#dark cloud game

Geeze guys, thanks for telling me....

Bonus:

I'm playing dark cloud 1 for the first time and I made it to yellow sea and I'm fighting fucking minotaur joe

HE'S IMMUNE TO MAGIC

I powered up ruby because I just hate the melee combat in this fucking game but because she's the only powerful one she's all I have!

she literally cannot do damage to joe

no where on the internet does anyone say this in any forums or walkthrough

no one says it cuz no one uses ruby, they all just lean on the main character

if I'm able to bring any part member into this fight, why can't I use who I want??!?

I'm so fucking mad that I have to use shit ass goro

[Emulated][I did not play this game on its intended platform]

[These are entirely my personal opinions and observations]

Overall ratting: 7/10

Spoilers ahead! [I have played through 10 levels of the first dungeon for the purpose of this review :3]

Dark Cloud and Dark Cloud 2!!! These were some of my formative games when i was little! Magic! Fantasy! Construction and terra forming! Dark Cloud did it before it was cool! Top picture! Mel as Xiao and Fantoccio as Ruby! Xiao is a cat who is saved by the protagonist Toan, and transformed into a girl who helps traverse difficult dungeons and can leap over gaps and canyons along the way. Ruby is a genie who belonged to a mob boss. She was the real king of the group though, and isn't afraid to tell people precisely what she wants. She wants to help take down the Dark Genie- the big baddie of the game. She wants to prove that she is the strongest- not this wannabe. Second Picture: Mel as Xiao and Fantoccio as Steve the Talking Slingshot!

A certain Colonel Flag Gilgister, from the Eastern Continent’s Lagoon Empire Army, wants to take over the world with the power of an ancient evil called the Dark Genie. He awakens the genie and starts attacking the Western Empire, including the hometown of your main hero. The good news is, Simba the Fairy King saves everyone and everything into magical spheres called Atla. Simba finds and gives you a special device called the Atlamillia that can detect, collect and open the Atla. 

In order to bring five allies to your side and gain enough strength to take on the Genie, you have to rebuild five towns and clear each town’s dungeon. (There’s also a sixth and final dungeon called the Gallery of Time.) The dungeons are where Simba had placed the Atla for safekeeping. Most levels have at least two Atla, but there are some levels that don’t have any and instead force you to use an ally of their choice. Even within some of the main-hero-levels there are certain gates or doors that pop up that can only be activated by one of the other allies. These design choices force you to train with all six characters, not just Toan (the pre-chosen name of the hero. You can technically change it or the name of the other five to whatever you’d like.)

You can find special defense-boosting items around each town as you put pieces back together--which, you realize after talking with the residents, have a certain order to them--that level you up. Toan, for example, increases his defense when eating a Fluffy Donut. *Be careful when using these items!!!!* The game will randomly generate either 5, 6 or 7 points per item, and these items are the only way to increase the character’s defense in the entire game. So I suggest saving before using each item and restarting the game over and over until you get 7/the max generated points (and then definitely save again!) 

Other than this, however, it’s not the characters that have levels but your weapons. Every time you attack and kill a monster the weapon you’re equipped with gets “Absorption Points.” When the weapon’s Absorption Meter is full you can upgrade it to the next level. The weapon will then get higher speed, magic and attack stats and the Absorption Meter resets. If you fill the bar but don’t upgrade the weapon, any Absorption Points you get after this won’t be banked/carried over. There are also gems like rubies and diamonds and attachments like Speed+2, Damage to X Monster Type, and Element +3 that you can also add to the weapons. (The gems are found in the bonus rooms on random dungeon levels and influence overall stats.) Some weapons have an element affinity like thunder or fire, but you can add element attachments to any weapon regardless of this. You can even change the weapon’s affinity to better fight against certain monsters.

You only have a certain number of weapons you can carry. The game encourages you to build a weapon up to Level 5 and “break it” to become a gem (with 60% of that weapon’s skills) to add onto another weapon, and so on and so forth. There’s different tiers/rarity of weapons as well, so that you can collect say multiple common/Tier One weapons and not feel bad breaking them to attach on a higher tier. 

