Dark Chronicle (2002) Online

This game promised more than 100 hours of gameplay, and if you try to complete the game in it's absolute entirety, including all the mini-games and all that stuff that comes with RPG's these days, then that is most certainly true. After 80 hours of playing I managed to get to the very last boss, but I just can't get past him (very annoying)!!

To completely explain the story would require far too much effort, seeing as there are so many twists and turns along the way - as with a lot of Japanese RPG's the basic premise explained on the box is quickly surpassed and the game goes in all sorts of directions. Let's just say that the story is very intriguing and executed with heartfelt emotion at times, although it did feel a little childish, even when some more mature ideas were being introduced! I think this has to do with the English dub of the dialogue - much like any Japanese film or anime, American dubs are almost always cheesy.

The game is broken up into various chapters, each with it's own little subplot within the greater picture. The gameplay itself comprises mostly of Sim City-style town building and exploration of randomised dungeons (ugh). Some of these dungeons were far too long and repetitive for my liking, although the town building (or "Georama") presented a neat little innovation into otherwise boring gameplay. Of course there are the mini games such as fishing and "Spheda", which is basically a golf game.

Another idea that I liked was the fact that it was not really you that levelled up, but your weapons. As your weapons level up they gain more strength and new abilities and they can transform into a seemingly endless number of weapons. The graphics were quite good, cel-animated style and very anime-esque.

Something that struck me about this game was that some characters are very well characterised, as it were. For example, some characters aren't just evil for the sake of being evil, but their evil nature is explained through backstory and the like. That said, I thought that the two leads didn't have very memorable personalities, even though they had very strong backstories and established motives for their behaviour.

Overall this is a decent game, with a truly interesting story and concept, but unfortunately goes down the random dungeon route and suffers from often bland and repetitive gameplay within these dungeons. Characterisation left a bit to be desired and the voice acting was strangely childish, even though I wouldn't class this as a game aimed directly at kids.

I think Final Fantasy X was a bit better.

There's nothing I hate more when people always tell me that the greatest JRPGs are one of those overrated franchises (I won't say which ones) when in fact they've never really played a lost gem like this before. When it comes down to the amount of things you can do in this game, the only word to describe it is, "endless".

It's played in real-time combat, much like hack and slash, where you can battle yourself through randomly generated dungeons and proceed to the next floors. Whenever you defeat enemies you will earn ABS (absorption points), which enables you to level up your weapons instead of your characters.

You also have a city-building aspect to the game, where you will be able to rebuild towns in order to restore the past to its former glory by meeting certain requirement goals for each objective.

I would say that I have spent over 100+ hours into this game and I'm still playing it to this day.

If there are any games you want to play in the JRPG genre you should definitely play this game, it has one of the best, if not the best, replay value in any games that I have ever played. So if you haven't played this game already, please do, and please tell Level-5 to make a sequel to it.