Dark Chronicle is a bit like a flame-grilled Whopper with extra cheese, extra pickle and a big juicy layer of glistening deep-fried onion rings. It's like a BMW with blacked-out windows, nitro boosters and a megaton sound system stuffed into the boot.
Except that instead of pickles and sub-woofers, Dark Chronicle gives you an enormous quest, frantic real-time fights, multiple characters, machines to invent and ride around in, entire towns to rebuild, time travel and so much more it's almost obscene. It's the most complete role-player we've had the good fortune to play in recent memory, and the most completely awesome on PS2.
A Zillion Times Better Okay, we're gushing now, but with good reason. Everything about Dark Chronicle is so polished, so extensive and so much damned fun for the role-playing nut that just playing it feels like a celebration of all things RPG. The story is expertly told through a clever narrative taking the form of a letter to hero Max's missing Mother. The visuals are among the prettiest seen on the console and suit the game perfectly, and the mixture of dungeoneering, exploration and the rebuilding of towns is far more integrated into the story than in the first game, Dark Cloud.
New Ideas: Here! What's even cooler is that Dark Chronicle throws brand new ideas into the genre, as well as keeping some old favourites from the far less playable Dark Cloud. Before you even realise you have the power to rebuild entire towns in the 'Georama' sections, you'll be coming over all paparazzo and taking photographs of items in order to invent robots. Gather all the bits you need and you can then ride around the place and take your creations into battle!
It's a frickin' incredible feature and of course there are loads of secret machines to construct too if you feel like putting the time in.
Then there's the crafty way you're forced to commit to specific paths of weapon upgrades. Using the rather complicated synthesis process, you have an active role in determining exactly how your skills are upgraded. It's a headache-inducing hands-on approach at first, but you soon slide into the logic behind it and realise that the wealth of options available to you is staggering. Yep, there's so much to the game that to cover it all we'd need volumes of CVG and while we'd be happy to write it, we concede that not everyone would want to read it.
Non-role-playing fans will find little to win them over in Dark Chronicle, although it is a lot more action orientated than turn-based RPGs. But in the same way that Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is the pinnacle of fighting games for fight fans, Dark Chronicle is the ultimate adventure for those of a role-playing bent.
In fact, we'd go so far as to say that this game is the finest role-player of its type that you can buy on this planet, or any other. Go fetch!
Chock-a-block full of amazing ideas and impossibly well produced, Dark Chronicle is essential role-playing action fodder and the only game you will need all summer long.
The world of Dark Chronicle is populated with a huge number of crazy folks and creatures, not all of which are sympathetic to your cause. Here are but a small fraction of the freaks you can expect to meet on your journey.
Need, the mayor, is responsible for keeping the disappearing outside world a secret from the townsfolk but wants to make amends
A counterpart to Max, she is physically weaker but can cast amazing spells using her various armbands
Posh boy disguised as an urchin, Max is your main hero in the adventure and is skilled at whacking things with his wrench
Linda is Flotsam’s elephantine pet monster, would you believe? You get to fight her twice, but better not tell the RSPCA about it!
Flotsam, the evil circus ringleader, is up to much more trickery than simply running the carnival that comes to town
This old coot is grumpy but useful to have around as he can upgrade your inventions and repair your Ridepod
A fine engineer and master of all things incendiary, Erik will sell you extremely powerful bombs mid-mission – and sell you
gun repairs too
// Be A Graham Bell
Cower beneath the towering power of science! Geeks the world over will unite in pleasure as you get to employ your brain to invent amazing contraptions and machines in Dark Chronicle. Equip the camera and take snaps of items around the world, then combine the piccies to formulate an invention idea before gathering the materials you need to actually construct the thing. Experimenting will reap you huge rewards but it might seem quite a daunting task, given the sheer amount of objects included in the world.
A belt is on your shopping list of items to snap, so photograph an appropriate groin
Use the ‘make’ command to combine photographs and formulate an idea…
…And ka-pow! Your new idea is formed. You’re not done yet – the object still needs making
Go shopping for all the bits you need, then combine them to finish the process. Simple!
// Synth And Strings
What role-player worth its magic dust would be complete without a baffling power-up process? Dark Chronicle's is all about transforming the items you collect in battle into useful objects, which you then bolt onto your weapons to transform them. It's a slow process with masses of depth, but here's a basic run-down of how to enhance your skills.
With your chosen item spectrumized into light form, synthesise it onto the weapon to augment its abilities. See the attack stat increase?
Raid the chests you find in dungeons for items like this, but you can also use anything in your inventory for the synthesis process
Select ‘build up’ from the weapon screen to check which attributes you need to enhance in order to get the next evolution of weapon
Choose ‘spectrumize’ on the items that increase the stats of those highlighted in the ‘build up’ screen; in this case it’s the attack stat
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