Random Game I Like #54: Dark Cloud 2 

Random Game I Like #54: Dark Cloud 2

I started playing Dark Cloud 2 recently, and it was quite surprising. Actually, it wasn't surprising at all. You see, I believe in this awful self-fulfilling destiny of game sequels. The sequel of a game never really seems to improves over the original.

The original Dark Cloud was painful.

To begin with, it was slow. Characters often needed to be changed mid-dungeon and that resulted in a 15 second character change movie. It was hard too, but not in a satisfying way. If I lost it wasn't due to me getting beaten up in a fair fight. Instead it was something mundane that defeated me, like running out of water, or breaking all of my weapons. Dark Cloud also had this terrible visual style. When some polygons were animated, it looked at best unnatural and at worst excruciatingly unnatural.

Dark Cloud 2 fixed these things. The game is faster. No longer are weapon repair powders rare. My characters don't need to drink. Best of all, everything is rendered well in cell-shading.

Dark Cloud 2 is a good game.