Using cel shading, the graphics are colorful and cartoonish, with characters moving animatedly through a vivid world. There is more engagement to be found in the game's presentation. No matter my weapon, character, or vehicle, I know that the next level will be as indeterminate as the last, and will involve mashing buttons to defeat enemies until one reveals the key to the next level, where I can start again.
The challenge is not what to invent, but how not who the enemy is, but how to defeat him. Those are the essential elements of gameplay, which give players many options and duties with which to tackle the mundane. Players have more control over this process than they did in the original Dark Cloud, granting them the freedom to design their own setting.
Max must rebuild the world from scratch using the Georama system, which allows him to plot the location of buildings, people, and other environmental accessories.
But without any human genius supporting these machinations, the casual layout and stray monsters and treasures ultimately defeat this potential for newness. Each floor is randomly generated, ensuring a new experience for every gamer with each play. Then there's the dungeons, which may also take the form of forests, mountains, and other settings, each a dozen "levels" or more deep. A trash can, pipe, and belt can be converted into an energy source for a robot, but a mailbox, pumpkin, and clock may not prove so useful.
Max can get ideas by taking photographs of nearby items, then combining three of these hundreds of ideas into a wondrous item or powerful weapon. Players can switch between multiple characters, each with unique weapons and vehicles, which can also be modified. This latter process involves "spectrumizing" other items, or distilling their essences, and "synthesizing", or combining essences with weapons to increase their attributes. They can also be upgraded to new forms, or enhanced in their current forms. His weapons are durable, but not indestructible, and must be restored using a limited supply of Repair Power before they break. To describe Dark Cloud 2 in a word: busy. Dark Cloud is a 3D adventure game where the heroes gain experience and gold, go shopping, and play out a story, as in a role-playing game (RPG), but the battles are real-time, with buttons for swinging swords and dodging bullets. Though occasionally compared to Zelda, Dark Cloud has only superficial resemblances to that game. No, it's not this summer's Terminator 3 - it's Dark Cloud 2, a PlayStation 2 game from Sony. Издательство: Sony Computer Entertainment