Let's Play Dark Cloud

[Pumpkin]

Since I am taking a breather from my Suikoden II Let's Play, and most of the games I'm currently playing I am doing with my boyfriend, I have decided to boot up an old favorite, Dark Cloud! I plan to do a Dark Cloud 2 update some day, but I finished that one last year, so now it is time to play this one!

I will be gone for a week the day after tomorrow, but I'll try to get some stuff posted up before then and I should be able to update regularly when I get back :jess:

Intro:

The game starts out with a book. It tells us that there was a book found, with a tale in it. Is it a true tale? It is a magical story about a young boy on his adventure.

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You get to name your character, and I just go with the default, Toan.

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Now we are at the Dark Shrine. There are a bunch of oddly coloured people dancing around in front of a giant urn with some purple smoke coming out of it. Two men walk in to discuss the happenings.

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The taller man, who's name is Flag, which makes me laugh for some reason, is apparently encouraging this weird dance as it will summon something. The shorter unnamed man, who we will call Tobi, asks if Flag knows the legend of the urn. Flag replies that of course he does, he spent a lot of money on this thing, but Tobi decides to give us an abridged version of the legend anyway.

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There is some more dancing, A LOT of dancing, and finally the genie comes forth!

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It is giant and purple and fat. After remarking how it was different than pictured, the genie literally responds by shaking its tummy. Genie don't care what you think. The genie asks who the two men are and Flag tells him that he freed him, and is therefore his master. The genie says whatever, right, and generally doesn't give much of a poo. But then he remembers how long it has been since his last meal.

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Oh no! We can't have our antagonist dying of starvation. What will he eat?

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That's a good choice.

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After a delicious dinner of Tobi, the genie and flag begin to plot their mission.

[Pumpkin]

Now we are in a totally different place and we see a young girl running (in slow mo for me because my computer apparently doesn't like my Dark Cloud disc). She burst in on Toan and his mother eating some dinner.

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Shut up mom, you don't know nothin! After being forced to swallow down his dinner and put on his hat, Toan runs outside and looks on in wonder at the celebration going on outside. More dancing! Yay!

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But what's this? Has someone come to ruin our awesome dancing celebration?! Dancibration, if you will.

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Fun fact, the two moons are one of the main carry overs from Dark Cloud 1 to dark Cloud 2. It makes sense, the games take place hundreds of years apart and for a moon that isn't a lot, I just find it interesting.

Flag calls us insects or ants or something and tells the genie to start here. The genie starts doing spins and flips, all while shooting laser beams from his hands, feet, mouth, head, eyes, and belly button. He is obviously quite enjoying himself.

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Toan stares on in horror at the happenings. This scene is actually much more dramatic in slow mo. Eventually he sees his friend about to be crushed by a windmill. He dives in to save her. Will he make it? We don't know because the screen fades out.

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We see another scene of the genie, proud of his accomplishment.

Toan finds himself lying somewhere, being spoken to by a very casual sounding voice saying things like "Hi there".

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Who is this mysterious voice?

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Oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense. He gives us an explination about how the genie came from the East to destroy half of the world, and that in the last seconds before everything was destroyed, he used his fairy-magic powers to seal everything inside little balls that I can open and use because I'm the hero and therefore capable of these things with no real explanation.

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I like the look of shame Toan has in that picture. "Dang, should've finished up with my soup sooner."

He gives me the super cool Atlamillia to use to restore the world!

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And soon, we shall begin our adventure to save the world!!

[Pumpkin]

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And now our journey begins! First thing we do is head over to the mayor's house, the one thing besides Toan that has survived.

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The convenient thing is that the Mayor gives you items for free before you get your shop. The inconvenient thing is he really gives you only 1 of everything and it is very easy in the early stages to run out.

