Chrono Trigger's story

Long ago when I originally played Chrono Trigger, I tried to repiece together the storyline, and where and what Crono's effect on time really changed things. So I though I'd write it down today.

Here's how I can understand and/or speculate on CT events.

65,000,000 BC : Lavos crashes into Earth, which eradicates the Reptites, that should have won over Humans.

12,000 BC : Zeal kingdom thrives on Magic and technology, and tries to draw more out of Lavos, but fail at it. The result sends Janus and the 3 sages into other timelines. Trying to draw too much power from Lavos made it wake up and destroy Zeal, including all of the royal family, which led to the end of magic.

It's also shown that the destruction of the Mammon Machine with the Ruby Knife turned it into Masamune, but how it happened in the original timeline is not explained, presumably Schala or Melchior could have done it. It's also unclear how the Masamune went down through the ages, or how it received the two souls of Masa and Mune that were in Zeal before that.

600 AD : Queen Leene was rescued possibly by Frog and the castle guards. While Masamune was not restored in that timeline, Frog possibly led a secluded life. Magus tried to summon Lavos, but was quite possibly killed by it instead. Due to a simple disapearance rather than a defeat, Magus is still venerated in Medina village later on, and the feud between Humans and Fiends is never truly resolved.

1000 AD : Nothing happens just yet, it's the start of the entire story.

1999 AD : Day of Lavos

Now if you start at the point that Crono starts messing with the timelines.

600 : Queen Leene's rescue was changed due to the mistaken identity with Marle. It led to the whole undoing of Yakra, his false chancellor ploy, and was the reason that the prison was built in 1000 AD, which also led to the second false Chancellor in 1000 AD later.

Going to the future didn't affect anything. Going to 65,000,000 BC served one thing, it did serve to explain a link between the Dreamstone that Ayla possessed and the Zeal kingdom, possibly out of the same lineage of tribe leaders. This would make Ayla and Schala blood related though there's millions of years between then.

Restoring Masamune brought down Magus, which is the major turning point in the entire CT story. Instead of being killed, he was sent back to 12,000BC, where he acted as counselor, an oracle, since he already knew about events. His guidance finished up the Mammon Machine and the Black Omen, which were not supposed to be finished in the original timeline.

Magus' effect increase the energy draining potential and stablized it, so while it still destroyed Zeal, it left the Queen alive. Although we don't see it in the story, we can suppose that Janus and the 3 mages were also sent back during those events, although they differed from the original timeline.

Most of the other happenings are minor changes, like changing the greedy mayor to a generous one, or helping Lucca's mom and the forest. Medina village actually gets a little more mellow after they stop venerating Magus, but they are outright friendly when Ozzie is taken out as well in the optional sidequest.

If you tack on Chrono Cross's storyline to it it gets even more complicated.

Humans are called 'Lavos Spawn'. Lavos eradicating the Reptites had the effect that Humans became dominant. Without Lavos, Reptites would have dominated the planet most probably. Thus Lavos helped humanity.

Chrono Cross starts from that fact, playing off on alternate dimensions starting from specific events in time. Lavos is one of those pivotal moments, where Humans win over Reptiles and dragons. That's why you see Dinopolis opposed to Chronopolis, the two most advanced cities made respectively by Reptiles and Humans.

Schala being a major part of the story, I'm still unsure what part she played in the 'fusion' with Lavos into the Time Devourer, but one thing is sure, Serge ends up stopping both Dragons trying to eliminate humans, and Lavos trying to eliminate pretty much everything else. No pressure at all, right Serge?

Another more hazy part is the Masamune, we can't be sure how it reached all the way in that island group between 600 and 1020 AD, and how it got that evil blade reputation and power, although it may just be a prank from the souls of Masa and Mune for all we know, being bored out of their mind after Frog had no more use of the sword.

A reference to Robo is also made, as the giant computer that the dragons try to get rid of called himself Prometheus, allegedly built by Lucca. Prometheus was Robo's true name, which Lucca quite possibly reused as a memory. In CT's final anime cutscene, Lucca is even walking around with a mini-Robo she probably built.

It's all little ties that show that CC and CT are related. That you want to consider them true sequels or not is your choice, but the entire idea of time travels and alternate dimensions already says that the things we know from CT probably don't fully apply anymore. You could consider that CC is an alternate dimension of CT, where Lavos wasn't destroyed and lived on thanks to Schala's power.

