stages in each dungeon is pretty simple enough. Now once you find a Geostone, you can then take it back to the area of where a town used to be. From here you can enter the Georama menu and start rebuilding the town again. This time around things are a little bit more advance and improved on then what was seen in Dark Cloud 1. Once you release a Geostone, the info stored in the Geostone is then downloaded into your Georama menu. From there you have to make the various parts that the Geostone provide. For example: a Geostone contain the info of brick house or a chimney. You downloaded the info in your Georama menu. Now simply downloading the stuff from the Geostone doesn't mean that you have a brick house or a chimney. It just mean that you can now make a brick house/chimney. You can make a brick house or chimney using various Georama materials. What sort of Georama materials or the number of Georama materials that are require to make stuff that are downloaded from the Geostone various. So it's a little bit more complex than the first Dark Cloud game. You are required to get 100% completion inorder to restored an origin point to what it was before it was destroyed by Emperor Griffon. The condition to getting 100% completion is laid out for you in your Georama menu. Again, recreating the world is similiar to what was done in Dark Cloud 1. But since it's a little bit bigger and more improved, the learning curve may take some time to fully understand. But once you do understand it fully, it's quite fun to do. Since inorder for you to make something, you need Georama materials. These materials can easily be brought from a support member or in dungeons from treasure chests. So it's not that hard to get Georama materials. Each time you restore a section of the town, something will change in the future. You can then travel into the future to find out what's change and to find various power up items that will show up in the future after each section of town is completed. Finding power up items are important cause your characters don't level up so eating power up items is the only way to increase your characters defense stats and HP stats. Okay so far I've discuss the dungeon and world creation part. There's just a few more thing to do that's left to explain on the gameplay. Customization of weapons. It's pretty much exactly the same as the first Dark Cloud game. Each weapon will level up once it gains ABS. You get ABS from killing monsters. When a weapon level up, it's stats will increase and it's synthesis point will increase. Stats can range from effectiveness of attack pertaining to certain elemental classes down to monster classes. Synthesis points are points that allow you to spectrumize items to the weapon to increase that weapon's individual stats. Example of this. A weapon has 4 synthesis points. You can then spectrumize 4 dark crystals to the weapon to increase it's effectiveness attack power to rock monsters. That's the best I can explain it. Once a weapon achieved it's stats to a certain criteria, that weapon can then be build up to a higher level class weapon. This is how the whole weapon developement work. For those of you that played the first Dark Cloud game, it's exactly the same. I don't want to get too much into this cause I'm not an instruction book and since the customization of weapon is exactly the same, I don't feel it's too important to get into a feature that most Dark Cloud gamers are already aware of. But it's a very addictive feature that makes me just want to keep playing the game over and over again cause I want to build my weapon into the best ultimate weapon. But then again who doesn't. LOL. Finally the last thing that's worth a mention is the invention and photograph feature. This can easily be added to the extras feature down below but I'll keep it here. Through the course of the game, you will be given a camera to take pictures. Once you have a camera, you can take various pictures of stuff during the game. You can then use these pictures to come up with an idea of an invention. Once you have an idea of an invention, you can then build that invention using various Georama materials. For the most part, these inventions aren't rare stuff or anything that you can't find in dungeons or shops. But it's a quicker way and even cheaper way to getting stuff. So that's the entire breakdown on the key features of the gameplay. Overall the gameplay is pretty fairly simple and addictive to play. The fun factor of the game is great. This is one of those game that I can't just put it down. I just want to keep on playing it over and over again. The nice thing about this is that all the stages inside the dungeons are random so you don't get bored of doing it over and over all the time. A big 10 thumbs up for me.

