For the first time in like, 3-6(?) years... I'm playing the first PS2 game I ever owned. Yesterday, I logged 16 hours in the game, which is not counting the time I read up on the fishing or build up paths, nor the time I spent finding the best ABS locations. Nor bathroom breaks, or the time I ate in between. And I'd probably have done the same today if I hadn't heard our government closed (which seems like no biggie)... so imma return to the game in a little bit 
![[Image: darkcloud_ps2box_usa_org_01.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=ps2media.ign.com%2Fps2%2Fimage%2Fdarkcloud_ps2box_usa_org_01.jpg)
Dark Cloud is an RPG that came out in 2000. /endbackground (yes, I'm that eager to get playing again).
I don't even know how to divide up what I've experienced, so I'll probably do it in a random thought-stream, maybe I'll make use of bullet points...
*The game's hard enough that I've been hit once due to poor timing and been knocked out of the dungeon (losing half of my money, mind). While I cannot say it quite as punishing as, say... Dark Souls... it does posses a non-miniscule level of challenge. As with all RPGs: you are welcome to trivialize such by grinding your 'levels'... however, to do so in an even slightly efficient manner, you either have to be willing to put up with a whole bunch of really annoying menu-switching... or you have to engage enemies with absolutely shitty weapons (or take your shitty weapons to a level where they might kill a meager Ram, with some work, looking at you Dagger).
Okay, bullet points aren't going to work. Fuck it. Continuing: So yeah, there's an opt-out of the difficulty, right? Not so much! Even with my absurdly overpowered weaponry (Xiao's slingshot is like a nuke. On one enemy. Spammable)... I've still managed to die a number of times. Always, mind, due to a mistake in timing. Take the werewolves in the back room of the 10th floor of the Wise Owl Forest: slow as shit, leave plenty of openings, very vulnerable to invuln-windows with your power attacks, right? Well, after clearing them a few times, I stopped respecting them, went full spam-mode. What is the result? You get one-shot. Spamming WILL kill you, spamming WILL leave you open to attacks you don't need to take, spamming WILL get you cursed, stoned, poisoned, gooed, and more. Spamming will also prevent you from reacting, because it drains your speed bar critically low (which leaves you unable to formulate an on-the-spot effective combo, or power attack, or doublecharged power attack, or guard, or lock-off dran's feather juking (citing the time-lock of spamming with regards to the last two)).
So now that we know that spamming is bad, how about the enemies, are they actually worthy of respect? That would be a resounding YES. Oftentimes, even when Toan is using his ~117 attack Dusack... I will absolutely not engage an Auntie-Medusa, Gunny, Witch Illza, Sam, Tuesday, Thursday, Dragon, Cannon, and other enemies who butcher weapon durability and/or have a long-ranged projectile attack (with Toan). It's incredibly difficult to use his mechanics to 'close the gap', and once he does... he can't combo effectively against enemies who backstep, and even if he gets a full 100-0 combo off, there is ALWAYS the risk of being hit with a status effect (or a shit tone of damage) on the way in. It's simply not worth it... for enemies at range, I would much prefer to use a different character (likely Xiao or Osmond). And the things that Xiao and Osmond have an unnecessarily hard time with? Enemies who really like to guard, who are durable enough to take extremely low damage from their weapons (looking at you, Demon Shaft...), with capacity to easily 1-shot them. Sure, you can orbwalk like a boss with Xiao, and Osmond's kiting is superb... but they will end up losing so many Weapon Hit Points that you feel the burn.