Making CC go into time travel would have otentially messed up the already established story and timeline of CT, so the alternate dimension thing was a good idea in that aspect. It was a good way of keeping the 'time travel' to some degree.

Future Remakes?

Being at only a few days from another Remake *slash* Enhanced Port in the name of Chrono Trigger on the NDS, and almost done with Star Ocean PSP, I was thinking back of several good games from former Square and Enix that probably will never get a remake/port, but were still alot of fun to play. So here's a small list of those I remember.

Soul Blazer trilogy

I call it a trilogy due to some similarities, themes and ties in the stories and characters, it's almost unmistakable that they were done by the same groups. The trilogy contains Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. Sadly, Terranigma never reached US despite English localization due to Enix USA closing doors during the SNES/PS1 eras.

The main theme went around souls and rebirth. Soul Blazer had you visiting worlds and dreams to rebuild the towns and their inhabitants. The main character was the envoy of 'god', which amusingly also had similarities with Actraiser it seems. You received the help of souls for spells and various abilities like seeing invisible things, and could talk to plant and animals. The theme was around rebirth, as various dead people seemed to be reincarnated as animals in the worlds you visit.

Illusion of Gaia had you visiting the world to dispel the cloud of darkness over it. The main character had the ability to transform into the bodies of warriors he borrows the souls from along the story, which makes you use their different abilities as you progress. While the theme was similar, the main thing that seems to tie in with Soul Blazer is when you collect the 50 red gems around the world. The extra dungeon it unlocks has for boss the very first boss of Soul Blazer, in a similar killing strategy and stage.

Terranigma also dwelled in rebirth, but this time on a whole new level. This time it wasn't a fantasy world, it was OURS. Opening Pandora's box literally throws you into a quest to bring back the world as it was, which makes you speed through the entire evolution of the world and the upbringing of plants, animals and humans, down to helping some important history figures to make their contributions, such as voting on the next King of France, helping Wright create his airplane or Edison with electricity. It probably holds the most enigmatic and sad ending I've seen.

Each of these titles would be worth a remake or a port. In fact, I'd love to see them, but seeing their age and te relative obscurity and lack of huge sales or visibility like the mainstream series received, maybe bundle them together a single NDS cart would be wise.

Secret of Mana

This one is not a surprise at all. Considering they took lenghts to actually remake the very first game from the GameBoy to the Gameboy Advance (originally Final Fantasy Adventure) to Sword of Mana. And seeing they decided to get Chrono Trigger out, why not Secret of Mana now?

Sadly while the mana series is popular, not sure they will consider it for a full remake. Maybe an enhanced port, seeing that's all they gave Chrono Trigger. It would still be a welcomed re-addition to the gaming world, as Secret of Mana definitely was an epic quest to play, and even better it could handle 3 players!

Any other title you think would be worth another chance?

Games I play : Star Ocean First Departure

I kept pushing it off for a while since I wasn't very far into the game. Now I got the feeling I'm reaching in far enough to make it worth talking about.

As a little bit of background, this game was first released on the Super Nintendo, but sadly never reached US. ROM wise, it was also an oddity that required a special chip to be added that contained the graphical data, as apparently the game itself exceed the capacity that the SNES carts were able to hold data-wise. If SNES games were 4MB at most, this game reached 6MB due to that special data, which required some special patches from emulators just for this unique game.

It was also one of the few games that worked in any amount of voice acting on the SNES, although it wasn't that much either. A good part of the opening cutscenes had some voices in it, in English despite being a Japanese game (Star Trek influence?). Yet the SNES audio quality and the harsh compression imposed made the sound clips a bit hard to understand, but it was a step in that direction.

For the PSP, thanks to the capacities of this little machine, there are alot more than the opening that are voiced, and I must say the voice acting is pretty good too. I've played Star Ocean : Second Story, and many of the lines felt right off forced or out of line. Well, that was limited to battles only, but even if you limit yourself to battles in Star Ocean : First Departure, you'll notice that there was some polishing to the lines used, they feel tons more natural.

As for music, I can't remember if the songs are that much different than the original on the SNES, but they meet up with what I expected to hear from Second Story (PS1), so they are very good sounding. They are adequate for the cutscenes, upbeat for dungeons and fights, just the way I expect them to be.

