Dark Chronicle

Dark Chronicle is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. The player moves through procedurally-generated dungeons, battles monsters and collects items. Throughout most of the game, players control characters Max and Monica. Max fights with a wrench as his melee weapon and a gun as his ranged weapon.

Monica uses a sword and a magical bracelet. Combat in the game uses real time hack and slash techniques. Each character also has a unique combat ability: Max can pilot a customizable, mech-like vehicle called the Ridepod, and Monica can shapeshift into monsters.

A princess runs to her father's room in a castle in a panic. She arrives to find a man standing over her dead father's body. The man disappears in a ball of light.

Elsewhere, a boy named Max from the town of Palm Brinks attends a circus. By coincidence, he overhears a conversation where ringmaster Flotsam pressures the town mayor Need to find a special stone located in the town. Max makes a loud noise and unintentionally gets Flotsam's attention - who notices Max is wearing the special stone as a pendant. Max escapes, and embarks on an adventure by leaving the town via the sewers.

Rumors about Dark Chronicle first appeared in April 2002, when Level-5 Inc. updated its website with an image of a silhouette from its newest game, although no other details were made available at the time. The game was officially announced on May 16, when Level-5 launched a full website that revealed the new game would include Dark Cloud's Georama mode and had more features than its predecessor. The site also demonstrated the cel-shaded graphics and featured pictures of the two protagonists.

More information was revealed at E3 later in May, when Sony Computer Entertainment announced the game would be released in Japan and Europe as Dark Chronicle and in North America as Dark Cloud 2, with a release date of late 2002 to early 2003. The invention system, which according to Sony would feature over 100 hours of gameplay, was also demonstrated for the first time. IGN and GameSpot both featured previews of the game based on the E3 demo; IGN focused on the improved Georama system and praised the cel-shaded graphics, and GameSpot looked at the dungeons, finding the combat improved from the first game.

Dark Chronicle received generally favorable reviews, with an aggregate score of 87 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on forty-one reviews. GameSpot's Brad Shoemaker scored the game 9 out of 10, calling it "one of the finest games released for the PlayStation 2 so far" and "an aesthetic masterpiece". He praised the variety of the gameplay, writing that "there's so much to do that it's almost overwhelming" and concluded that "Dark Cloud 2 is simply a class act all the way. Every element of the game, from the georama system to the weapon upgrading to the interaction with a large cast of characters, displays a polish and attention to quality that you find only in real classics". The publication named Dark Chronicle the best PlayStation 2 game of February 2003.

IGN's Kaiser Hwang also scored the game 9 out of 10, calling it "arguably the best looking PS2 game out there". He concluded that "Dark Cloud 2 takes the standard sequel road and gives us everything that made the original Dark Cloud great, only bigger and better... The leap in quality between the two games really is amazing. From the incredible graphics, to the great sound, to the refined gameplay, Dark Cloud 2 just oozes of quality and polish".