Darkness Within: Chocobo's Dungeon

Little Wing Guy plays Darkness Within: Chocobo’s Dungeon an Rm2k3 game made by Dragol. Demo Version 1.

Why should you play this game?
- The game is full of character, jam packed with genuinely hilarious moments.
- Good mapping, animations and choices of music create a brilliant atmosphere.
- You are not riding a Chocobo. You do not have a Chocobo in your afro. You ARE one.

Why should you give it a miss?
- A sometimes dodgy translation by Stormwind.
- Relies heavily on RM2k3’s amazing hit detection.
- Unforgiving gameplay. Get hit once? Then back to the start you go!




Choco the Chocobo, and Mog the Moogle are the worlds cutest duo of Thieves…I mean, Treasure Hunters! On a mission to loot as much as they can and sleep with hookers (the latter is PROBABLY from a different game) on a remote haunted island. The energetic pair soon run into a young girl, Melody, who is left alone on the cursed island after a monster kidnaps all the other inhabitants. The pair vow to help their new friend while continuing to swipe anything shiny, like a pair of huggable kleptomaniacs. The demo is quite small, approximately thirty to forty minutes at best. Choco may be a silent protagonist, but, a great deal of personality and heart are portrayed effortlessly in the well sprited animations and emotion bubbles. Mog the loudmouth, acts as the voice for both of them and is the main troublemaker of the pair, getting Choco to do his dirty work. Melody is an adorable little girl who we are barely introduced to before the demo ends, she’ll probably turn out to be evil or something. The main focus is on Choco and Mog, who make a truly great clumsy pair of heroes, full of genuine and sweet exchanges. I instantly cared about both noble characters and they’re ignoble goal before I was even able to control them, I did not care that the cast was so small and featured almost no other NPCs.



Cutscenes aren’t static verbal sequences, characters often interact with each other without a great deal of dialogue. Cutscenes are well-thought out, they don’t drag on unnecessarily and are always a joy to watch. The game has a nice, innocent and somewhat slapstick sense of humour. A scene where Choco investigates a home which Melody is trying to hide in, was a personal highlight. I do believe Dragol and Stormwind both to be Russian, so the game does suffer from a half decent translation at times. Although it doesn’t spoil anything because anything incorrect is always very close to what needs to be said, my brain constantly picked up every strange or misspelt word unfortunately. If you go into this game expecting to see some dodgy spellings on occasion then it definitely shouldn‘t bug you.




Your primary objective (actually your only objective) is to explore the island while collecting coins and avoiding enemies. This isn’t an RPG and it’s a demo, so there isn’t a great deal to different items to find, or things interact with. You only get to control Choco, who traverses the world in two very different ways. Walking to destinations are handled in the regular way, similar to what you would find in most adventure games. My main worry is how repetitive this all could quickly become. If this was anything but a short game, I feel this would fall flat on it’s face before long as there is not enough to mix it up. I can only witness MONEY GOT!! Popping up so many times.

Although the objective is the same for both, dungeons are handled a bit differently, in the shape of two dimensional platforming. This game is apparently a fan game to the Chocobo Dungeon series, games which I have never player and know nothing about. I assume this game is attempting to emulate the gameplay found in the Chocobo Dungeon games. I hate to say it but the platforming sections literally ruin the entire experience, which is such a shame, as it takes up half the game. So, as you all know, Rm2k3 has it’s limitations, so much so, that I cannot really call these segments of the game platforming, more sidescrolling I suppose. Choco cannot jump, nor can he fall or take out his enemies. He may only move left, right, or up and down a ladder, if there is a break in the ladder or a platform under you, you must find a way around and walk to it. However, this could be and probably was an intentional decision, and to be honest none of that is what ruins it. Yes, you already know what I’m going to say. Hit detection, coupled with a very bad decision to teleport you back to the start of the level after a single hit. Most enemies are fast, requiring pin-point reactions, and because their sprites vary in size and RM2k3 doesn‘t not use pixel detection, it’s all too easy to misjudge when it is safe to progress. Sometimes you (and enemies) are obscured from view, either by plant life or accidentally by the in-game stats at the top left corner, I distinctly remember being killed by an enemy I could not see on at least one occasion. You can only take a total of three hits before it‘s back to the title screen, so thankfully health replenishment is never far away. When you do collect one of these scattered hearts, Choco is caught in an animation and he cannot move, it may only last a second; but you are still vulnerable to enemies, and I found that some hearts were cruelly placed along the set paths of enemies.



