20 PS2 Games That Prove It's The Best Console Ever
8. Dark Cloud
Dark Cloud was a third-person action RPG featuring procedurally-generated dungeons and city-building. On the surface, it had a pretty simple premise - an evil genie is awakened and decides to destroy the world, and it comes down to a sole survivor to rebuild it. But beneath this simple premise lay a depth of gameplay that took a good few hours to get to grips with.
Throughout the game the player can recruit multiple new party members, each with their own unique weapons and fighting styles. Each character, each weapon type, each elemental attribute has its own strengths and weaknesses and these will need to be applied to every enemy that you encounter. Some dungeon floors have powerful enemies and tricky traps and limitations, forcing you to constantly adapt your play-style and build up each party member as strong as possible.
After exploring the dungeons and recovering the precious "Atla" - neatly packaged spheres containing pieces of the broken world - you can proceed to rebuild each town you come across by playing each building, tree, river, and citizen wherever you like, although speaking to each inhabitant reveals that they do have a preferred spot where they would like their house to be.
The combat may have been slightly repetitive but the weapon upgrading was exciting - a true completionist gem that's now available on PS4!