Dark Cloud

Dark Cloud is a very simple game. It's somewhat primitive, with graphics and gameplay that very obviously points towards it being in development before the PS2 was even officially announced- it definitely feels very transitionary and like it could have almost been a late PS1 game. Despite this, the core gameplay loop of crawling through dungeons and using things you find in the dungeons to build towns and satisfy citizens is insanely addictive.

While Dark Cloud could very well be described today as a "generic dungeon crawler stitched together with a generic city builder", it still has very unique mechanics that set it apart from pretty much any other game aside from it's sequel. There is a system for levelling up weapons that requires you to destroy your weapon to turn it into an attachment that can be put on other weapons, making it so you end up levelling multiple different things for the same character just to dismantle most of them. There's also "building attachments"- items that end up attaching onto people's houses, and when you end up fully finishing a house a minor cutscene with it's residents will play, usually resulting in them giving you an item or weapon. There are even little minor touches that make the game world feel interesting despite how basic it is, like a specific weapon for one character that talks to you and has unique dialogue for every single enemy you fight. This is all accentuated by how fast the game is... while it could very easily be called a "JRPG", there is very little padding and dungeon floors are extremely fast. This leads to being able to sit down and clear three or so levels in fifteen to twenty minutes, which is enough to build a reasonable portion of a town.

There are a lot of minor issues that make me question if the game was even playtested, however. I don't know why the game has elements in dungeons that force you to swap characters briefly just to overcome an obstacle; it gets even worse later on when you have to change the attribute of one character's weapon to match the colour of a gem. It's just busywork, and you can immediately swap back after doing it, so it doesn't incentivize you to play other characters more if you're one of those people who loves to powergame a single hero and nobody else. Weapon durability is also in this game, but breaking a weapon is so devastating that it might as well kick you back to the title screen once it happens. The thirst system is interesting, but is imbalanced to the point where your character will either always be taking thirst damage or never need to drink water because their thirst bar is too high. The game is also extremely buggy: not only is there a game breaking glitch that can be easily done to make all of your weapon stats integer overflow, but just transitioning screens and doing stuff too fast makes it feel like the game is tearing itself at the seams. In my fifteen years of playing this game though I've never encountered a crash or hang despite this, except for that one time I was purposefully rooting through the game's RAM via an inventory storage glitch (yes, that exists).

Despite all these issues, Dark Cloud is an insanely fun game. It's definitely dated and feels like a late PS1 title, but that doesn't stop it from being a fast and fun RPG to pick up and play. It's not absurdly long and has a great cast of characters and locales for you to explore. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a teensy bit biased since I grew up with this game, but either way it's something you should check out if you're a fan of the genre and want something new.

Crawlers such as Shiren the Wanderer 2 had already experimented with dungeons as a more resource-gathering endeavor, but few were as deep and as cleverly integrated as Level-5's Dark Cloud.

Dark Cloud was notable for its blend of action-rpg, dungeon crawling, and light city-building. Far from merely jumbling those elements together, this game elegantly weaves parts of each that interact with one another from mode to mode, creating this addictive loop. Apart from the RPG aspects encouraging creativity and customization, the additional characters also enable strategic depth beyond their gimmick, not only providing a different combat style but also opening up new avenues to handle resource management, enemy interactions, and general dungeon crawling. The setting, characters, and graphics are for the most part uninspired, although especially Zelda-like are the enemies, delightfully irritating to fight with individual combat details that only add to the gameplay flow.

Not all of it works, unfortunately. Each unique dungeon disappointingly feels like a slight variation on the same theme with reskinned enemies, the Limited Zones mechanic makes certain floors way more tedious than it should, and the uneven boss bottles are either too easy or too frustrating. Even so, Dark Cloud remains an overall effective and sprawling work. It's impressive how Level-5 managed to fuse several styles into such a cohesive, calculated, engrossing whole.