Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Dark Cloud

Written by Kyle Williams on June 19, 2001

Full Review: Looks like rain...Yup

Some people would argue that a console's success can be measured by the quantity of quality role playing games that it has hosted. Case in point, the Nintendo 64 only had the two Legend of Zelda games and Ogre Battle 64 to boast about, and many would consider the system to be the weakest of the Nintendo systems to date. Up until now, the PS2 has been falling prey to the same fate of the N64 with only a couple of RPGs available and none of them being really strong titles. Well, the times they are-a changin' and Dark Cloud has been released for Sony's next generation console.

In Dark Cloud you take the role of Toan (or whatever else you decide to name him), a young man in a funny hat that is called upon to save the world as he knows it from the ultimate evil, in this case a Dark Genie. If you are thinking that this sounds reminiscent to the stories of Link in the Zelda series of games then you are pretty sharp, but beyond the similarities in the general premise and combat engine, the two games are hardly alike. Dark Cloud dismisses Zelda's typical puzzle based dungeon setup in favor of a strictly action oriented adventure that incorporates statistical advancement akin to the more traditional role-playing games. Throw in an entirely unique Georama world-building engine and you have a winning game recipe.

The Georama engine is perhaps the most obsession causing game feature this side of Pokemon. To make a long story short, Toan's village was nearly destroyed by the Dark Genie, but was saved by the Fairy King by taking elements of the village, hiding them in floating orbs called Atla, and scattering them throughout various dungeons. The Georama engine allows you to take the collected Atla and use their contents to rebuild your world. You take homes, your neighbors, and their stuff and try to put things back together, It may not sound like the most revolutionary idea ever, but it is executed perfectly and continually drives you to play that next dungeon level and find that next Atla to earn you that next item to... Let's just say that before you know it, it is three o'clock in the morning and you have to get up for work in three hours but just keep playing.

Another welcome feature is the weapon advancement system that you use. Instead of your character going from pip-squeak to behemoth over the course of the game, your swords do. This is accomplished by attaching items to your weapon to increase its statistics, earning experience for your weapon, and using that experience to upgrade your weapon, in turn permanently gaining the attributes of the attachments. Once you advance your weapon far enough, you can then perform a status-break on it and attach the improved abilities of your swords and axes to a new weapon. During the time that you are trying to rapidly advance your weapons attributes, you are also trying to keep it from breaking. Your weapons have hit points and you have to be aware of them, because running out of them will cause your weapon to break, wasting all of your effort spent on building it up.

The gameplay is very familiar, as we have seen it before in the N64 Zelda titles. You are able lock on, block, and parry, just like Link can, all in next-generation visual glory. Once you find them, you are also be able to switch freely between as many as six total characters while gallivanting through the dungeons. As an incentive to build up all of your characters somewhat equally, there are random limited areas in the dungeons, in which only specific characters may be used. Playing favorites doesn't work as well as in other titles.

The only drawback to this title is that the story isn't really that immersive. The plot itself is solid, but seems like a side-note to the actual gameplay. The action and world building could take place entirely independent of the Dark Genie attacking the world and vice versa. True, the story is pushed forward throughout the game by way of in-engine cut scenes that take place every so often, but most of your time is spent fighting and building. The ties that bind the two halves are mediocre at best.

Dark loud is the first really solid role-playing game that has been released for the Playstation 2. An innovative world building feature and solid gameplay lead the way in this visually and aurally pleasing title, while the randomly generated dungeons will keep you coming back for more.