Fine, no one play along with my April Fools.

18. Dark Cloud 2/Chronicles (PS2)
      Okay Level 5, I love you guys. This is one of the best development studios out right now, and even their games that don’t go over to well still get praised for trying new and unique things. And for me, Dark Cloud 2 is the greatest game they have launched. In so many ways this game is absolutely brilliant. Though not to say it’s flawless by any means.

      The Story is an interesting one to judge. The overall plot is pretty good, but nothing great. Where this game shines are the story arc’s presented in each area. The restoration of the origin points of things in the future is just wonderful, and do so much to flesh out the world it takes place in. The highlight for me being Crest, The Great Sage. Not only does it perfectly paint why Crest was so revered in the future, and just why so many people cared about him, but it comes with a big twist at the end of the arc.

      The town building you do to restore the Origin Points is also wonderful. You don’t have as much freedom to do whatever you want with the town as I would have liked, as you need to restore certain features, but still it’s so fun creating the towns and gathering recruits.

      This game is full of all sorts of trout to do. You have your Town Building, Fishing minigames, Fish Raising, Spheda, Weapon Synthesizing, and the normal gameplay itself. And all of this is fun. This is a long ass game with a lot to do to keep you occupied. And there’s benefits for doing all of them as well, giving you some incentive!

      If there is something about the game that holds it back, however, it’s not very balanced between your characters. Mostly the Ridepod is able to handle pretty much every situation the game could possibly throw at you. Compare that to Monica’s Transformations, which are just pathetic. Melee weapon between Max and Monica is debatable as to whose could be better, but Max’s Gun is far superior to Monica’s Magic Armlet.

      Still though, the con’s aren’t really to big of a deal, and the positives are huge. I’ll be happy if this ever get’s a PSN launch.

17. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
      This right here is DQ at it’s finest. The Idea of the story being so vast it takes place from the time you are a child who can’t even read, all the way up until you have children of your own was wonderful. This game get’s credit just for having such a big Idea and implementing it well.

      I do specify the ‘Hand of the Heavenly Bride’ due to having once played the non-DS remake on a fan translation I barely made it into before losing interest. Not because it was bad by any means, I just had things going on at the time. Plus the new bride is awesome.

      Anyway, one thing I loved is being able to capture all the different monsters of the world to form your parties. Hell, I even liked how various creatures had level limits imposed on them. You’ll find yourself constantly updating your party, yet there still remains a lot of options on how to build it.

      There was never really a huge twist as far as plot goes, but that’s not to say it’s not good. Plenty of enjoyable characters, appropriately evil villains, no plot holes I can think of, and well executed, the story accomplishes all that it needs too.

      And the puns are smurfing hilarious to me. When I reached The Abby of the Above, I almost peed myself in laughter when I spoke to The Nuns of the Above. These games just revel in how delightfully cheesy their puns are.