Like, if I see a mimic, I will immediately swap to Goro. While I was playing, I ended up shifting characters to those who I found (through trial) were best suited to certain encounters. Like, when i played this game before, I pretty much just used Toan, and it was hard as a coffin nail, and I sucked horribly and I died a lot and I lost my weapons repeatedly (nothing feels as bad as breaking a weapon you've spent hours of work on. Nothing in this goddamn world hurts like that). I've even been close to losing several weapons in this play of the game (like that time when you're all 'i've got 5 durability left, I can make one or two more shots with the sling!'... and then you have 1 durability left after accidentally shooting one more time than you meant to), and I've found myself more than once low on repair powder, but not wanting to waste ABS (you may understand if you level weapons efficiently). And sometimes an enemy's ability to destroy your WHP can take you by complete surprise. Example: So I had 30 WHP on a Bastard Sword+3 I was leveling to synth-break, and ahead of me was a lowly Gunny on the first floor of the Shipwreck. 4WHP remaining after that combo... and that goddamn Gunny was still fucking alive, with half of it's hitpoints. 0.o
Little moments like that are very thrilling. The game's highly entertaining in many other facets... whether it be the georama, the occasional cinematic, duels, the fishing minigame (it's like fucking golf, I rage so fucking hard at the fish that I should record this shit JUST for your entertainment, holy shit), spending years looking for the miracle chests, and mocking Ungaga's usability (we shall see, I wasn't impressed with anyone before, but thus far I've found GREAT USE in both Xiao and Goro, and spend as much time with them as I do with Toan).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v701fW803dQ
I would recommend the game to anyone who hasn't yet played it... it is not without flaws (it gets a little monotonous without a Dran's Feather, early slings are generally shitty (I got super lucky and found 4 bandit slingshots almost in a row), it may at times be 'too difficult' if you don't effectively level your weapons (play without synth breaking and gems... you'll /wrist it soon enough), the slowing of your character's speed during lock-on makes it very difficult to handle targets you need to get to quickly, the build paths for other character's weapons end in 1-3 ultimates, whereas Toan has like, 5-7? (including standalone Chronicle 2), and some character's use cases are considerably lower (Ungaga and Ruby, the former is possibly absent a single usage case (will test later, of course), the latter's effectiveness is charge-based and requires a great deal of micromanagement, which leaves her with very few engagement opportunities... granted, I do not believe her projectiles weaken over distance (will also test), which makes her effective from the furthest range possible (very helpful against the Dark Genie)).
But the overall note of the game is overwhelmingly positive... and where Dark Cloud 2 improves on most of this to a legendary quality: the combat of Dark Cloud seems to be significantly more difficult than the sequel (where there's like... the battle with flotsam in the Zelmite mines... and that's it. Dark Element and enemies in that game at typically pansies. Griffon might kick your butt, tho. Maybe, if you suck). Further, the thirst effect is very enjoyable as far as gameplay is concerned.
If only Level 5 would make Dark Cloud 3. I would buy the new playstation 4 over that.
Dark Cloud is an RPG that came out in 2000. /endbackground (yes, I'm that eager to get playing again).
I don't even know how to divide up what I've experienced, so I'll probably do it in a random thought-stream, maybe I'll make use of bullet points...
*The game's hard enough that I've been hit once due to poor timing and been knocked out of the dungeon (losing half of my money, mind). While I cannot say it quite as punishing as, say... Dark Souls... it does posses a non-miniscule level of challenge. As with all RPGs: you are welcome to trivialize such by grinding your 'levels'... however, to do so in an even slightly efficient manner, you either have to be willing to put up with a whole bunch of really annoying menu-switching... or you have to engage enemies with absolutely shitty weapons (or take your shitty weapons to a level where they might kill a meager Ram, with some work, looking at you Dagger).
Okay, bullet points aren't going to work. Fuck it. Continuing: So yeah, there's an opt-out of the difficulty, right? Not so much! Even with my absurdly overpowered weaponry (Xiao's slingshot is like a nuke. On one enemy. Spammable)... I've still managed to die a number of times. Always, mind, due to a mistake in timing. Take the werewolves in the back room of the 10th floor of the Wise Owl Forest: slow as shit, leave plenty of openings, very vulnerable to invuln-windows with your power attacks, right? Well, after clearing them a few times, I stopped respecting them, went full spam-mode. What is the result? You get one-shot. Spamming WILL kill you, spamming WILL leave you open to attacks you don't need to take, spamming WILL get you cursed, stoned, poisoned, gooed, and more. Spamming will also prevent you from reacting, because it drains your speed bar critically low (which leaves you unable to formulate an on-the-spot effective combo, or power attack, or doublecharged power attack, or guard, or lock-off dran's feather juking (citing the time-lock of spamming with regards to the last two)).
