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SouthJag · 12:13 PM

What's so special about Dark Cloud?

Not just Dark Cloud, but Dark Cloud 2 as well. The original had its flaws, but what it did it did amazingly well. It was a first-gen title that, graphically, didn't look half-bad. The overall objective was to travel through randomly-generated dungeons, one per locale, and acquire these orbs called Atla. Several floors in each dungeon also had unlockable paths that you had to get a special key for, which would usually lead to some new weapon or what have you. At some point during the dungeon, either halfway in or near the end, you'd encounter a stopping point -- a door that had to be unlocked with a special key acquired through other means. This, to me, is where the games gets awesome.

The storyline begins with a catastrophe that basically wipes out everything as you know it. Houses, people, etc. Only these "guardians" remain, as well as yourself. It's your job to acquire the Atla with your Atlamillia so you can restore each location to its most accurate setting. Your first location is your hometown, which is pretty standard, but then you've got areas that you have to build hills, a desert location, one that's sectioned off into four quarters, and even a giant robot you have to manufacture.

You take your acquired Atla and set basically everything back into place -- houses and the way they face, particular landmarks like trees, lakes, carts, attachments to houses, you name it. It's like Sim City, but you acquire the parts through dungeon crawling. That's not all there is to the game though -- there are seven playable characters and there's a HUGE item/weapon synthesis system that allows you to acquire bigger and badder weapons and much more efficient items.

Now then -- What's so special about Dark Cloud 2?

I've said it before, but if every game's sequel took such a leap in gameplay and graphics, every sequel would be amazing. DC2 switched to cel-shading, which in turn did wonders for how incredible everything looked, lowered the number of floors per dungeon and instead increased each floor's size (which was a great move -- one of the first game's flaws was that some dungeons had 30-40 floors), took out seven playable characters and focused on two main characters, Max and Monica, with the ability to bring an NPC along with you for added benefit, the likes of which included someone who would sell you potions, Remedies, and one who could display the entire floor map and tell you if a treasure chest was a Mimic or not. Great stuff.

DC2 changed a great bit. The first town was still left wholly intact. The setting is that no one goes outside the city because there's nothing beyond the city gates. Due to certain circumstances, Max desires to go outside the city and gets help in order to do so. Monica on the other hand comes from the future, and has to turn to the past in order to correct the mistakes in the future.

In the first game, Doan (the main character) and his Atlamillia were only used for collecting the Atla. In DC2, Max and Monica's Atlamillia were methods used to transport to their respective timelines. In the first game, your objective was to restore each town, period. In the second, by restoring the location in Max's time, you'd affect locations in Monica's time. The coolest thing though was that you could see the changes while you're making them in the present with Max -- if you decide to travel to the future to take a look, it's not just all or nothing. You can see how setting a building in the right spot in Max's time will alter the landscape in Monica's time. Very cool.

There's also a lot more content in the way of Atla. You can put additional features into the locations you have to rebuild, but it's not required. You can just do it for fun to decorate the town. The locations are a little more varied as well -- a standard forest-type area, a beach where you have to build on water, the base of a volcano, and a set of four natural pillars that you have to balance with buildings. The final location is someone's gigantic yard; you have to recreate their landscape, which is kinda cool.

The first game had an item synthesis system, but the second game expands on it. Max is given a camera early on in the game, and you use the camera to take pictures of "ideas" that he uses to get concepts for new items, weapons, and clothes. You also acquire parts for Max's Ridepod, a mech device that you can really change and upgrade through the game with new motors and weapons. Max has Ridepod, and Monica has Monster Transformations that, while cool, as kinda useless since they're nowhere near as powerful as Monica herself. You'll need to use it a couple of times, but that's it.

Dark Cloud 2 has a couple on-going minigames as well. There are two minigames dealing with fish; a standard weighing contest where you catch fish, store them in your fish tank and get them weighed, and a fish racing game. You don't control the fish directly, but by feeding fish different types of food, it'll increase their racing parameters. Both are addictive and incredibly fun to play. The other minigame is called Spheda, a spin-off of golf. Once you find out about it, you can play it at the end of every dungeon floor. The object is to hit the "time sphere" into the "time distortion" aka hit the golf ball in the hole. You're given a certain number of strokes, and everytime you hit the ball it changes from red to blue and vice-versa, indicative of the Atlamillia (Max's is blue, Monica's is red) and their relationship with time. The ball has to be the same color as the portal, which doesn't change during play. Unique twist, and extremely fun.

Edit: Wanted to see how the initial title would look. I'll probably post a few more for games like Zone of the Enders, Legend of Legaia, maybe Legend of Dragoon, etc. Damn this could be a looooong thread.

Jam it back in, in the dark.