Thanks to a better hardware, it also beneficiated from a graphic overhaul, bringing it on par with the Second Story. The overworld is a rotating 3D map with decent details. In towns and villages, one thing that I remember from Second Story was the detail put to lighting. Normally you'd expect a character to either be fully lighted or shaded. In this game, half-stepping into a shadow did make your character half-shaded too, a very intricate detail considering the amout of shadowy areas you may cross in a village.

From what I can see, this version also received that kind of attention, which is pleasing to see. Despite being sprites over pre-rendered backgrounds for villages and dungeons, the amount of frames of animations used for something as simple as walking is impressive, and you see the same amount of detail in fights as well.

The battles are also taken off from Second Story style, with a large area to roam. The original SNES was a little cramped due to the hardware limitations, but the following games retained the idea of having a real-time battle with positioning and chasing targets with better power at their disposal.

All in all, I found everything I liked of this series, better looking, better sounding. Even though I haven't played the SNES version more than an hour, I still have seen enough to compare and see that this was a great remake/port (whatever you want to call it all considered), and I'm happy of having it in my collection. If you have a PSP and like RPGs, this is a must have.

Games I play : Dragon Quest 8

Actually, this should be at the past tense, but it still fits the theme I suppose.

Dragon Quest needs little introduction. In Japan it was banned from being sold on weekdays due to causing a high rate of absenteeism at work and school, due to the flood of people going to buy and play it. The strong bonds between the 3 main creators of the series made it flourish. I can't say if it was the first game of the RPG genre, but it definitely set the bar for the later games, and each game tried to improve upon it.

Dragon Quest 8 : The Journey of the Cursed King is the latest installment of the series. It graced the Playstation 2 in November 2004 for Japan. USA received a futher enhanced version a full year later, with added contents like voice acting and extra animations (the famous Super Sayian-like High Tension). It was also the first game of the series to grave Europe, which is kinda odd in itself, considering Enix had dropped the US side of ports but kept Europe open for most of the SNES+PS1 era. The only difference is that Dragon Quest is unnumbered in Europe, which led to subtitling all of the new releases.

The game itself, I'm not sure I can properly put it into words. In my opinion, this game was probably the best RPG for the lifetime of the Playstation 2. Sure, there was some great ones, like Final Fantasy X, XII, Kingdom Hearts and Xenosaga, all were pretty and fun. But I don't know, Dragon Quest had something else, which is really a matter of taste and opinion in the end.

First of all, the music. The Playstation 2's ability to play music is nothing short of superb. Thanks to the quality that a DVD can hold, the soundtrack was well done and fitting from the begining to the end. It places you in the ambience of the world, the dungeon or the city perfectly.

Secondly, the world map. As far as RPGs are concerned, I noticed that the PS2 had a very odd pattern. Where as the NES, SNES and even PS1 RPGs all had the roaming world map, most of the PS2 went for other kinds, such as Final Fantasy X and XII that have a traced route on a general map, teleport points to move around, otherwise walking between points. That style is not bad mind you, in fact it's more realistic in a way that you need to physically move around.

But other games completly gave up any kind of roaming, such as Kingdom Hearts or Suikoden III. What was a staple of a map with the ability to enter town was now a thing of the past. In that aspect, I admire Dragon Quest 8's method. Without going with the 'everything is on scale' of Final Fantasy XII, the world was huge and gorgeous, colorful and with plenty of nooks and crannies to peek into, wether it's around a tree or atop a small hill.

The villages looked 'on scale' from a distance, but still were in a different area per say, which required loading, which is closer to the original world map systems. The characters are are scale with the surrounding world, and it feels huge to move around on foot. The world map also scales down when using different methods of traveling, like on foot or flying, yet everything looks the same, just perfect. Plus you can see very far away in the distance while traveling, making it very realistic in that aspect.

Of course, being drawn by Akira Toriyama, the entire world and the characters have a distinct cartoony look. In fact the game was made in cell-shade, which from my understanding is a method of using 2D drawings on minimalistic skeletons, instead of being a fully 3D skeleton like Final Fantasy XII for example. The result is more cartoony, but somehow more detailed as well, which fits Akira's style perfectly in my opinion. And it fits Dragon Quest's style just as well.

