I Lost My Heart On Mount Gundor

I've still been playing a lot of Dark Cloud 2. The narrative is pretty odd, but catchy. It's like I had to throw something in the mouth of a baby sea dragon to keep it from eating me while brainwashed so that I could run to its home village with a translator and get medicine for its infected wound kind of catchy. It doesn't feel non sequitor when you play it - but when The Girl asks why I'm say, running around a huge flower shooting butterflies - the point comes out in force.

Still, the quirky story is part of the draw. It keeps you on its toes. Unfortunately, that story is currently on hold for me. I'm at the Fire Squall - a major event about three-fourths through the game - and the next cinematic won't load. I can't play around it - this is the only real thing to do. I perform the right task, the screen goes black and the music plays and ... the screen just stays black.

The disc is a rental and pretty beat up, so I"m guessing there's just an unfortunate scratch in just the wrong place. I've sent it back to get a new one, so hopefully my adventure is merely on hold instead of completely screwed. My college roommate once spent a week playing straight throug Ultima VIII, including the wildly insidious pixel-precise jumping puzzles, only to have the end game refuse to load for him. We still talk about it - because it's good to try and talk through the pain. I just don't want that to happen to me.


tagged: game, gaming