At times, albeit rarely, these sidescrolling sections are engaging and fun. The simple mechanics provides easily accessible gameplay. You have to time your moves carefully between different enemies with different movement patterns, debating whether getting some more coins or hearts are worth the more risky path, and there are multiple routes to reach your destination, as well as hidden areas. Ultimately, the idea behind it was interesting, but the execution is bad and when it comes down to it, it simply is the wrong program to attempt this type of gameplay. Though I haven’t the foggiest how you would do it, platforming with pictures instead of charasets is an alternative route. While it does technically work and is playable, it does not work or play WELL.

I will quickly add, that strangely, there currently is no use for the coins you pick up, nor is there a penalty if you choose not to collect any. There use is not at all explained even though they are apparently important. I imagine some sort of shop would be available later on, as there is an inventory screen if you press the escape key.

Okay! Now, on about the battle system…oh bloopers, it’s not an RPG.




Finally, when it comes to ambience, Dragol is in her element. Even from the very beginning, when all we have in our view is a small wooden rowing boat in the middle ocean, the creaking boat, the haunting music; the crashing waves and animated fog effects build an atmosphere that leaves a solid impression. This level of detail extends almost through the entire game. Levels are filled with simple, but nice touches such as: while wandering the forest, crows perched on tree branches follow your every move, but nothings overdone or annoying. The music that accompanies these cutscenes and levels are superb too. Some of the nicest tracks I’ve heard in an Rm2k3 game recently. A few of the tracks are, naturally, recognisable from Final Fantasy games (though they sound remixed or altered slightly I’m not sure) there’s plenty of them and most I had not heard before, and fit tremendously well with the areas or scenes they were present in.

The choice of graphics used and the mapping itself is also another high point. I’m not familiar with the graphics, they’re definitely rips, perhaps from more than one source (The houses in the village look like they could be from Minish Cap or a recent handheld Zelda game) but not from any games I’ve ever played. Regardless of their source, nothing clashes and the cute style suits the game perfectly.

The mapping is quite good. There isn’t anything that’s going to amaze you necessarily, but they are very well made, doing exactly what they need to do. There are only a few maps to explore, and they are all forest type areas, plus a small wooden village and it‘s interiors. The paths are very wide and clear giving a good sense of direction, tileset passibility is all set correctly with no problems to speak of. There’s a nice consistency too, as none of the graphics clash, despite having charasets from a few different sources. Areas also look natural enough, I think Dragol could still learn a few things about how to map natural areas, but that is mostly due to the long straight areas on some cliff edges. If I had to complain (this is a review, I have to) I do feel, with all the enemies moving about, plant-life, and ladders placed everywhere, that the side scrolling dungeons were slightly cluttered looking which did not help the difficulty of those areas.




The gameplay is repetitive in its nature and has a real major flaw in its sidescrolling sections, while the narrative is adorable, fresh, clever and just all around top-notch, you must not forget we‘re downloading to play and not to watch. The game at first seems to be a light-hearted adventure, not relying too much on coin collecting, instead; focusing on it’s easily digestible story and exploration, but the difficulty and sheer frustration of the sidescrolling sections suggests otherwise. I just simply wish the gameplay was different or fixed, if it was, I would recommend this in a heartbeat, as it is now, I can only recommend the first ten minutes.