Storywise, it was very interesting to follow. The generic 'save the world' quest, but not quite either. There's more involved as the quest starts with the only goal to uncurse the king and the princess. But obviously it won't be so easy, will it?

The battles are elegantly made, the first Dragon Quest to actually let you see your characters in battle in fact. All of the previous games used the 'first person view' of the fight where you'd see only the monsters. This time you can see your characters doing their attacks, spells and special abilities, and even lean over tiredly when low on HP. Monsters received the same attention with various animations for their attacks.

All in all, this was an extremely good addition to my collection, and one I would suggest to anyone that enjoys RPGs. It's not terribly hard, not terribly long (50-60 hours), pure Dragon Quest style with some very humorous scenes and dialogs. A good balance of everything that brings it to the top of my list of PS2 RPGs.

Game intros

Not as much of a history lesson as a tribute to these.

By video game intro, I don't mean once you actually started a new game. Well, in some cases it may apply, like most Final Fantasy games. But in certain cases, it's when you don't touch anything at the title screen, you often get something extra. In certain games, it's the same intro as if you started a new game (like Final Fantasy X). In other cases, it's something completely different and often complimentary to the story.

The first game that used this out of memory would be the very first The Legend of Zelda on the NES. Waiting on the title screen not only let you hear the entire Zelda theme song, but also has a short version of the story up to now, and an extensive list of monsters and items you'll meet. It's not something amazing I suppose, but it's better than simply seeing the first few seconds of Super Mario Bros.' first level.

Zelda games got alot better starting with the SNES, where they added some cutscenes and text to explain the backstory in a better way. Many games used similar intros afterwards, including one of my all time favorites Lufia II : Rise of the Sinistrals.

With the PSX's increased memory storage and ability to play full motion videos, game intros got another push up. Final Fantasy VII had a cinemation introduction when the game is started, which has since then been remade into the PS3 demo that has fueled so many rumors of a full remake.

So what am I building to by saying all this? My personal favorites, the ones that I feel compelled to watch at least once before loading my game, every single time I turn the console on.

The first up is Wild ARMs. The first game had a very catchy song along with the animated sequences. I was pleased to hear it again for its PS2 remake, yet I'm not sure the animation was as good. Different style I guess.


Next up is its successory, Wild ARMs 2nd Ignition, which I didn't play to the very end, but I still loved the introduction, enough to find the japanese song. The US had cut out the lyrics from the music sadly. Even without the lyrics though it was a very pretty song and animation.


And since I'm on a roll, let's put up Wild ARMs 3, which had something even more interesting. As you played through the game, the opening animation actually changed! It changed to reflect certains events that either are about to happen or have happened already. It was an interesting touch that made you want to watch it every time to see what may have changed. To add to this, they also made this animation appear AFTER you start a new game or load a previous save, but you can skip it with Start button. Here's the first version of it, if not mistaken :


Next up is Suikoden. Now all of the games in this series alone could have gotten every mention here, but I saved it for one in particular. While it was not seen as the best nor the most popular one, Suikoden III had it's share of good points, and the anime intro and song is one of those. Its one of those intros I never skipped even ONCE when playing this game, it was that pretty.



And lastly, the very newest entry, that gave me the idea of this subject today : Star Ocean First Departure on the PSP. The song is catchy and the animation is great looking. I'm currently playing this game too!


This is all for today, cya around!

Games I play : NHL 09

Today's blog will be about this game, a bit about the series in general, as it celebrated it's 18th year if I'm not mistaken.

The first game of this style made by EA Sports was NHL Hockey for the Genesis. It was the most accurate portraying of hockey yet. Mind you the previous contenders were games like Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel, which were rather limited.

The SNES did get a version of this series on the next year, but without the NHL logo, so it was NHLPA 93, which had the teams and players, but none of the team logos. Starting with NHL 94 though, they had full license over teams and players since then.

The series started plainly enough, with exhibition mode and playoff mode. With the years they added shootouts, goaltending and full season follow-up. In more recent versions they give even more control and customization with character creation, team salaries balacing, trades and training of recruits.

NHL 09 is no exception to all of those and even more. The full roster of the American League even adds more depth as now you can 'Be a Pro' in the game mode of the same name. It allows you to get into the skates of a recruit, starting with the Merican League and working your way up toward the NHL. Your performances are graded, and each game results in experience points that can eventually be turned into stat increase.

