Dark Cloud

Dark Cloud is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective, in which the player moves through procedurally-generated dungeons, battling monsters and collecting items. On random dungeon levels, the player may have the option of entering a separate "back door" area which contains stronger monsters and rarer treasure. Although the majority of combat involves real time hack and slash, the player will occasionally "Duel" an enemy. In this type of battle, the player must correctly press a sequence of buttons, similar to a quick time event.

While in dungeons, the player has both a health meter and a thirst meter. The thirst meter gradually decreases over time, and when fully depleted, it causes the health meter to begin to decrease. To prevent the thirst meter from depleting, the player must drink water or step into one of the pools found in many dungeon levels.

The game begins as Colonel Flag Gilgister of the Lagoon Empire Army of the East attempts to awaken the Dark Genie, a legendary evil creature whom Flag wishes to use to control the world. Upon summoning the Genie, Flag orders him to attack the West. Prior to the attack, Simba, the Fairy King, casts a protective spell around the land, sealing the buildings, objects and people inside magical orbs called "Atla". Due to the power of the Genie's attack, the orbs are scattered.

Meanwhile, Toan, whose home village of Norune has been destroyed, although he survived the attack unhurt, encounters the Fairy King, who gives him a magical stone called the "Atlamillia", and tasks him with finding the scattered Atla and transforming back into its original form. Toan sets about restoring Norune, and in a nearby cave meets a man named Seda, who defeats him in a duel when Toan attempts to protect a nearby cat. As a reward for his kindness, Seda gives Toan a "changing potion", which he uses to transform the cat into a "catgirl" named Xiao, who joins him on his quest. Toan and Xiao soon find Dran, guardian of Norune, who is possessed by the Genie, and who attacks them.

Dark Cloud was the first game from developer Level-5, led by president and CEO Akihiro Hino, who also wrote, produced and designed the game. Development began immediately when the company was founded in October 1998 with a projected development time of two years. When the PlayStation 2 was announced in March 1999, Sony president and CEO Ken Kutaragi used an early demo of Dark Cloud to show the capabilities of the platform. The demo showed a magic carpet flying through a valley, and some waterfall effects.

In September 1999, Sony showed an early playable version of the game at the Tokyo Game Show. This version of the game was also shown at a US demonstration at Las Vegas for COMDEX in November as well in a presentation done by Phil Harrison of Sony. This version featured a character who must return a floating piece of land back to where it originally came from, but this original location has been usurped by an evil kingdom. Georama mode was a major component of the demo, with both IGN and GameSpot comparing it to Legend of Mana's "Land Make" system.

Dark Cloud received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. However, Blake Fischer of NextGen said of the game in his negative review: "Not quite Zelda. Not quite ActRaiser. Not quite fun." In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one eight, two sevens, and one six for a total of 28 out of 40.

Gameplay was compared by several critics to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, while the weapon system was likened to Vagrant Story. GameSpot's Shane Satterfield and IGN's Dave Zdyrko both felt the Georama mode borrowed elements from ActRaiser. GameSpot, IGN and Game Informer's Andrew Reiner all praised the game for blending different types of gameplay together successfully. Satterfield argued "no game has blended all these compelling and unrelated ideas together into one highly addictive and surprisingly cohesive experience until now".