Dark Chronicle

This was the first ever PS2 game I bought. I was hunting for 'Da Perfect Game' and Max and Monica looked so cutesy that I bought it straight away :) Its about Max, a boy from a hick sua-pa town who teams up with Monica, a chik from the future to save the world!!! (yay i managed to condense it into one sentence)

I won't elaborate on the storyline because there are too many twists, and the'bad guy' turns out to be the pawn of another 'bad guy' who turns out to be the pawn of another 'bad guy'. You get the idea.

There are many elements to the game. The largest is fighting (dungeon system). there are 7 levels (plus one hidden level) and the # of dungeons per level increases exponentially. You get to fight many different enemies, starting with frogs,rats, bats and clowns in the first dungeon and progressing to other more complicated enemies such as fairies, poisonous flowers, elephants, evil gnomes, fairies, card guards (think aliceinwonderland), pirate skeletons, whatever. Too many.

By the end though, you recognise that the monsters are (physically and attack-type wise) similar to those in other levels, the only difference being the amount of damage they can inflict.

-the story - is very cheezy. very typical of a overdramatic anime. 'dead' mother and all. But I'm a cynic. I skip over the story parts :P

-the upgradingofweapons system - will be one of your main focuses. I believe I spend more effort in collecting ABS and upgrading my weapons than I did breezing thru the levels. I wont talk too much a bout it - its caused me heartache at times. My advice to you is to print off a walkthrough and follow the recipes.

-GEORAMA - is super simplified simcity. Ok not even that. You need to build up the area (think houses, trees, rivers etc whatever) according to the requirements. You may also need to place people in those houses also according to requirements. Or paint a house a specific colour. Or put a lamp here or there. Or restore something to its original position. Anyway, this is an element I didn't expect to exist in this game and it was an interesting side twist.

-Recruiting - you can recruit peple along your journey. Won't talk too much as it's not too hard to do. The only reaaaaaaally hard one was Sheriff. I spent a couple of hours on recruiting him okay. Running that route in less than two minutes sipeh hard! The rest are quite easy if you have a walkthrough.-RideyPodey - an element of the game I haven't really explored. BUt interesting lah. Only I got lazy at having to keep building him up. :)

-Bosses - are normally quite easy. Even at the highest levels. IN fact you should make a HUGE effort to get a supernova as early as you can and blast everyone to smithereens. ANd level up MAx's Supernova to its maximum status. Then you'll find every single boss fight superduper easy.

-Fishing - yesssssss there is fishing too! you can fish with bait. I admit with shame that I am not a fishy person, so I wasn't too bothered about educating myself about fishing. It is very complex if you want to win the fishing contest and get huge fishes consistently. I just tend to chuk in whatever bait in whatever water :) THe walkthroughs (some of them) will tell you to fish *here* at *this time* using *this bait* using *this rod*. I just can't be bothered.

-Fish racing - is where you reaer fish, feed them, mate them into a supergood fiishyyy and then race them. Very cool! ALso have various formulas (eg feed fish this, his strength or whatever improve) but I tend to just feed whatever till it grow big big then mate and turn into a bigger fish.

Hahahaha..... ALL in all I love this game. I managed to thump the dark genie on first try with Monica! I didn't even have to use max and his supernova(maxed). Yes Pun. Again. :)