In previous games you'd either get a set amount of points to distribute when creating your character, allowing you to maximize one aspect or another of your character. Another version gave you full control, but as a tradeoff made your base salary grow up exponentially, so evidently the team's max salary would be affected if you tried to play a season with it. The EXP system seems new and very interesting in many ways.

When playing Online, you use a similar system to the 'Be a Pro'. There is an exhibition mode that allows you to play 'the entire team' like previous games. Unless you locked yourself to a position you could use a button to switch to another player of your team. But in online Team Play, you only get to play your character at a single position, and get ratings as well, and eventually experience points to grew your stats. Unlike Be a Pro you're not limited to a single position, you can actually grow experience in both skaters and goaltending, due to being sometimes forced to play either.

I've got to play a few 6 on 6 games, and those are a blast online. When every player is controlled, if everyone is doing their position's work, the game is so much fun. But when you play with puck hoggers, it's bad. Sadly, I've had too many games where the 4 other teammates of my team had for only strategy to 'crash the net'. Literally, each time they had the puck they would ram the goalie and then hit everything hoping for a rebound. That doesn't work often.

The games I had with alot of passing to the defense at the point were fun. Passing the puck around really feels more like the ream thing, and simply shooting from every direction randomly simply doesn't work as well as you'd think. Yes the game allows for some rather stupid goals sometimes, but not often enough to make it worth shooting everytime you get the puck without passing and trying to either one0time it or have the goalie get out of position with a mistimed dive.

At any rate, if you like Hockey, online play and have a PS3 (or whatever, I think the online part is multi-console, not sure), look me up for a game sometime. I got a rental, but I'm pretty sure I'll buy this game now.

Games I play : Zelda Twilight Princess

Wether or not it's an RPG, nothing will ever tarnish down the waves that Zelda makes in the video game world. It was more or less the reason I bought a GameCube (for Wind Waker, but got a Metroid Prime bundle), and it was pretty much what made me buy a Wii on the opening sales day. Number 99 out of 100 on sale at the store I went to, November 19th 2006.

At any rate, while I did already finish this game up almost 2 years ago now, I decided to play it again recently, after getting everything needed to play in HD. I got a new HDTV 40' that runs in 1080p quality. Too bad the Wii doesn't support that, but widescreen + proressive is already smoother.

Playing it again reminded me of the whole charm of the series, and even more of Twilight Princess. While the game was built for GameCube, it certainly was no pushover in graphics. The lens flare, lighting and overall world had no lack in quality. Even if you can poke a bit of fun at some polygonal issues like Link sheathing his sword through his hat in the cutscenes, it's not like it distract from the game itself.

I'm currently moving through the second half of the game, spending a bit of time doing extras before tackling on the next dungeon area (the desert, for those that played it). There's so many things to do, places to look at... Overall Twilight Princess felt smaller than Ocarina of Time, and even smaller than the vast sea expanse of Wind Waker, but when you take the time to cover it, you realize that it's much bigger, just spread into different sections rather than one connecting field. And each inch of the map is detailed.

The tool selection is also the most varied of any other game. Some tools get upgrades, and none of the 'longer chain' kind that Ocarina gave to the hookshot. We're talking upgrades that actually change the way you use the same tool, like Dual Claws. Not to mension the variety of objects. Actually, Majora's Mask had more tools only if you consider every mask as a different tool, but most of them were useless save for getting a single heart piece. This game only has tools and a few varying things like Arrow-Bombs and the mask that acts as a zoom that can combine with it.

Dungeon wise, I must say that it probably felt like the 'easiest' Zelda up to date, but that's probably only because of my experience with all of the previous ones. As I played through this one, I tried to go from memory, and some puzzles were easier due to knowing where to look for the solution/clue. But then I realized that this game is FILLED with puzzles, which is no different than most other Zeldas as to dungeon progression. Yet I felt that I did a whole lot more running around than other Zeldas to find the keys, tools and rewards every dungeon had, and that's where Twilight Princess still feels fresh.

Additionnaly, I'll say that the puzzles and dungeons are very fun and ingenous. Especially the Goron cave with the magnetic walls. It's one thing to think in 2D (aka Link to the Past). It's another to work in 3D (Ocarina of Time), but it's an entire new concept to think 3D and in every direction like over walls and upsidedown. So it may not be the first game that plays in 3D, but it surely is one that pushed the 3D uses further.

