Dark Cloud is a role-playing video game for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was developed by Level-5 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment in December 2000 in Japan, May 2001 in North America, and September 2001 in Europe. The gameplay of Dark Cloud combines action role-playing with elements of city-building games. The game was originally intended to be a launch title for the PS2 but was eventually released later in the year. The game was generally well received by critics who praised its blend of gameplay types. It has sold more than 1 million units worldwide. A sequel to the game, Dark Chronicle (also known as Dark Cloud 2), was released later.
The game's story focuses on a group of adventurers who band together to fight against a being called the Dark Genie, whose attacks on their home villages has affected them all. The main protagonist is Toan, a boy who is given a magical stone called the Atlamillia by the Fairy King, which has the power to rebuild the destroyed areas.
Dark Cloud was digitally re-released for PlayStation 4 on December 5, 2015. This version has no changes in content from the original PS2 game, but is now upscaled to 1080p and features PlayStation Network trophies.
Gameplay[]
Dark Cloud is a third person role-playing game in which the player moves through randomly-generated dungeons, battling monsters and collecting items. Inside of these dungeons, at uncertain floors or levels, the player may have the option of entering a separate area which contains stronger monsters and more valuable treasure. The player will sometimes 'Duel' an enemy. In this type of battle, the player must press a sequence of buttons shown on the screen correctly to win, similarly to a quick time event.
Another part of Dark Cloud's gameplay involves special items called Atla which are used to rebuild the world. These items, which are present in almost every dungeon level, are large spherical objects and can be retrieved only by the main character. When removed from the dungeon, they become pieces of the world (trees, houses, villagers, etc.). These pieces must be placed through Georama mode, an element similar to city-building games, where the player can arrange the pieces of the world onto the landscape. After villagers have been placed, the player can speak to them to discover what their wishes are for the rebuilding of the village. As the player approaches the ideals concerning the village restoration and its villagers' preferences, their progress is recorded as a percentage of completion in the Georama menu. When the progress reaches 100%, the village is considered complete.
Unlike most role-playing video games, instead of the main characters leveling up, their weapons do. The player characters themselves can only grow stronger with the consumption of particular items. Weapons level up by killing enemies, but they wear over time, and it is necessary to repair them to avoid them breaking and becoming unusable. With the exception of the starting weapon, a broken weapon is immediately removed from the player's inventory. To upgrade a weapon, the player can attach stat-increasing items to it (attack power, speed, ability to kill different types of monsters, elemental attributes, etc.), but a single weapon can only carry a limited number of attachments. To permanently keep the extra statistics the attachments give, the weapon must be leveled up using absorption points (Abs), which are gained by defeating enemies. Weapons can be spectrumized after reaching a certain level, giving the player a single weapon with the combined attributes of the two.
Dark Cloud features six different main characters each with their own playstyle; three ranged fighters and three melee fighters, each using a different weapon. The melee characters use a variety of blades, hammers and staves, and the ranged characters use magic rings, guns and slingshots. Each character also has a unique ability that helps them move through the dungeons (Xiao can jump across chasms, others can open certain types of doors, etc.).
Plot[]
Characters[]
The book from which Toan's story is told.
Dark Cloud features many characters, some of which are playable. Each playable character utilizes different weapons, fighting styles and abilities that aid in the exploration of dungeon areas. The main protagonist, a boy named Toan, fights with daggers, knives and swords. After the events of the prologue, he is tasked with the restoration of the world by the Fairy King. The main antagonist is the Dark Genie, an evil genie released by Colonel Flagg, a second class military commander who wants its power to control the world. During the course of the game, Toan meets new characters who can be chosen to explore and battle in dungeons. The player must accomplish in-game events for new characters to join. The available characters include: Xiao, a slingshot-wielding 'catgirl'; Goro, a hunter from Matataki Village who uses large hammers; Ruby, a magic-ring-using genie from Queens; Ungaga, a Muska Lacka warrior using staves; and Osmond, leader of the Moon People, equipped with a variety of guns and blasters
Setting[]
World Map of Terra after just reaching Queens
Dark Cloud is set in a fantasy world called Terra. The world is made of two main continents referred to as the East and West. The eastern continent has a focus on technology, and the civilization is advanced whereas the western continent is less so, and its people prefer to "live in harmony with nature." On the western continent are the settlements that were sealed away by the Fairy King so as to protect them during the attack by the Dark Genie, and where the game primarily takes place. These settlements are Norune, Matataki, Brownboo, Queens, Muska Lacka and a settlement on one of Terra's moons, Yellow Drops.
History[]
Dark Cloud is a fairy tale read from a book found in ancient, nameless ruins. After scholars had translated the story, its significance and verity became debatable.
The story begins in a chamber called the Dark Shrine where a ceremony of dances is being performed to awaken the Dark Genie, a legendary creature of great power. Colonel Flagg, a man wanting such power for war, watches while the ceremony's organizer, a priest of the shrine, explains the legend of the Genie. A large urn containing the genie's spirit billows black smoke and the Dark Genie materializes. It accepts Flagg as its master, but devours the priest. Under Flagg's orders, the Dark Genie then attacks the western continent, but the Fairy King casts a protective spell around the affected lands. This spell causes the buildings, objects and people to be sealed away in magical orbs called Atla, avoiding the Dark Genie's attack. However, the orbs are scattered throughout different parts of the world.
