Going into Dark Cloud, I was expecting an RPG adventure akin to Grandia, and what I ended up getting was a rogue-like experience attached to a city building simulator. What's perhaps weirdest of all though, I played through a rogue-like I could not only tolerate, but kinda like.
To say my love for rogue-likes is minimum is an overstatement. I love a lot of genres in games, but rogue-likes always put me on edge and boost any anxiety I have up to the max. There is just something inherently I don't like about Rogue-likes and that's being punished for trying to explore more, and getting set back to square one. While I wouldn't say Dark Cloud is that bad when it comes to dying consequences, it still feeds into the loop of safety vs. risk, and punishing you with more grinding if you die by taking your current weapon.
Dark Cloud thankfully had a neat mechanic of building your towns in each chapter, and rescuing a new character in each new chapter, and honestly I was all for that jam. You can set up the town however you wanted, and even sometimes had to rearrange the town in a certain way to get better rewards from towns people and the like. Each new character you got in Dark Cloud also had their own moveset and personality to look forward to, and it was always a treat to start a new chapter to see them.
Story is still rather minimal in Dark Cloud however, and while you do get to build cities and meet with villagers, it never really goes above and beyond it's story telling of evil genie hurts local people's lives, but this is only a minor complaint.
Really at the end of the day, Dark Cloud is a far more accessible and neat idea for a rogue-like I've seen, and deserves the following it has. I do issues with the weapon= levels, but it thankfully wasn't as big of a hurtle due to playing safely. I recommend anyone to play Dark Cloud if they are looking for a rogue-like that is a bit out there, but has a ton of charm.
To say my love for rogue-likes is minimum is an overstatement. I love a lot of genres in games, but rogue-likes always put me on edge and boost any anxiety I have up to the max. There is just something inherently I don't like about Rogue-likes and that's being punished for trying to explore more, and getting set back to square one. While I wouldn't say Dark Cloud is that bad when it comes to dying consequences, it still feeds into the loop of safety vs. risk, and punishing you with more grinding if you die by taking your current weapon.
Dark Cloud thankfully had a neat mechanic of building your towns in each chapter, and rescuing a new character in each new chapter, and honestly I was all for that jam. You can set up the town however you wanted, and even sometimes had to rearrange the town in a certain way to get better rewards from towns people and the like. Each new character you got in Dark Cloud also had their own moveset and personality to look forward to, and it was always a treat to start a new chapter to see them.
Story is still rather minimal in Dark Cloud however, and while you do get to build cities and meet with villagers, it never really goes above and beyond it's story telling of evil genie hurts local people's lives, but this is only a minor complaint.
Really at the end of the day, Dark Cloud is a far more accessible and neat idea for a rogue-like I've seen, and deserves the following it has. I do issues with the weapon= levels, but it thankfully wasn't as big of a hurtle due to playing safely. I recommend anyone to play Dark Cloud if they are looking for a rogue-like that is a bit out there, but has a ton of charm.