Dark Cloud

Games Radar UK (Pre-2006)

A stunning visual banquet, masterfully blending all the necessary ingredients for a cracking fantasy RPG. We're not likely to see many better PS2 titles this year.

Absolute Playstation

Crawling through hoards of dungeons in search for more, and more pieces to your missing world never got old for me. I was always driven to go on.

Gaming Age

One of the rare games that takes the best from lots of games, adds random dungeons, and a dash of its own originality, and ends up being a really great game.

TotalGames.net

Simply put, if you don’t like the genre previously known as an RPG then there is nothing here to shine you on, but what there is has been created with such a level of craft that there’s no denying its artfulness. It’s a beauty and as near (yet far) to a Zelda release as we’re going to see.

netjak

While it can be tough at some points and a bit difficult to master everything in the first hour, it’s a great gaming experience and besides, that genie Ruby is kinda cute.

TotalPlayStation

What it does well, however is mixes them into a delicious stew of action, RPG and strategy elements that end up tasting better than if they were eaten by themselves.

IGN

What Dark Cloud offers is a splendid mix of several existing genres and game ideas that when merged together brings forth a delightful and extremely addictive adventure role-playing game that's easily one of the best we've yet seen on PlayStation 2.

Gaming Maxx

With the PS2 RPG release list suffering, Dark Cloud could easily be named the best offering in this genre to date.

GameSpot

Dark Cloud successfully blends adventure, RPG, simulation, and strategy elements into one incredibly addictive game.

Hot Games

It’s a captivating run for about the first ten hours of play, then dungeon levels become too mechanical. Still, for all its shortcomings, the game also has its share of charms.

Cincinnati Enquirer

Isn't for everyone. The game lacks speech and some of the Japanese-to-English translations don't read welI. What's more, the music repeats too often. But after a while depth of this RPG grows on you. That said, it's probably not for people with short attention spans.

Happy Puppy

While the task of rebuilding the village is fantastically addictive, the repetitive gameplay is a bore.

Total Video Games

The idea of creating your own world is welcomed, and the graphics are good at times, but do falter at certain stages especially throughout the dungeon levels.

Yahoo! Games

We have no problem at all with awarding Dark Cloud a Console Domain highly recommended award.

GamerWeb Sony

The controls are simple, but the weapon system and town building program will take time to master, and this should appeal to RPG fanatics.

Electric Playground

Those who want more than a clone will be disappointed, those just looking for a good game will be pleasantly rewarded.

GMR Magazine

Pays homage to RPGs past while establishing its own unique identity. [Feb 2003, p.92]

GameSpy

There is about 30 hours of play contained within Dark Cloud, but the title does not contain the type of epic storyline needed to drive the player through those hours.

Da Gameboyz

The sound is fairly lackluster. But overall the game is rich and inviting, with a great storyline, lots of playable characters and an abundance of items for you to collect.

Gamezilla!

Stepping in the right direction to make RPGs a bit more varying. However, it does tend to bog down at times and you'll feel like you’ve done the same thing more than twice, making it a little mundane at points.

Core Magazine

An adeptly designed adventure game that effectively combines elements of several other titles into a highly entertaining - if imperfect - package.

GamePower

It has buried within other commonplace RPG elements the most innovative approach to game storytelling I have seen in years.

Game Revolution

Despite its obviously derivative mechanics and gameplay, Dark Cloud offers a solid, fun experience and at least tries something interesting with its village building system.

All Game Guide

The game could not have survived as a dungeon crawler alone, and thankfully the many side diversions offer hours of fun by themselves.

GamePro

A spotty story and monotonous gameplay keep Dark Cloud from rising to new heights.

GamePen

Music is a mixed bag, ranging from tolerable to downright painful. Music should enhance the mood set by the game, or, at worst, should fade into the background.

PSX Nation

If you have the patience to endure all that dungeon crawling, and a bothersome camera, there's a very addicting game underneath. Don't expect a Final Fantasy caliber story-line, or Zelda-esque adventure gameplay.