Guarding (Also commonly referred to as blocking or defending) is an action in both the Dark Cloud series. It allows the player to defend against most enemy attacks, and any other attack that can still hurt the player will deal less damage than normal. However, the player cannot attack during this time and moves much slower.
The Guarding command is executed by pressing R1 in both games.
Dark Cloud[]
Dark cloud 1's blocking system allows the player to negate an attack but breaks after one attack. Though the player recovers quickly he is still vulnerable to attack for a small time. Also some attacks cannot be blocked. Sometimes instead of blocking it works better to just do hit and runs on enemies or dodge attacks. The player must have an enemy locked onto in order to block.
Dark Cloud 2[]
Dark cloud 2's guard system is very different to the first game. Though it acts on the same principles (some attacks aren't defendable and you move much slower), but the defence cannot be broken by normal attacks, it becomes unbreakable if attacks cannot knock the player down or deal damage through defence. Also an addition to dark cloud 2 is that blocking can be used while not locked on to enemies, and exclusively for monica later in the game elemental ranged attacks used by enemies such as elementals or gemrons can be absorbed and thrown back dealing damage to the currently locked on enemy.
For Dark Cloud 2, the blocking can also be executed as soon as the button is pressed. This has created a tactic used by players on enemies who are effected by weapons to be killed without being able to do anything. This is done by attacking in a combo, blocking as soon as the last attack hits the enemy, and instantly throwing another combo at the enemy, blocking and repeating. This attack works very well against stationary enemies such as man eating grass.