Finally completed it...
After reading all the reviews i threw myself at the game, telling myself to complete it and then write the review again.
What i liked about the game was building the towns, kinda reminded me of actraiser which was a decent thought at the time. Playing the game i just couldnt stop reminding myself of everything in Dark Cloud, it just feelt so familiar. Well to be honest most things in Dark Cloud are from other games, tossed together in a rather weird way.
Town Building - Actraiser (building your town, following instructions to build it *right*)
Actual Gameplay - Zelda (the character looks like a total Link ripoff if you ask me)
Georama Event - Soulblazer (enter a dungeon, save creatures, they appear above ground...)
But it is a decent game afterall, tho it gets far too repeatative at times. The same dungeon, no change in graphics, over and over again until completed. When its done you get a well deserved break and can build your town, almost as you want it. Then its back to dungeon crawls. The music almost game me nightmares. Running these dungeons over and over again, with the same short cut music... it still gives me shivers. I would be lying if i said the music in the dungeon were well made, because sadly it isnt.
Im not a big fan of the weapon repair system, if something goes wrong *poof* weapon gone. It never did happen to me tho, always keept an eye on the weapon. In some weird way i liked that the weapon leveled instead of the character. But i didnt like the fact that you had to run around collecting fruits to increase your health.
The game took a while to complete, mostly because the lengthy dungeon runs. Im not sure how much time i spent playing Dark Cloud but i guess it was around 25-30 hours when final boss was laid to rest. This actually brings me to another topic...
Weapon magics, this i really hated. If your weapon lacked a specific type of damage it was just, back to dungeons and level it up. Think i spent well over 3-4 hours just leveling a weapon for final boss.
Its always nice with alot of characters to pick from to play with. However when you get *forced* to play one of the characters... thats a step too far. My favorite character was the cat girl. Long range attacks, made every fight a laugh. So yes, i barely ever played any other characters, and you can imagine how harsh the pay was when i was forced to play a character i never played.
But overall it was a decent game, personally i wouldnt rate it above 8. It just wasnt that good game if you ask me. The repeatative dungeons and music sadly brings the game down a bit too much.
The game itself is fairly easy. Got the hang of most things pretty fast so that worked well.
So what i mean with all this is, this game isnt for everyone. I guess you either like it or not. To be honest im not sure where i stand. Basicly it feelt like this playing: fun-boring-boring-fun-boring-boring-fun. The fun parts were building the town and the first few levels of a dungeon. The boring parts were the force character play and insane repeatative dungeons+music.