Dark Cloud

Moby ID: 4530
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

400 Years ago, a war between the Eastern Continent and the Western Wizard Army destroyed the world as a great power was unleashed. Time has passed and in present day, the power-hungry General Flag has organized a ritual to awaken this power once more: the Dark Genie. Barely controlled by a spell, the Dark Genie once again breaks the world, beginning with the village of Norune. The only survivor of Norune is a boy named Toan, son of the great hero Ada. As Toan surveys the destruction, the Spirit King appears and tells him that all is not lost; pieces of the world, including buildings and people, have been sealed away in protective Atla spheres. Using a magic glove called the Atlamillia, Toan must resurrect the world and find the powers necessary to defeat the Dark Genie.

Dark Cloud is an action-RPG title, often compared to Soul Blazer, played from the 3rd person perspective. Toan must enter randomly generated dungeons where he will battle monsters and recover Atla spheres. Toan battles with a sword, which can be slashed directly in front of him or powered up for a stronger blow. During his travels, Toan encounters other characters who will offer to aid him and can be switched to during dungeons, with individual statistics and weapons. Items are also found and shared among the party, including restorative items, attack items and general power-ups. Each character has a thirst meter, which much be replenished or health will start to drain. Should a character lose all their health, they will fall in battle and be returned to town unless Stand-In powder is used, in which case that character is unavailable and control passes to another.

Toan is the only character able to collect Atla spheres which contain different items needed to restore the villages destroyed by the Dark Genie. Rebuilding is done outside the dungeon in a designated village area. Buildings can be placed down, rotated and moved as need be. They can also be upgraded with additional furniture and people (usually the owners of the building). As the dungeons are conquered and the area becomes more lifelike, treasure chests start appearing around the town and villagers often become friendlier. Some villagers have additional requests, such as being placed facing the east, for the placement of their homes.

Each character in Toan's party uses a unique weapon, but several different types of weapon under each category can be collected. As weapons are used, they gain Absorption (Abs). These Abs points are used as "experience" for the weapon and can upgrade the weapon's abilities. Each weapon features a number of "slots" to which power-up items can be attached, any items attached to slots will be absorbed when the weapon is upgraded. Each weapon has certain attributes which must be improved in order to "build up" to a different type of weapon. Additionally, any weapon reaching level 5 can be broken into a Synthsphere, an item containing 60% of its abilities, which can then be attached to slots on different weapons. In this manner, weapons can always be upgraded or used in the improvement of another weapon throughout the game. The game also features certain sequences where buttons must be pressed in the correct order and correct timing in order to progress.

Spellings

  • ダーククラウド - Japanese Spelling

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

183 People (144 developers, 39 thanks) · View all

Testers
Product Producer
Art Director
Character Animation Director
Story
Game Design
Character Design
Main Programmer
Battle Programmer
Menu System Program
Motion System Program
Editors & Visual Program
Opening & Visual Program
Music Compose & Sound Effects
Dungeon Map Design
Field Map Design
Monster Design
Character Model & Motion
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 29 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 36 ratings with 2 reviews)

A great and durable action Rpg

The Good
- Longevity - Crafting - Art

The Bad
- ripetitiveness - maybe too easy, but is it a bad?

The Bottom Line
A great Adventure from the vault, capable to enjoy after 23 years. It is available in remasters

PlayStation 2 · by Nicolò Romagnoli · 2023

Like an onion, this game has many layers to it, but they all pretty much taste the same.

The Good
Dark Cloud has many, many features to it, but isn't something that is so complex that a beginner such as myself would get frustrated with it. It has some in-game tutorials that show advanced features as your skill level increases, and it has a pretty good "I wonder what will happen next when I complete this stage" feel to it which made me certain I'd be playing for hours to come.

The Bad
The AI seemed to be pretty stupid. When you're exploring a dungeon and you enter a room with a bad guy, all you have to do is walk out of the room or stand behind something and it won't figure out how to get to you. Granted, I exploited this feature a lot and was thankful for it, but I thought this type of AI went away ages ago.

The dungeons/cave layout also seemed pretty repetitive. They are generated randomly, but there only seemed to be two or three types of rooms, one or two types of hallways, etc. Admittedly this is rather nit-picky, but I felt it was difficult to fully immerse myself in a game where I felt I was having deja vu walking down halls with the exact same layout as the dungeon level previously explored.

The Bottom Line
I'm probably the worst person to describe a game to another, as I haven't really been active in playing recent games, but this game felt like a quirky mix of a typical dungeon explorin' monster whompin' RPG mixed with, well, SimCity?!

To be perfectly honest, I haven't played it very much, but after returning from my first trip into the dungeon, I was surprised at the "build a village" section of the game, where you literally place houses, trees, rivers and roads in a very SimCity like fashion. The city you build then becomes a virtual 3-D world where you interact with the residents that live there and do some customizing of people's houses in exchange for better weapons to further your exploration in the dungeon.

...And there's lots more to it than just that; I read the beginning of the Dark Cloud FAQ online and I was amazed to see that I was just barely scratching the surface of the game. You could easily spend many hours exploring all the different aspects of this particular game.

PlayStation 2 · by jeff leyda (1842) · 2002

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  • MobyGames ID: 4530
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Slippy.

PlayStation 4 added by LepricahnsGold. PlayStation 3 added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Freeman, DreinIX.

Game added July 16, 2001. Last modified March 23, 2024.