Toan, whose home is the affected Norune Village, is given a stone called the Atlamillia by the Fairy King and learns he must search for the people and objects in the form of floating orbs called Atla. Toan goes to the nearby Divine Beast Cave and collects all of the Atla containing Norune Village and its people. In his exploration of the cave, Toan meets a man called Seda, who challenges him to a sword duel. Toan loses when trying to protect a cat that was accidentally caught in their battle. Seda throws Toan a Changing Potion as a gift for doing so. The potion is later used on the cat, which causes it to change into a half-human/half-cat named Xiao, who joins Toan on his quest. At the cave's bottom, Toan finds Dran, the god of all beasts and guardian of Norune. The usually peaceful Dran, however, is possessed by the Dark Genie and attacks Toan. Defeating Dran releases him from the genie's control and he suggests Toan find the Moon People, directing the two toward Great Treant in Matataki Village.
As they move into Matataki, Toan is challenged by a boy named Goro. After being defeated, Goro runs back up to his tree house, dropping the magical earrings which allows one to understand the creatures of the forest, including the Great Treant. Goro eventually joins Toan's party. After speaking with Treant, who tells them where to find the Moon People, the group heads to the nearby Wise Owl Forest. There they face a giant possessed primate called Master Utan , the guardian of the forest. He attacks them, but as with Dran, by defeating him, they free him from the Genie's control. Toan and the others afterward venture deeper into the forest, making their way to Brownboo, an unaffected village where the Moon People reside. There they are captured by the Moon People for being trespassing strangers. Learning of the Dark Genie, the Moon People release the group and together devise a plan on how to defeat the Dark Genie permanently. The Moon People want to call the Moon Ship using the Moon Orb. To find the orb, Toan and party travel to the seaside village of Queens where they learn of a shipwreck, which may be where the orb is to be found. Queens had suffered the same fate as Norune and Matataki, apart from one shop run by a man named Rando, who tells them of the shipwreck. While searching the wreck for the orb, the party find and restores the city of Queens, and Toan finds a lamp that releases a friendly genie, Ruby, who also joins the group. The party also hears the story of the former queen, La Saia, who was abandoned by her lover at the altar, and who threw herself into the sea in despair. A shopkeeper who initially refuses the party entry to his store also tells them the local story of an orb that will grant immortality, but at the cost of whatever the owner most values, apart from their life. In the final area of the shipwreck, Toan and party meet with La Saia's ghost. After defeating her, her fiancée, Rando comes into the sanctuary and apologizes to La Saia, revealing that he was knocked out by the Life Orb for the wedding, in order to destroy what he most valued. He then hands Toan the Moon Orb, and joins La Saia by destroying the Life Orb.
Still unable to summon the Moon Ship even with the Moon Orb, the Moon People send Toan and the others to the desert village of Muska Lacka. They find the Sun and Moon Temple and begin to collect the Atla to restore the village. During this, Toan befriends a desert warrior named Ungaga, who later joins the group. After reaching the last floor of the temple, they face The King’s Curse. When defeated, a passage opens that leads to the Moon Ship. With the help of the Moon People, the ship is finally able to be activated. They travel to a moon city, Yellow Drops, where Toan meets Osmond, a Moon Person, who asks for help in collecting pieces of a giant battle robot called the Sun Giant. The Moon People, who have lost their magical abilities, believe they can destroy the Dark Genie for good by using this robot. After meeting Osmond, he too joins the group. Toan and party collect the scattered pieces of the robot by searching the Moon Sea. Toan collects the final piece, a powerful energy source, by fighting Minotaur Joe in a coliseum-like battle. When the Sun Giant is completed, Toan and party, with a crew of Moon People, pilot the Sun Giant towards the Dark Heaven Castle, where the Dark Genie now resides.
The group arrives at the castle and confronts the Dark Genie. However, after defeating him, they learn that they were actually fighting a rat that had absorbed some of the true Dark Genie's powers while sealed away in its urn. The true Dark Genie had in fact possessed Flagg, and it now destroys the Sun Giant. The power is too great for Flagg's body to stand, however, and he dies, leaving the Genie without a host. Toan continues to pursue the Genie and enters the castle where he again encounters Seda. He explains to Toan that it was his fault the Dark Genie was created. He reveals that he accepted tremendous dark power into his body in order to gain the power to defeat an invading army, and that this led to the genie's birth. Seda opens a portal to the Gallery of Time to allow Toan and the others to defeat the Genie once and for all.
