Dark Cloud

So I've gone back to this Gem of a game. Loved playing it, but never got to the end. It's on the PS2, and I think it came out near the early stages of the consoles release. (I remember playing a demo of it, not long after PS2 came out.)

It revolves around a young boy. One night at a festival, and evil is released into the world called the "Dark Genie" Who, other than eating people whole, wipes out most nearly all life on the planet. As the attack happened the great fairy king sealed people away inside magic orbs and hid them, except the young boy. Who's given a jewel to reclaim the sealed people.

And to be honest, that's as much of the story as I know. I mean sure if the fairy king saved the boy without sealing him in magic, he probably could have done that for the rest of the world. I'm not sure why this boy either.

However, after gaining a few people back, you can take them back to their nearest town. Then sort of rebuild the town how you see fit, akin to Sim City, or Populous. You can then, once placed back in their town, you can ask the people how they want their town to be arranged. If you can get everyone happy, you'll net handy rewards. Their requests aren't normally hard, so it's easy to do.

But it's not all building, getting to the magically sealed orbs involves jumping into danger filled dungeons. Where brutish monsters live. Real time action fighting means you have to have your wits about you. Which brings up a strange mechanic. Thirst bar, you have to keep an eye on your thirst levels, and drink water regularly. It's an unusual thing to have in a game, and sometimes I do forget to keep an eye on it.

The Weapons to defeat enemies are also a bit unusual. They have a health bar, an experience bar, and item slots. The item slots can have jewels, or attachments. Which depending on what they are increases the weapons power, or what it's good against. Health bar takes damage as the item is being used, and if it "dies" the weapon shatters, and is...well, dead. Experience is gained from use, once it's filled. You can upgrade the weapon, upgrading swallows any items attached to the weapon making the effects permanent, and then frees up those spots for new items. Once a weapon is levelled up five times, you can break it down into a jewel. It'll lose some power, but it'll be a lot better than a normal gem or stat increaser. Once you increase a set number of stats, like give it +20 to fire attribute, and +30 against plant monsters, then a weapon can be upgraded into a completely different weapon.

Every time you go into a dungeon, you have to go down levels. You can replay a level, or carry on down to the next level. It doesn't really matter what you do, but a level only has certain amount of magical orbs. want more? Gotta go deeper. However this is a problem. The second level down in the first dungeon, has some seriously tougher monsters. Kill you in two hits. Then comes the other strange mechanic another couple of levels down.....quick time events! Yup, similar to papa the rapper, or any normal qte. You have a scrolling bar, with a win zone, and you have to press certain buttons at the correct time. Doing it flawlessly makes jewels appear, so it's always handy to do them perfectly. The other strange mechanic, is limit zones. Which will give you a set of rules for a level until you get to the next level. For example, only use swords on this zone, plus they lose exp, plus you can't change the one you have in your hand. Or you can only use the newly acquired character who only has a weak slingshot for a weapon.

That's okay, tho. You said I can go back and redo levels. Easy. No so much. The levels like to re-arrange themselves, so there's never a same layout twice. Although, they do all look very similar. Although, one thing that does have a weird habit of sometimes appearing, is the back dungeon area. Which, no isn't a naughty as it sounds, but is a lot harder. And things can one hit you their, but the random chest loot is a lot more rewarding. Also, chests come in three forms. Nice ones, big ones that are trapped (but if you have a key or can guess it, you can disarm it.), or everyone's favourite monster...the Mimic. And this game, they're usually always mimics in back dungeons.

Still, I love the game in it's blocky colourfulness, and billions of weird mechanics. However, I think a lot of my love for this game is through rose-tinted glasses. As I remember a bit where I was blown away as the main character drank soup, and you could see it disappear when it touched his lips.

The sequel was just as good, it was called Dark Chronicle. But I hope to play that after this.

Disgaea 5

So here we are again, a new Disgaea game. Okay, so not really here, as it came out a while ago. It's just that my laptop died, and I forgot the password for this site. Anyway.... After last times disappointment, (I didn't like Disgaea 4 much.) I weren't sure how this one was going to plan out. However, I was happily surprised, and managed to complete the main story mode, which I usually play Disgaea for.

For those that don't know about Disgaea, it is a tactical RPG series made by Nippon Ichi Software (or NIS for short). Many of the games aren't directly related to each other, although, characters from previous games (and even from different games from NIS) make appearances. Each Disgaea game takes place in different netherworlds, and has a host of colourful characters to tell a vibrant, and imaginative, story. The story is told via still poses and voice acting (although, there is a script running under them, and I suggest you read it. As the voice acting in this one is bad.) After a short bit of story there's a fight. Fights are played out on kind of a chess grid, the player goes first, and moves his units and fights, then after his turn is ended the enemies get a turn. Usually, you have to wipe out the opposition team, but sometimes there's other winning situations.

Disgaea 5 is no exception to this trend. It's story starts with various netherworlds at war with a demon called "Void Dark" and his army called "The Lost". In one netherworld a Demon Overlord called Seraphina, is protecting her homeworld from attack. During a battle and lone wanderer called Killia, appears on the battlefield. He has a thrist for vengeance, and wants Void dead. He reluctantly agrees to help Seraphina take out Void. They go chasing after void hunting him down in different netherworlds. During the story you'll gain new allies, and abilities.

You'd think by the fifth time, this would get a bit repetitive. But there's more to the game than this. Like in most rpg's your character will level up. Disgaea has always taken this to the extreme, and from the first game, they made the level cap 9999. I've never gotten anywhere near it. I think the highest level I've ever had is 147, that was back on Disgaea 3. With this game however, I've got about 10 units so far over level 200, and another 7 more over level 100.

This seems ridiculous enough, but wait.... What about your armour and weapons? Surely, being at 100 or 200 won't be that much of a stat increase, if your sword is still the same. Well, they thought of that in the first game too. There's a person in the game called "Item Worlder", she unlocks a way to go into an item, and level it up by basically beating out it's faults (basically, there's baddies inside it, kill them and improve the weapons stats.)

You can also, go inside characters in a person called "Character Worlder" and similar improve things like base stats, and even learn new skills.

But these things have been in the game series for a long time. New things they've added are.
Quest Shop: Ranging from things like collecting certain items, getting certain levels in stats, even killing so many breeds of demons. All wins you money, items, or rare weapons and armour.
Interrogation room: Occasionally, when you clear a map. You'll capture an enemy unit. You can persuade them here to join your cause.
Netherworld exploration: Basically, send some of your characters out on a spaceship to find new worlds and find items. People you send out can't be used in future battles, until they return from their exploration.
Curry shop: Gives you stat boosts for next map.
Netherworld creation: Mostly just to change the lay out of the base that you move around in.

The game doesn't finish with the story, there's huge after story bit, plus tons of hidden characters and boss fights.

While I dislike the voice acting, the gameplay has kept me coming back every day to play it.If you're a fan of games like fire emblem, and Final Fantasy Tactics, then I highly suggest this gem.