Although the six characters have unique designs and personalities, I ended up using Toan--melee--and Ruby--ranged--the most, then Osmond (the other ranged) sometimes. I used the other three only when the game forced me to. Toan is good against pretty much every monster and is the only one who can collect the Atla. Ruby’s weapon can use every element and it was fun and useful to switch back and forth between them. (Especially in the first half of the final fight!!!!) Osmond was good for the second half of the final fight--hint, just keep flying in wide circles and shooting--and both he and Ruby were helpful in taking out certain enemies like gophers that would attack if you got too close. 

Xiao is helpful in the first dungeon to kill those stupid poisonous bats before they bite you (grr!), but is quickly replaceable. It feels like they just added her to the team to carry you over until you get the *actual* ranged allies, Ruby and Osmond. They should’ve given an incentive for using her in my regular rotation, like having an ability that none of the other five have, so that way it’s not so annoying to get stuck on a dungeon floor using only her. (I want the option to grind and get extra XP, not be forced to for some arbitrary notion on the developer’s part to get a balanced team.) Goro and Ungaga, the other two I don’t use, were just so inefficient with attacks and movement I felt severely hampered. It didn’t help that both of their weapons chewed through repair powder after just a single hit.

What is Repair Powder? Unlike any other game I’ve played so far, your weapon has a health bar that must be replenished or it will break and be permanently lost (except for your first/default weapon, which goes to zero). I highly suggest saving up to buy an Auto Repair Powder, which, when equipped, will fix just in the nick of time any weapon that’s about to break. Sometimes you get overzealous in your attack combos or otherwise don’t notice that the weapon’s HP is low, so it’s been literally a gamesaver on more than one occasion.

Speaking of health bars, Toan and his friends have both standard health bars and, also unlike any other game, a thirst meter. If the thirst meter gets too low it starts taking away health points :( You can stock up on water bottles or run into randomly-generated pools in the dungeons. You can collect these white apples called “Fruits of Eden” and gourds around the towns to build up the health and thirst limits respectively. Each person on the time has a max limit. **Don’t use the fruits or gourds until your bar is low!**, because the item will not only increase your limit but refill your entire health or water points. It’s extremely useful during boss fights, for example, so definitely hold onto those!

Some other points of note:

--In Norune, the first town, don’t put Old Gaffer and his buddy on the map until the very end! The mayor of Norune will give you items for free, but once you set up Gaffer the freebies stop and you have to buy from that point on. 

--Every time you die in a dungeon, you can either pay half of your gold (which they *do not* warn you of) or can use a Substitution Powder to bring out one of your allies. From there, you can either play as the ally or, if you want to bring back that dead character, you can then use a Revival Powder. (You don’t need the Substitution Powder to change between allies mid-fight, though.)

--You have a map in the corner of your screen that reveals itself as you make your way around the dungeon floor (which resets and randomizes every time you leave and come back.) One of the items you can get is a map that will reveal an outline of the entire floor ahead of time, except, sometimes you don’t find it until the last chest. Kindof useless but whatever.

--Stock up on Dran’s Feather if you can. When equipped it lets you run faster than normal, which is useful for zipping around any dungeon and, especially when you’re low on health and trying to get to the water pool, avoid enemies.

--Goro’s attack is hard to practice. You hold down X to build up his stamina until he flashes green; keep him just away enough from the enemy while building or he’ll lose it. Once he flashes let go, and he gives several spinning swings that do some pretty good damage while also being protected/unable to take damage in return. He moves slow though so he often gets attacked mid-build-up. 

--You can press R2 to switch to a close-up view. You’ll need this for aiming some of Ruby’s attacks to open her specific doors.

--Aiming/switching between enemies and some of the camera angles themselves were sometimes wonky. I don’t know how many attack opps I missed because the camera changed on me, the aiming button didn’t respond, it was too slow to switch between enemies (or involuntarily changed on me which one was being aimed at), etc.

--The game ended up having a happy ending 😊 But also, partly because of some time-traveling elements, left a lot of questions unanswered. Are the East and West now friends? What happened to Toen's dad? (a couple people mention him like there’s a big secret or like you might meet him and then....nothing) Are Toen (or the other companions) going to remember the adventures/now previous timeline? Did *a certain companion*'s dad still die? Did a certain queen still get trapped in the shipwreck? Will Toen go out to the other villages and remeet the friends he made, solve the disappearances, etc.?

30 Day Video Game Challenge → Picture of a game setting you wished you lived in:  Nourne Village, Dark Cloud (2001)