Dark Cloud, the first true action RPG by Sony and Level 5, is a mixture of several genres that actually manages to come across well.  Most cross-genre games are unbalanced and awkward.  Dark Cloud, on the other hand, delivers where it matters as long as you don’t set your expectations too high.   

At heart, the game is a simple dungeon crawler and the story basically sets up a reason for Toan, the main character, to venture out into the dungeons.  An evil general from the Eastern Empire has resurrected the Dark Genie – an evil force which once before almost destroyed the world.   This time the Genie once again attempts to annihilate the world by blasting apart all the towns.   However, before anything can be destroyed, the Fairy King seals all of the world pieces such as buildings, trees, rivers, people, furniture, and all kinds of other things into Atla Spheres.  These spheres were placed in the dungeon for Toan to recover.  In order to rebuild his world, save his girl, and defeat the Genie, Toan must traverse the randomly generated dungeons to recover the Atla.

Graphically, this game gets no complaints.  Crisp, colorful graphics highlight the adventure in typical PS2 fashion.  The game looks like it was designed for the PS2 in mind, unlike other games that look like they began development as PSOne titles.  Although the dungeon structure is the same, based on location, the environments change between caves, forests, ruins, and even shipwreck halls.   Enemies have a lot of animation and the human characters are fairly detailed.  

All combat is in real time as Toan uses his sword to swipe at the enemies in various thrusts and parries.  There is also a Zelda-like lock-on system that can be used to prevent missing the enemy.  Five more companions join Toan in his adventure, and each has his or her own weapons and special abilities that can be used to solve various dungeon puzzles.  However, none of these characters are really developed very well and are only there for the puzzle solving and to provide different ways for killing harder enemies.   Instead of sword weapons, they may have projectiles that makes it easier to hit flying enemies and not take damage.   

One of the coolest aspects of the game is the weapons development.  Weapons take damage just like character hit points and must be constantly repaired.  They also gain experience points and can be upgraded in power.  Lots of attachments can be added as well, such as those useful in attacking certain enemies or providing elemental magic attacks.   Once a weapon reaches level 5 or higher, it can be broken down into a synthsphere and itself used as an attachment to a stronger weapon.   In addition, the same weapon can be evolved into different weapons by adding specific attachments during the upgrading.  This system creates a virtually limitless weapons creation system that adds tremendous replay value to the game; particularly since each character has their own set of weapons to evolve or develop.   However, most of the time, it’s easier to just pick your favorite characters and only develop their weapons.   Items are used to heal and upgrade character stats.   Most of the healing items are in the form of food and water.

Another original addition to the characters is the thirst meter that must be replenished either with bottled water or wading into a dungeon pool to prevent health from deteriorating.   All of this dungeon crawling would get tedious if it wasn’t for the other part of the game that is really the main purpose of the design of the dungeons.   The Georama aspect is what makes Dark Cloud so much fun.   Once objects from the Atla spheres are recovered, they can be placed into the empty space of the town.  Once placed, Toan can immediately explore them.   Towns are built from a bird’s eye view and then zoomed into 3D environments that you can traverse.  Once people are put into their respective houses, more of the story is revealed.  Many have certain requests to fulfill such as being placed at a particular location in town or they may need more storage space, etc.  Once the dwelling is complete and the requests are met, an event happens where the thankful person will give Toan a useful item.  Buildings, trees, roads, and even rivers are all there for the player to design the town anyway he or she chooses.  

The biggest weakness of Dark Cloud is the story.  If you are looking for a deep RPG with well-developed characters then you will be disappointed.   None of the characters are developed well at all and the story that is there is very intermittent and simple.  Dark Cloud is a dungeon crawler with world-building thrown in – nothing less and nothing more.  As such, however, it really works and is highly recommended if you enjoy this type of game.