This is one of those games that is harder in the beginning than for the rest of it. Like I said, you have limited supplies. The game also throws stuff at you like "thirst". You have 3 little water drops to start off with that drain as you walk through the dungeon. 3 doesn't last you long. After they drain, your health starts to drain. There are waterfalls on certain levels that heal your health and water, but it isn't a guarantee. Some lower level monsters cause poison and you pretty much only have 1 antidote to use on each floor, unless you find another one in a chest.

Another thing is your weapons in this game have WHP. If the WHP reaches 0, your weapon breaks and you can never use it again. This is especially annoying if you've invested a lot in to it and transformed it in to a stronger weapon. In the lower levels, you have very little repair powders to restore WHP, so you have to be careful. Your starter weapons cannot break, but if their WHP reaches 0, they will do about 1 damage, making it a painful floor.

So the first levels can be a bit nerve-wracking, especially if you aren't used to the game, but it gets eis you gain more health and water drops and repair powders and such.

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The Divine Beast Cave is the first dungeon. There are different floors. How the dungeons work in Dark Cloud is pretty simple. There is a monster on each level (randomized) that holds the Gate Key. The Gate Key is what you need to proceed to the next level of the dungeon. You can leave a floor after all monsters are defeated, by using the Gate Key and unlocking the next floor, or by using an escape powder.

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The balls show the number of Atla on the floor. Each Atla contains something used to restore the world (house, person, item, tree, etc).

The Fairy King returns to explain to me basically the things I already explained. He shows up a lot in the beginning, but after Norune Village, you hardly see him anymore.

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I complete the first floor and head back to Norune where the Fairy King tells me how to use Atla.

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This is something they improved a good bit in Dark Cloud 2, but it's still fun here. You have a list of the things you found in the dungeon. That pic is an example I'm being given, I don't have that much stuff yet :P. Then you have areas to fill with items. To learn what goes in the ? spaces, you must speak to the people who live in those homes.

The first house I got is the Macho Brother house. I actually had a picture of Macho, but it doesn't seem to have taken. I remember that they like to be near the Divine Beast Cave, so I go ahead and place their house over there.

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I go in and do another dungeon floor, but it is mostly uneventful, except for:

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A cat!

I get a few more items, including the older Macho brother, Kumacho. So I talk to him and ask about his requests and stuff.

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After giving him his fence and lamp, I get:

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An event! A note about this, you only need to get everything restored in their house to get an event. Placing them where they all want to be is usually optional (except for the ones that trigger story events) and only needs to be done if you want extra prizes.

So head back to the Macho Brothers house. So, if they're the Macho Brothers, does that mean their family name is Macho? So are they Macho Macho and Kumacho Macho? I hope so. I hope they had parents like that.

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They decide to settle this event like men, with a battle, which I sadly don't get to see :(

[Ayen]

Your guy looks like Link.

[Jiro]

I will have to remember to follow this. Pretty sure we have Dark Cloud II here but I've never seen the first one!

[Miss Mae]

I will have to remember to follow this. Pretty sure we have Dark Cloud II here but I've never seen the first one!
We have the original. This has reminded me that I never did finish playing it. Add that to the list of reasons we need to buy a new PS2 controller. :p

[Kalevala]

My copy of Dark Cloud and my PS2 are back at my parent's house. I might play along if it's a game that can be emulated without too much trouble. I'll have to look into it.

[Laddy]

I always loved the very cool cultural influences the locations had. Norune always seemed Andes-like look and feel that was very unique. Love this game.

[Mercen-X]

I own this but still haven't completed it. I'm at the very last place (where they talk about history). The experience isn't as great as the rest of the game (I liked being able to remodel my villages). I wonder how many people remodeled the first village to look exactly as it did before the Genie destroyed it (the way the villagers want it arranged isn't the original way.) I know I did.

Every time I go back to play the game, I get caught up in trying to customize my weapons. I loaded up a game and tried to play through only to find that the character I was forced to play as (who was the fat kid with the hammer again?) had no weapons available for use (I had to repair them. Using any of them would result in them breaking. Some of them were broken.)