Plus the nostalgia is there. If it's extremely hard to put the games in a perfect timeline, there's still plenty of clues left around that provides clues and historical evidence of it's placement. And Twilight Princess doesn't escape that. The entire map has landmarks more or less placed like Ocarina of Time, at least on the GameCube since the Wii version was mirrored to help with the right-handed swordplay.

For example, Kakariko and Death Mountain are due east from the castle. The castle's placement is different being dead in the center, but that's the same as Link to the Past I suppose. Lake Hylia and other features are also positioned roughly like in Ocarina of Time. While placement is the same, the worlds couldn't be any more different in feeling though.

There's some people that seems to had disliked this game for 'being too much like Zelda', which I find ridiculous of an opinion since it IS a Zelda, how could it be anything else? Zelda defines the Action Adventure genre, and I wouldn't want it to be any different. If you haven't played this game yet, what are you waiting for?

Games I play : Perfect World

A relatively new game for me, as I already spend most of my gaming time in Final Fantasy XI, I sometimes need a change of pace, so I look at other games. It mostly depends on how I feel though, wether I play online or solo on consoles or handelds. And this is one of the online ones.

Perfect World International is a free to play MMORPG. How is that possible? Well, there's plenty of them around nowadays, it's a system called Micropayment. Basically, rather than pay a price per month, you can use your money to buy in game items. Those will range from simply cosmetic to adding bonuses you couldn't get otherwise. But essentially, these are absolutely not necessary to playing the game.

Perfect World seems to be based off ancient china for the most part, but in a fantasy setting. The choice for character creation is limited to 3 races, which split into 2 jobs each for a total of 6 jobs available. The bases are there : warrior and tanks, archers and healers, mages and pet masters. Like most of the MMORPGs, the game is split between doing fetch quests that requires you to kill a certain amount of monsters, or killing said monsters. Each increase your experience points, spirit points and money, as well as random equipment drops.

In a Diablo-esque style, equipments can also have added bonuses that may need to be identified by an NPC first for safety. Skills are bought using both currency and spirit points, and their learning rate depends on your levels and progression within your class. Some quests are necessary to upgrade your character toward greater 'divinity', and certain skills cannot be learned until you do.

Also, flying abilities like wings or mounts can be obtained at level 30 for any jobs, but Winged Elves have a basic rather slow flying at level 1. Flying is the way to go to avoid any kind of encounters, but amusing you cna carry out battles while flying, though it eats your MP for every second of combined flying and fighting, while it costs no MP to simply fly around.

What I liked about the game compared to other MMORPGs in the same style is the character creation process. Most of the time free MMORPGs get this very limited creation system, like 2 hears and 3 hair styles or 2 skin colors, not much different in all honesty. Perfect World allows you to upload a picture on screen for you to compare, and modify all finer points, like the size and position of nose and eyes, their rotation, width, color and such. The only thing I felt was missing was the character's height, which ends up being static. Fortunately, your gender is also not enforced by your job or race (I've seen it in other games, yuck).

For those interested there's also controlled PVP possible. Meaning you actually got to set yourself as PVP, and a color system on the characters name tell you if a character is a renowned PKiller. Being killed in PVP gives no exp or item loss, except if you have some reknown, in which case being defeated may result in exp loss and losing pieces of equipment you were wearing. Basically, you can PVP, but at your own risks if you overdo it. Killing normal monsters and completing quests apparently lowers that reknown steadily if you think you accumulated too much of it, so it's also forgiving to a degree.

At any rate, if you feel like trying it out, it's free to play (just a relatively hefty download I suppose, 2.5 gb or so), so take it for a spin. If you want, follow this link, which will give me a referal as well : http://www.perfectworld.com/referral/key/b850bdc39a986536b3cd72e995336486

The info on what referals offer are on the site, but basically it will give me some ZEN to buy some extra items like I talked about earlier. I'm not begging you or anything, as I said before those are not necessary. Just a small bonus to a friend I suppose. If you do join, I have a female Cleric named LifaLockhart on the Sanctuary server (PVE).

Still alive

Yeah, I haven't forgotten about this place, just lacked the time to write in it. So let's try this again with something else. Still about games, don't worry.

Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite games, not necessarily the best ever, but the kind that you should play at least once. It's always a matter of taste when it comes to games after all.