Suddenly, however, the Genie reappears, wanting to reunite with Seda's body, but Seda kills himself to keep the Genie from his power. The group travel through the years of the Gallery of Time to collect and view the memories Seda had infused into the Gallery, in order to learn the full story of the Genie's birth. It transpires that while the power Seda absorbed was necessary to create the Genie, the final cause was the death of his fiancée at the hands of an assassin seeking to kill Seda. Toan is unable to prevent the Dark Genie's creation, but he faces and defeats its true form. He then completely expends the Atlamilla's powers to revive Seda's fiancé, Sophia. Upon doing so, the group is returned to its own time, where the Fairy King informs the Genie is defeated for the time being.
Development[]
Dark Cloud was the first game of the Japanese developer Level-5, lead by designer Akihiro Hino. Development of the game began when the company was founded in October 1998. When the PlayStation 2 was announced on March 2, 1999, Sony president and CEO Ken Kutaragi used a demo of Dark Cloud to show the capabilities of the platform; many elements of the demo were not used in the release version of the game. In 1999, Sony showed an early playable version of Dark Cloud at the Tokyo Game Show. This version focused on a character who needed to return a floating piece of land back to where it originally came from, but its location had been replaced with an evil kingdom. The world building parts were demonstrated in this version. At the Tokyo Game Show in 2000, a more complete demo was available, similar to the final version.
Japanese version differences[]
The original release of Dark Cloud in Japan was noticeably different from the revised release in other countries. It lacks several improvements that were introduced during the sequel's development, and were then retroactively applied for the original's release outside of Japan. For example the extra dungeon after the final boss, the Demon Shaft, which contains several enemies made specifically for the sequel, was not included.
All characters, Toan especially, are down several weapons (including the final tier). Weapons' build-up order and requirements are also different and it is not possible to see the requirements (the build-up option is missing entirely, forcing you to guess what you need to build up).
Melee characters Toan and Ungaga only have a single one-hit attack with two variations (a horizontal and a vertical slash). When attacking you can use each either while standing still or by moving forwards, respectively. Goro still has only one attack animation, although it is different as well. Ranged characters' damage does not drop off relative to the distance from their target, and throwable items only deal damage once, rather than multiple times on contact (making them far less useful).
Several enemies are missing entirely[a] in the original dungeons (Demon Shaft's enemies excluded). La Saia's bossfight also featured different mechanics, and other enemies [b], and very large enemies [c] also have changes in mechanics. Enemies in general also have far less HP. The final boss, Dark Genie, only features one phase, lacking a second form entirely.
Dungeons' treasure chest item pools are also different, and there are no clown chests either. Weapons do not make a beeping sound when low on WHP, and Auto Repair Powder is absent, making it easier to accidentally lose weapons. The basic Attachments could also go up to +9 (instead of just +3). The Japanese version also lacks a variety of weapon abilities[d], and several types of bait and fish, among which the Baron Garayan. Some Shop and Fishing Exchange contents are different too.
Soundtrack[]
The Dark Cloud Official Soundtrack was released to the Japanese market in late 2001. The soundtrack, composed by Tomohito Nishiura, consists of forty-six tracks.
| # | Song title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Main Theme | |
| 02 | The Ceremony | |
| 03 | The Village Ceremony | |
| 04 | The Destruction of Norune Village | |
| 05 | The Resurrection of Norune Village | |
| 06 | Open Your Eyes | |
| 07 | Norune Village | |
| 08 | Divine Beast Cave | |
| 09 | The Spirit King | |
| 10 | Divine Beast Dran | |
| 11 | Matataki Village | |
| 12 | Battle! | |
| 13 | Reminiscence | |
| 14 | Brownboo | |
| 15 | Legend of Hunter | |
| 16 | Wise Owl Forest | |
| 17 | Forest Guardian Master Utan | |
| 18 | Queens | |
| 19 | Broken Promise (Orgel Version) | |
| 20 | Queens Shipwreck | |
| 21 | Duel | |
| 22 | The Ice Queen | |
| 23 | Broken Promise |
| # | Song title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | The Daily Life | |
| 25 | Stand Up | |
| 26 | Muska Lacka | |
| 27 | Departure | |
| 28 | If You Strain Your Ears | |
| 29 | Sun And Moon Palace | |
| 30 | Take Off | |
| 31 | The King's Curse | |
| 32 | Aero Drop | |
| 33 | Mission! | |
| 34 | Moon Sea | |
| 35 | Moon Factory | |
| 36 | The Land of Hope | |
| 37 | The Rowdy | |
| 38 | Memories | |
| 39 | Black Shadows | |
| 40 | The Gallery of Time | |
| 41 | Dark Heaven Castle | |
| 42 | Time of Destiny | |
| 43 | Last Battle | |
| 44 | Emergency | |
| 45 | Two Moons | |
| 46 | Main Theme (Bossa Nova Version) |
Gallery[]
.png "Dark Cloud front cover (JP).png (809 KB)")
Notes[]
- ↑ The Statue Dog, Yammich, Opar, Haley Holey, and King Prickly.
- ↑ Such as Dune, Rockanoff, Pockle, Heart.
- ↑ Dragons, Golems.
- ↑ Drain, Heal, Abs Up, Critical, Poor, Durable, Fragile, Thirst