One of the best JRPGs ever, Dark Cloud 2 (also known as Dark Chronicle) is hands-down my favorite game on the PlayStation2. When I heard that Level5 had no plans on furthering the series, I was upset. Luckily, I was searching the Dtoid archives and found an article that mentioned something along the lines of "If you want another game in the series, ask for it!" I did just that, and now I want you to do the same! (Follow the instructions on this site)

For those of you that have never played Dark Cloud 2, please allow me to show you some features the game possesses.



First off, combat. While it isn't as advanced as some later games, the combat in Dark Cloud 2 is amazingly simple to learn. You are able to equip both one short-range weapon and one long-range weapon together at a time allowing for a mix of ranged and close-combat. As you use your weapons they degrade, but you are able to repair them with Repair Powder. After killing an enemy with a weapon, ABS points (xp) are earned. You use these points to level up your weapons and further increase their effectiveness by synchronizing various elements to them. When your weapons are strong enough you are able to upgrade them into a higher form. There are two playable characters and they both have different weapons they can use.

Monica is able to use swords and magic bracelets, as seen above.



Max is able to use wrenches, hammers, and guns, as shown above.



Both characters also have a special talent they may utilize. Max posses the ability to use the Ridepod; a robot you build based on ideas you make from photos. (You will want to take photos of EVERYTHING you see for this purpose, as well as inventing weapons, clothing, items, ect.) Monica is able to transform into certain monsters in dungeons, although their power is very limited at first.



The dungeons you traverse are randomly generated, but you never seem to care as the monsters are unique and entertaining to fight. They don't really feel like dungeons because of the way they were designed to be wide-opened. (See above, some are smaller than others) When you completely clear a dungeon you are able to play Spheda on that particular level. Spheda is basically golf, but with a twist. You have a colored ball that needs to be hit into a colored portal, but the ball needs to be the opposite color (either blue or red) from the portal. Sometimes it is frustrating, but you receive better rewards on harder levels.



One of the major activities you will find yourself doing is building towns. Yup, whole towns. It's not as tedious as it seems, as this feature was superbly developed. I wont go into too much detail, but all I will say is that it is pretty fun.



Lastly, we have fishing. If you ever find yourself tired of combat or building towns, you can always kick back and relax while fishing. Not exactly required for completion, fishing is actually pretty intense and expansive once you get into it. I wont get too involved in talking about it, but it's one of the more enjoyable features.

There we have it, a pretty sparse mini-review of the game. Remember, there are A LOT of features i left out as talking about everything in this game would take ages.

TL;DR - Dark Cloud 2 is amazing and the series is definitely worth another iteration.