Poll of the Day > dark cloud 2 is too hard

(+) Yeah! (+)

It needs an easy mode
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Ummm... There are multiple ways to make it easy. From cheats/glitches/exploits like the name ticket to things like mastering the ride pod and Monica's swords. Some simple stuff.

1) Don't be afraid to replay levels. You'll have to for medals anyways. So if your weapons are too weak don't feel bad.

2) Always use crystals at the LEAST! While anything can be broken down and turned into weapon material, doing so without using a crystal, coin, gem, or another weapon is just wasting points in the grand scheme of things. Pretty much the only reason to ever use something else is if you know you need JUST one more point of a stat to upgrade the weapon to a new form (and even then it's iffy).

3) When going through the levels bring a 'sacrificial weapon' with you. Something you don't mind losing of the same type of weapon that you want to level (like a Longsword if you wanna level Monica's swords or a Classic Gun if you want to level Max's Guns). Whenever you kill something quickly switch to this weapon before you collect the Abs to level up that weapon, then, when it's strong enough, synth it for your 'actual' weapon to use.

4) When you get one of the trapped chests, always pick 'exploding'. The other stuff sucks, but you can cure that or work through it. An exploded box is just gone.

5) Make sure to at least get the barrel guns for the Ridepod. Not only are they super strong for that point in the story but they'll hold their own for a while and are just very useful all around. You'll replace them later, sure, but they'll serve you well.

6) Learn Monica's Guard Strike. Normally Monica can absorb and return enemy elemental blasts (I forget if this is innate or learned at a certain point). However, the animation for firing off the blast still counts as a melee attack. So even if you have no charges if you use it and an enemy is in melee range they'll take damage as if Monica had just hit them with a sword attack. This is insanely useful when dealing with the more aggressive enemies since it cuts out a lot of the end lag and lets her get back into a guard very fast.

7) Remember to keep both Max and Monica up to date. It's okay to only focus on Max's guns or Monica's sword, but it's important to remember that you need both characters. Just pumping up one of them will only work until a sealed floor comes along, then you're stuck relying on your Ridepod as max or SooL as Monica (since hers tend to have lots of ridepods). You don't get enough medals to break all the seals and you'd want them for name tickets or other things anyways.

8) Don't forget to pick up reward chests. Those little chests you can find in the main city and the future (don't forget to check the sewer hideout) really add up, especially since they can contain Fruits of Eden and defense-boosting items in addition to things like gems.

9) Always carry around an antidote amulet. Poison is easily the most common status effect you'll find and the most dangerous. It's also the most easily negated if you remember to bring along even one of these things.

10) Don't neglect inventions. While quite a few are worthless/outdated, some of them are overpowered even without glitches.

11) Spheda. Do it. The chests tend to be really good.
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Unbridled9 posted...

4) When you get one of the trapped chests, always pick 'exploding'. The other stuff sucks, but you can cure that or work through it. An exploded box is just gone.

I always chose "weapon breaking," until I realized the only penalty for breaking a weapon was that it loses a small bit of experience. Now I choose exploding every time.

To add some of my own advice:

- A lot of enemies are kind of slow, so be sure to strafe to their backside to keep them from attacking you.

- You have a surprising amount of flexibility with melee combos. In addition to the two main combos that each character has, there's also a shorter one performed by attacking twice, then holding forward and attacking again. That last attack will be a knockdown.

- In addition to that, you can negate the small window of helplessness after performing a combo. You can block with R1 at any time while attacking, even in the middle of an attack. So you can do a quick three-hit knockdown combo, tap the block button to cancel your vulnerability period, and immediately start the three-hit combo again. Very effective against any opponent that actually can be knocked down, and most effective with Monica's short sword combo (and it just looks cool).

- With Spheda, different clubs have different specialties, but in my experience the Swan does great at both short and long range. In fact you might be better off sticking to one club just so you can learn that one inside and out.
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Chapter 2 is a difficulty spike. It mellows out but either are particularly take a hit at this point.

Use an FAQ. DC2 was made during the sour spot of RPGs where there is A LOT the game doesn't tell you or undermines.

i said that dark cloud 1 was impossble due to weapon breaking.
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I really wish they made Spheda easier. So many levels have it so that you're basically doing a crap-shoot and there's little point to do anything other than just wail it in the general direction and hope for the best. The Out of Bounds areas are just that punishing. Still worth it to do though; but even making it so that failing X times would just make the ball spawn close to the hole instead of at the opposite end of a stage that's basically entirely out-of-bounds would have been so nice.
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Unbridled9 posted...

I really wish they made Spheda easier. So many levels have it so that you're basically doing a crap-shoot and there's little point to do anything other than just wail it in the general direction and hope for the best. The Out of Bounds areas are just that punishing. Still worth it to do though; but even making it so that failing X times would just make the ball spawn close to the hole instead of at the opposite end of a stage that's basically entirely out-of-bounds would have been so nice.

that's the biggest grind imo. if fail at that golfing minigame you gotta re-do the whole level again.
every time it leads to happy gilmore rage mode.

3.96% platinum
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