My review for today will be : Dark Cloud 2.

My first experience with Dark Cloud was from a friend, let me try his copy of Dark Cloud (the first). While there was some interesting Action RPG aspects, plus some amount of simulation, the game didn't keep my interest due to various factors, mostly the weapon creation system and the thirst system in the dungeons. Those really annoyed me. But I'll explain those in more details later.

Dark Cloud 2 was a gift from a friend that didn't like it, and I must say that it blew me away. Most of the issues I hated with the first game were gone, and replaced by a very good storyline that kept my attention enough to do two different playthroughs of near 80 hours each, and that's a feat in itself.

Story
The story is somewhat about time traveling. There's an evil demolishing cities in the present, which makes them disappear in the future. Monica, a princess from the future, sets for goal to rebuild or save the towns again to fix the future ones.

The story is a tad Disney-ish when it comes to the bad guys, most of them ending up being 'misunderstood' or 'controller' rather than evil, but it all fits well in the storyline. The voice acting was on the notch, and very fitting with the action.

Gameplay
Obviously, the bulk of the game doesn't come from the story though, the gameplay is rock solid. There's so many things that makes this game, it's hard to pick what to talk about first. So let's go for battles.

Battles are either carried on by Max or Monica, a typical ActionRPG with autotargetting and HP, but no experience points come to build your levels. Instead monsters defeated add points to the weapon used to kill the monster, and in turn allows them to be turned into crystals to fused into other weapons, or get other items turned into crystals to fuse unto weapons. The weapon need to gain levels to allow more fuses to be done with it. There's several weapon types to take account of :

-Max uses a Hammer and a Gun. Each of them level up separately depending on which you used to defeat each mob.
-Monica uses a sword and a magic armband.
-Max and Monica both have an alternate 'summon' to use, which also requires separate experience points. Max rides a robot armor, that can be outfitted with different kinds of weapons, bodies, defense, batteries and such.
-Monica morphs into one of 12 different monster types that all have different exp and levels.

Weapons and summons have a duration to them, a certain amount of attacks they can perform before they 'break', but fortunatly breaking only limits to being unusable until repaired, dealing no damage, unlike the first Dark Cloud where a broken weapon was permanently lost. Certain monsters take more durability out of your weapons because of their defense, and all monsters can be more weak to a certain kind of weapon as well.

Weapon upgrades require that your possess a weapon that has high enough attributes, which creates a huge tree of possible results. Fusing more materials to them increase their attack power and stats, and once they reach certain levels of each stat they can be morphed into stronger versions with higher maximum stats. Also fusing them allow to carry certain abilities, like increased resistance to breaking, elemental damage or knock backs.

The levels carry out by random mazes that are automatically mapped for you as you explore it. Each level usually require that you find the monster that carries the key that opens the exit. But once all monsters are defeated in a maze, that's where the fun part is :

You can collect medals as rewards in every stage, which are used to buy new outfits for Monica and Max, it's more for the amusement factor than usefulness though. Each stage has various conditions for those medals as well. There's a 'clear within X amount of time' on every stage, but also 'kill with a specific weapon' only. Plus you can get an extra medal by completing the mini-game, Spheda, on each stage.

Spheda is available when you clear the stage, and you only get one game of it per stage clear. Each stage will have a reward for completing Spheda as well, as materials and items. Spheda is a sort of Golf game, with different rules as the ball and goal change from Red to Blue. The ball changes color by hitting obstacles or walls, and will be attracted by the opposite color, repulsed by the same color. You have a set amount of hits allowed to reach the goal, so you need to reach it on the opposite ball color within that limit. Certain stages are near impossible so you may have to repeat the stage often to clear it. But all in all, Spheda was my favorite part of this game.

Also you can get into Fishing on most stages, which allows you for some Fish races back in the hometown. I haven't dwelled into that one much though.

Lastly, another interesting part of this game is Scoops. Scoops are basically taking pictures of objects or specific events, like a certain monster attack. Scoops are then used to create recipes, that will allow you to create more items, weapons and parts for your robot. But you don't get a clue about recipies, you mostly take random items you photographed and mix them up until you get results. Following a guide is almost required to find all recepies and scoops as a result.

I could probably talk alot more about this, but I'd say, go try it instead. It's a PS2 game, if you find it at bargains or rentals, take it for a spin!