So now that we know that spamming is bad, how about the enemies, are they actually worthy of respect? That would be a resounding YES. Oftentimes, even when Toan is using his ~117 attack Dusack... I will absolutely not engage an Auntie-Medusa, Gunny, Witch Illza, Sam, Tuesday, Thursday, Dragon, Cannon, and other enemies who butcher weapon durability and/or have a long-ranged projectile attack (with Toan). It's incredibly difficult to use his mechanics to 'close the gap', and once he does... he can't combo effectively against enemies who backstep, and even if he gets a full 100-0 combo off, there is ALWAYS the risk of being hit with a status effect (or a shit tone of damage) on the way in. It's simply not worth it... for enemies at range, I would much prefer to use a different character (likely Xiao or Osmond). And the things that Xiao and Osmond have an unnecessarily hard time with? Enemies who really like to guard, who are durable enough to take extremely low damage from their weapons (looking at you, Demon Shaft...), with capacity to easily 1-shot them. Sure, you can orbwalk like a boss with Xiao, and Osmond's kiting is superb... but they will end up losing so many Weapon Hit Points that you feel the burn.
Like, if I see a mimic, I will immediately swap to Goro. While I was playing, I ended up shifting characters to those who I found (through trial) were best suited to certain encounters.
Like, when i played this game before, I pretty much just used Toan, and it was hard as a coffin nail, and I sucked horribly and I died a lot and I lost my weapons repeatedly (nothing feels as bad as breaking a weapon you've spent hours of work on. Nothing in this goddamn world hurts like that). I've even been close to losing several weapons in this play of the game (like that time when you're all 'i've got 5 durability left, I can make one or two more shots with the sling!'... and then you have 1 durability left after accidentally shooting one more time than you meant to), and I've found myself more than once low on repair powder, but not wanting to waste ABS (you may understand if you level weapons efficiently). And sometimes an enemy's ability to destroy your WHP can take you by complete surprise. Example: So I had 30 WHP on a Bastard Sword+3 I was leveling to synth-break, and ahead of me was a lowly Gunny on the first floor of the Shipwreck. 4WHP remaining after that combo... and that goddamn Gunny was still fucking alive, with half of it's hitpoints. 0.oLittle moments like that are very thrilling. The game's highly entertaining in many other facets... whether it be the georama, the occasional cinematic, duels, the fishing minigame (it's like fucking golf, I rage so fucking hard at the fish that I should record this shit JUST for your entertainment, holy shit), spending years looking for the miracle chests, and mocking Ungaga's usability (we shall see, I wasn't impressed with anyone before, but thus far I've found GREAT USE in both Xiao and Goro, and spend as much time with them as I do with Toan).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v701fW803dQ
I would recommend the game to anyone who hasn't yet played it... it is not without flaws (it gets a little monotonous without a Dran's Feather, early slings are generally shitty (I got super lucky and found 4 bandit slingshots almost in a row), it may at times be 'too difficult' if you don't effectively level your weapons (play without synth breaking and gems... you'll /wrist it soon enough), the slowing of your character's speed during lock-on makes it very difficult to handle targets you need to get to quickly, the build paths for other character's weapons end in 1-3 ultimates, whereas Toan has like, 5-7? (including standalone Chronicle 2), and some character's use cases are considerably lower (Ungaga and Ruby, the former is possibly absent a single usage case (will test later, of course), the latter's effectiveness is charge-based and requires a great deal of micromanagement, which leaves her with very few engagement opportunities... granted, I do not believe her projectiles weaken over distance (will also test), which makes her effective from the furthest range possible (very helpful against the Dark Genie)).
But the overall note of the game is overwhelmingly positive... and where Dark Cloud 2 improves on most of this to a legendary quality: the combat of Dark Cloud seems to be significantly more difficult than the sequel (where there's like... the battle with flotsam in the Zelmite mines... and that's it. Dark Element and enemies in that game at typically pansies. Griffon might kick your butt, tho. Maybe, if you suck). Further, the thirst effect is very enjoyable as far as gameplay is concerned.
If only Level 5 would make Dark Cloud 3. I would buy the new playstation 4 over that.
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
Just a random excerpt of me almost immediately after doing something that ended up being difficult 
