Dark Cloud 2 review (PlayStation 2)

Max and Monica are the main fighters in Dark Cloud 2, but there are also a wide array of secondary characters to use in battle as well. Max's alternate incarnation comes in the form of Steve the ridepod, a big rattletrap of a robot cobbled together from household items. Steve can be upgraded in all sorts of ways as he gains experience, ranging from replacing his legs with tank treads to swapping out his massive arms for side-mounted cannons. Monica has the ability to transform into certain monsters and use their attacks in combat. To do this, she has to obtain special medallions, each of which provides her with a new monster form. Finally, any one of the many people you meet can be recruited as a support character to follow you into the dungeons. Although you won't see that person running around with you, he or she will provide a variety of passive abilities that will help you out. The game's combat portion would have been pretty good with just its two main characters, but these extra additions add a lot of versatility as you plow through the hordes of enemies.

In addition to the main quest, which involves plumbing the depths of each dungeon for geostones and then building up the surrounding area in the georama, Dark Cloud 2 features a staggering amount of peripheral material for you to plow through. As you build your towns up, you need to move people into them, and these people can be found only in Palm Brinks. Each potential new resident has a task for you to complete, however, before they'll come with you, and these tasks are like little side quests in themselves. Some are more involved than others, but whenever you've had your fill of dungeon combat and world building, you can head back to the main town and try to convince people to come with you. This can be as easy as running a requested errand or as involved as seeking a rare item hidden somewhere in the world. These side quests are a great diversion and add a lot to the gameplay.

Another thing you can do in your off time is take advantage of Max's skill in inventing things. The invention system works like this: All inventions require three component objects to make a full idea, and when Max has the beginnings of an idea, the game will tell you which three things you need to invent the object. You'll have to go out with Max's camera and snap pictures of these three things and then feed the images into his brain so he can mull over the possibilities and finally come up with something new. For instance, the idea involving a window, a wooden box, and a river yields an aquarium. Some inventions are more useful than others, and occasionally the search for components can degenerate into a fetch quest, but the invention process is almost always optional, and it's rewarding to come up with new things to assist your journey. Fully featured fishing and golf-like minigames round out the plentiful list of extra gameplay elements in the game. There's so much to do that it's almost overwhelming, and you'll never be starved for an enjoyable activity.

Dark Cloud 2 is an aesthetic masterpiece. While the first game looked merely decent for its time, the visual improvements made by the new game are staggering. Dark Cloud 2 features some of the best use of cel shading yet, on the PlayStation 2 or anywhere else. All the game's characters and enemies make full use of the effect, but its application is subtle enough that it never blatantly leaps out at you--rather, it produces the intended effect, which is simply to make the game's people and monsters look like characters in a cartoon. The game's environments are also lovingly crafted and quite varied, with the exception of the dungeons, whose random nature tends to make them look a little repetitive. Dark Cloud 2's music ranges from good to excellent, and generally there are enough tunes that you won't get too bored of hearing any particular one. Dark Cloud 2's translation and voice acting deserve special mention because they show how far the localization of Japanese games has come in the last decade or so. The dialogue's phrasing is imaginative and the voices are of the caliber you'll find in any animated television show. The effect of this is a greater involvement on the part of the player with the characters in the game, and this of course is the goal of any story. Sony clearly put some real effort into localizing Dark Cloud 2, and the work pays off big.

Dark Cloud 2 is simply a class act all the way. Every element of the game, from the georama system to the weapon upgrading to the interaction with a large cast of characters, displays a polish and attention to quality that you find only in real classics. Level-5 and Sony should both be commended for turning a fair-to-middling old game into what will now be a series to watch with great interest. Dark Cloud 2 could very well be the PlayStation 2's Zelda, and it will appeal to fans of the action RPG genre for a long time to come.