Dark Cloud 2 focuses on the epic adventure that follows a young boy named Max as he ventures through the past, present, and future along with a girl from the future named Monica. A great evil from ancient times is changing the past to create an apocolyptic future to exterminate the human race one small town at a time. Through Max's story you'll build towns, explore massive dungeons, invent your weapons, take hundreds of pictures, do lots of fishing, interact with dozens of unique characters, and more. GAMEPLAY: Within 3 minutes of play the game will already place you in a short battle as a mysterious young girl (later known as Monica) as she searches for her father who she finds murdered in his castle. DC2's battle system is presented in real time rather than fumbling through menus (i.e. action RPG). The combat consists of targeting an enemy and mashing the 'X' button. You can also backflip to quickly avoid enemy attacks, guard with 'R1', aim your projectile weapons with 'L1' (Max's handgun or Monica's magic braclet), and use any equiped item from your massive inventory with 'square'. Overall the combat works well. After the brief battle you'll switch over to Max's perspective and learn how he embarks on his journey. You'll eventually wind up in the first dungeon: a sewer after the twenty minute intro. There you'll learn more of the game's basics. Like how to explore the dungeons and how to control Max's mentor's robot creation named Steve who is more powerful than Max's character, but requires hard to find fuel. Later on you can customize your robot and add more powerful weapons/parts. While you can use items that raise your characters' HP and Defence, it's not your characters that level up, it's their weapons that level up. This is what sets DC2 apart from other RPG's. The game uses a "synthesizing" system for the weapons and depending on how you upgrade the weapons the weapons can "build up" to more powerful weapons. After the Sewer dungeon is completed DC2 really begins. You'll then have the ability to switch at anytime between Max and Monica. Also, while Max has his robot Steve, Monica has the ability to transform into monsters which more dedicated or "%100 players" can appreciate (I never really used it though). From here on the game progresses through the story by visiting and rebuilding towns and exploring new dungeons to get the supplies you need to build towns all the way until the end of the game (with plenty of diversions along the way). I'll also note that the town building is deep enough to satisfy most in the end and I can't forget the very deep invention system found in the game to create hundreds of items and weapons for your use. What makes Dark Cloud 2 so great is just how deep and varied the gameplay truly is and becomes absolutely addictive to any player. The game gives lots to do without throwing in a bunch of clunky mini-games. To gamers that like to breeze through RPG's to the gamers that have to get %100.0, DC2 will satisfy ALL for a good 40+ hours. GRAPHICS: The graphics, while simple, are neat and colorful enough to look at. Most of the visuals are cel-shaded and the characters are most easily noticed as being cel-shaded. The cutscenes look basically the same as the real-time visuals which is always nice to see every once in a while. Overall, I liked the graphical presentation. SOUND: Most of the characters have good quality voice-overs which I love to see in modern RPG's. The sound FX are mostly average (I don't really ever pay attention to the sound FX anyway), but I did like the music. A lot of the music is great, but the only problem I had is that some of the songs would repeat too quickly and would get a little tiring after a while. VALUE: DC2 should supply any gamer at least 40 hours of gameplay depending on how much you want to get done and by now it should be under $20. Also, I'll be glad to replay it every once in a while because it's just so enjoyable. ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE . . . : The biggest problem I had with the game is the damage system. By that, I mean there are several moments in the dungeons when most enemies can KO your character in just a swift two-hit combo and even if you guard you'll still take damage. I guess this is to apply some challenge to the game, but I found myself during the final bosses having to go into the item menu and heal my character after every single hit taken. Aside from that, any other problems I found in the game were just very minor. BOTTOM LINE: To keep it simple, DC2 is very addicting, deep, and plentiful experiance and I just can't stress anymore how badly I wish more people will play this game especially since I found my copy at my local gamestore for under $20. Dark Cloud 2 will probably go down as one of my favorite action/RPG's of all time.
Dark Cloud 2 is my favorite game of all time, period. It's the only game I ever gave a perfect score. Not because it's flawless, but because this game brought me some of the best times in gaming of my life. It's a maste... Read Full Review
Dark Cloud 2 is a fantastic game, a must for any RPG fan. If you were kind of disappointed or very let down by the first game of the series this will more than make up for it. The graphics and gameplay both are so much... Read Full Review