Score: 10/10

Spheda Rules! Extras and replay? Perfect. That's all I have to say. Lots of extras and excellent replay value. Let's look at all the extra stuff you can do during the game your first time around. The Medal Sidequest is without a doubt the biggest sidequest and most time consuming to do. It has no effect on the actual game but can provide over 50+ hours of extra gameplay to complete. During each dungeon stages, there are certain criterias for you to do or complete inorder to win a medal. Such criterias can range from but not limited to, to defeating all monsters within a time limit or defeating all monsters with only a certain kind of weapon or even playing spheda. Inorder to complete the entire Medal quest just for one dungeon stage, you will probably have to play that stage again and again for quite a few times inorder to complete all the criterias for one stage. Times that by the number of stages available in the entire game and you can understand why completing the Medal Sidequest alone will take over 50+ hours. What do you get? Well the more medals you can collect, you can trade in those medals for certain outfits for your characters. Nothing more. All that work just for that, huh? Only the strongest gamers would try and complete the Medal Sidequest. Next is Spheda. Spheda is pretty much like golf. It can be fun but also very frustrating. Depending on what spheda course you are on and where the spot of the ball is. Once you clear a dungeon stage, you have the option to play spheda. Spheda is one of the most addictive and yet frustrating sidequest around. The feeling of satisfaction of being able to get the spheda ball in the hole is great but very frustrating when the game is against you by where the spot of the spheda ball is placed. If you manage to get a spheda ball into the hole, you get a prize as well as a Medal for completing the Spheda criteria in the dungeon stage. I'm not going to go into how many hours it would take to complete the Spheda sidequest. Finally the Fishing Sidequest. The Fishing game is back but more improve and with better used out of it. This time, not only can you catch fishes but you can raise the fishes you catch now as well as breed them. You can raise the fishes in an aquarium by feeding them. The point of raising them is so you can enter them in fish contests to win prizes. It's an improvement from the first fish game. And gives you something extra to do on the side. That's for the in-game extras that players can get. But there's more once you finish the game. Which leads to the replay value. Once you finish the game, you can load and enter the Extras Option in the game. Two things are available in the Extras Menu. You can play the Spheda Practice game or Enter in more fish contests. But the main replay value after finishing the game is that you can load up your game from the first game to play a huge side quest dungeon. This side quest dungeon is called the Zelmite Mines. This is the biggest dungeon in the game and provides the biggest and baddest monsters and bosses. As well as the final hidden boss, Dark Genie. Completing this enormous extra dungeon will result in a second ending. So add that all up and you have one heck of a package for extras and replay.

Dark Cloud 2 is like a repeat of Dark Cloud 1 in everyway. It's bigger and better in all aspect of the game whem compare to the first one but on the other hand, it's still shows the same weakness that Dark Cloud 1 had. For instance, while Dark Cloud 2 improved in all categories compare to what Dark Cloud 1 had, the categories that remained to have lower than expected scores were the story and character developement. Just like with Dark Cloud 1. Dark Cloud 2 is one of the most addictive and fun game to play but when it comes to rpgs, it's story continues to be a problem. How this effect it's long term success for the overall series remain unknown. As long as people continue to have fun on a game, they will come back for more. And there's no doubt that people will have fun with this game and will end up buying Dark Cloud 3 when the times comes. But in terms of being part of the role playing genre? Storylines are always the main focus of this genre. And all rpgs that are considered huge success in the long term always have strong stories backing them up. Can the Dark Cloud series buck this trend by just providing near perfect gameplay? I don't know but I like to find out. I have no doubt that this game will sell well and people will enjoy it. And with that, there's definitely going to be a Dark Cloud 3. And I like to see more focus to be put on the storyline to go with it's addictive gameplay. Final Score: 8/10 Time to complete: over 100 hours for a complete game. Difficulty: Meduim Favorite character: Monica Best fighter: Monica Best music theme: Intro english song Coolest feature: Customization of weapons Most addictive part: Spheda Best advice: Raise your Gun quickly Best costume: Monica's bikini Most useless weapon feature: Monica's magic or transformation Also try: Dark Cloud 2 Up next: Legaia 2

STORY Story needs better developement in terms of plot depth and overall presentation. 6 CHARACTERS Developement of key characters are done quite nice but lack of supporting characters. 5 GRAPHICS Beautifully colored graphics with excellent usage of cel-shading. 9 MUSIC/SOUND Excellent english theme song with some good in-game tunes during your adventure. 8 GAMEPLAY Addictive and fun are the 2 key words here. 10 EXTRAS/REPLAY Hours and hours of extra gameplay available. 10