Article by: FinalGamer 2/20/2010 5:08:55 PM
(LEEEEEET'S DOOOOOOOO THE TIIIIIIME WAAARP AGAAAAAAAIN!)
CLASSIC GAMING
Dark Chronicle
Developer: Level-5
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre: RPG
Year: 2003
System: Playstation 2
The standards of what people want in videogames have changed drastically since the early beginnings. In the retro days, people only asked for entertainment, a game that would be enjoyable enough to play over and over, no need for deep plots or interactivity as long as nothing was drastically limited. Nowadays it's all about the interactivity and the things you can do in a game's world. Only a few games can truly boast total interactivity. One game that while not as interactive as, say Half Life, still deserves some fine attention.
Story - Dark Chronicle, also known as Dark Cloud 2, begins with the story of a young royal girl, Monica, fighting off intruders in her castle in a starting battle, only to find her father dead at the hands of a mysterious man. Cutting away to this comes the story of Maximillian, a young inventor/mechanic in the town of Palm Springs awaiting to go to the circus.
After managing to get in, he soon finds the circus leader, Flotsam, to be in town on orders of someone else to steal a certain pendant.
Max, who has this pendant is soon on the run and in this journey finds a much larger world, several mysteries of his life to be solved and an unseen battle for the world itself.
With Max and Monica you traverse a wide variety of lands with their own expansive dungeons to find each and every one of their Origin Points, or rather the beginning of something great that occurs in the future, and must set in motion what the dreaded Emperor Griffon, a powerful sorcerer in a wartorn future, aims to prevent, the past ever existing at all.
Graphics - While Dark Chronicle suffers slightly from the Bethesda syndrome of paralysed character's faces where only their mouths really move and they walk with a slightly stereotypical ambling pace, it's more than made up for with the breathtaking scenery of every world.
Each area of the world is colourful and thriving with a sense of activity even if there's rarely many people or monsters on at once, but the bright and charming colours help it plenty.
(Meet Max. Wrench-wielder. Steampunk robot driver. Smug-ass motherfucker.)
Being a semi-early RPG of a company nowhere near Squaresoft budget level, it's an impressive enough job to keep your spirits up when traversing firey volcanoes, lush thriving forests, and glittering seaside caverns. The enemies are generally stock Mimics, puppet clowns, rats, living trees and such, but that doesn't stop them being vicious, moreso for the immense bosses.
Gameplay - Hoo boy, this part's long so grab a drink cuz really, this game has quite a bit for an RPG of this calibre. It may be nothing immensely impressive but it is a little more original than most. Firstly, you only have three characters. Max, Monica and the Ridepod which is a steampunk robot. They can all upgrade their abilities in various ways.
Max and Monica can upgrade their weapons (Max has his wrench and gun while Monica has her sword and magic amulet) by obtaining crystals from dungeons in chests, defeating enemies or by synthesising any item you have in your possession if desperate.
Imagine the Card system in Final Fantasy VIII except not so much a fucking runaround.
This basically becomes a whole branching tree of all kinds of weapon types for both of them, which offers some replay value in exploring every single possible weapon type possible with varying strengths. But to do this, you need some ABS, or Absorption Points, which you obtain from enemies. Basically it's experience points for your weapon, which is levelled up.
Levelling it up makes it eligible to be altered into a stronger weapon, as well as gain enough Synthesis Points which you need in order to actually infuse, or "spectrumize" the crystal elements into your weapon.
Also, all weapons have a durability limit, which is helpfully shown in numbers, and when it runs out, the weapon is broken and must be repaired
(The Kokiri Cottage scheme. Why not buy a house because you're a rich-as-fuck English prick who will be bombed by the Welsh?)
The Ridepod, named Steve which is Max's special ability, is merely upgradeable with various items that Max constructs. Monica's is being able to turn into a monster of an element and upgrading it Digimon-style with good solid battling.
As for how Max upgrades the Ridepod, he has a little thing called Inventing. Giving Max three items in his head, he can combine them into a possible new invention or item, and there are many combinations to figure this from.
Largely it can be frustrating when there's usually little indication other than from some placards across the world on WHAT to put together, but it offers a wide range of creations.
You also obtain ideas by usually taking photographs of them with Max's camera. You can use the Camera on anyone and anything, anywhere, in order to have ideas to compare and invent things.
Hell there's even a sidequest to get some pretty awesome items by taking photos of certain special things, including bosses, even the FINAL boss of the game.
But then there's this Album you can set up on your memory card and save the photos in so you practically gamebreak the entire sidequest with all the photos finished so you have a better time starting up. Awesome.
Lastly concerning anything near battle, the duo can recruit a third ally into their exploration by helping them with tasks, and when they join your team, they will offer an ability that helps in battle, essentially acting as the Accessory, or as I like to call it, The Third Wheel.
They never appear in battle, but the wide choice of allies you can get to give you various ways of help from navigating dungeons easier to increasing damage on enemies makes them all valuable.
(I GOT TATERS MOTHERFUCKER!)
Speaking of dungeons, one fantastically unique feature of Dark Chronicle, like its prequel, is the complete randomness of dungeons. In every single dungeon you go to, even if you have finished it, it will ALWAYS be different, with a different amount of enemies, chests, traps and items, making sure that essentially no two playthroughs are generally the same at least in terms of the dungeons.
Then there are the three other non-dungeon parts of the game. Fishing, Spheda and the Georama.
Fishing is very simple, grab a rod, go to a dungeon where water is, get a fish, maybe compete it in the fish races at Max's town.
Spheda is basically Portal golf. I'm not shitting you. You get a golf club, you get some small dimensional orb, and put it towards the floating dimensional vortex in the least amount of moves as possible. This is on the defining line between awesome and fucking lame, but either way it's a strangely pleasing minigame.
Lastly, there is the Georama. Fans of the first game might remember the unique best feature of Dark Cloud, the basic SimCityesque development of towns and villages in order to restore the world to its former balance. Thankfully however it's less complex in this game, but in order to truly progress through the game, you have to tick off certain requirements in order to restore the Origin Points of each world, the whole restoratine of the future deal.
It's not just the placement of houses too, it's also the relocating of people such as a tailor or a chef from Max's town to other areas of the world, which they are strangely compliant too. Then again the world IS resting on their shoulders too, which gives a strangely uplifting sense of community to feel.
(Before Plants VS Zombies, there was Plants VS Woman. Didn't sell quite well, but the Rule34 of it was tantalisingly hot)
Music/Sound - This is what makes Dark Chronicle truly, truly memorable. It has one of the most underrated and eye-widening soundtracks ever in videogames. There are simply too many pieces to name, but basically everything after the first dungeon is magnificent. Gundorada Workshop, Balance Valley, Sun, Luna Lab, Battle for the Future, and The Battle. Those songs alone give this game worthy mention music-wise.
The voice acting may not be anything wonderful and come just under Saturday Morning levels, but that does not make the music, the truly magnificent soundtrack, anything less than being complimentary.
Here is an RPG that is criminally missed over despite its simplistic timetravelling plot, excellent random dungeon experiences, a marvellous soundtrack and a variable weapon upgrade system. It's a game that should be a classic for all these reasons, and now, here you are. Let not this game become clouded over in obscurity.
Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 4
Gameplay - 4
Presentation - 5