Wise Owl Forest & Matataki Village Walkthrough - Dark Cloud
The second dungeon you're tasked with clearing in this game is the Wise Owl Forest; this dungeon is paired with the Matataki Village town. When you first arrive here there will be a scene with a kid watching you, he'll flee to his house during this scene and you'll have to follow when you regain control of Toan.
When you arrive at his treehouse you'll have to participate in a duel against him - if you lose the duel you'll have to exit this area and enter again to challenge him a second time. Once you defeat him you'll be able to choose a name or accept the default name, Goro. I always name him Yajirobe from DBZ because... I mean... am I the only one who sees the similarities?
Goro will drop the Hunter's Earring item which you'll need for an event later but other than that we're done here for the time being. The next place you'll want to visit in Matataki Village is the (currently dead) Treant; he's found through a cave entrance on the opposite end of the village from where the waterfall is.
Interact with the giant Treant and the Fairy King will show up and tell you a little bit of information about what needs to be done. Essentially we need to connect the river from the waterfall on the opposite side of the village to the Treant's area on this side. That's one of our first 2 goals as far as Atla goes in this area.
Now that we've got all of that out of the way it's time to head into the Wise Owl Forest and start dungeon grinding! For the most part this dungeon has the same pattern as the first one with a unique twist thrown in as far as progressing to the next floor goes. In this dungeon there are 3 items that can be used to progress to the next floor, the owl guarding the exit only wants one of them on each floor and which one he accepts is random.
Below are all of the items that are unique to this dungeon that you'll need to either progress through the dungeon or to access the Back Floors.
As usual when you reach Floor 9 of this dungeon you will hit a road block, in order to proceed you'll need to complete a few Events and also recruit Goro to your party. The first thing you need to do is return to Matataki Village and enter the Georama Menu; we need to rebuild Cacao's House and 100% it so that we can witness the event here. Cacao will reward you with an Odd Tone Flute which is the item we need.
The next thing we need to do is connect the River from the waterfall on one end of Matataki Village to the Treant Cave on the opposite end. Once you've connected the river you'll want to go inside of the Treant's Cave and speak with him using the Hunter's Earring that we got earlier from outside Goro's house. Speaking to the Treant will earn you the Serpent Sword which we'll need for one of the events on Floor 9.
Just like in Norune Village my advice to you is to construct all of the buildings you can right now in Georama Mode and place them in the world. Gather the Treasure Chests that spawn around them and then sell whatever items you don't need/use the ones you do need. The most important items are the Gourds and Fruit of Eden since they give us permanent upgrades for our characters.
One of the more important buildings to put together in Matataki Village is the Wise Owl Shop which is the vendor of this town. As with all vendors in this game you will have to 100% his shop in order to activate it and shop there - once you watch the Event his shop will be available to you.
Your reward for completing the Wise Owl's Shop is both access to his shop as well as the ability to purchase the Wise Owl Sword from him. Wise Owl Sword is one of the best weapons you can get for Toan in this game and I strongly recommend you buy it and use it. The Wise Owl Sword has an easy "Build Up" path that will take you straight to Chronicle Sword which is Toan's best ultimate weapon.
For more information on Toan's Ultimate Weapon follow the link provided, I have a write up for each character going into detail about their ultimate weapons. I recommend you read these pages somewhat early in the game so you have a build path planned out. Otherwise you'll waste time evolving your weapons down paths that don't lead to their best weapons.
When you are ready to unlock Goro and proceed through the rest of this dungeon return to Floor 9 and equip the Serpent Sword weapon. You'll be attacked by 2 Werewolf enemies when you arrive which will be your first Duel, this one is a piece of cake. Once they're defeated use the Odd Tone Flute at the Snake Den entrance and you'll initiate a Duel with the Killer Snake enemy.
If you'd like to see a video of this part of the game check out my Dark Cloud - How to Summon Snake Boss (Smells Like A Snake) Youtube Video.
Once you defeat the Killer Snake enemy you'll be rewarded with a Bone Pendant item which you'll have to return to Goro in Matataki Village. This item is what will allow you to recruit Goro, once you show it to him he'll join your party as your 2nd Ally. Also, the Serpent Sword will become a regular weapon at this point which you can use, break and evolve into something better.
I personally would recommend you use this item long enough to evolve it into a Drainseeker weapon for the Drain ability. Once you've evolved it into that weapon you can Status Break it and turn it into a SynthSphere then transfer this ability to a better weapon. Again, for more information about this stuff check out my Toan's Ultimate Weapon guide.
When you're ready to proceed with the rest of the Wise Owl Forest take Goro into the dungeon and use him to hit the stump-button with his hammer. This will open the door and allow you to proceed to the next floor. From now on you will start to encounter doors like this throughout dungeons where you'll have to switch to Goro and pound a button with a hammer to proceed.
Also, before proceeding with the rest of this dungeon I strongly recommend you take Goro back to the Divine Beast Cave and level his weapon up a bit. If you have a SynthSphere that you can put into his Mallet that's even better but for now he's very weak and you'll be required to use him for an upcoming floor.
Territory 12 Strategy: This is the floor where you are required to use Goro, my advice to you is every single time you get one of the items required to advance to the next floor you turn it into the owl to see if it's the one you need. You should try to spend as little time on this floor as possible. The hardest enemies to beat are going to be the Earth Diggers which I'd recommend you use Bombs to eliminate instead of trying to whack them with your hammer which is essentially a futile effort.
Wise Owl Forest has a total of 16 Territories that you must clear, the 17th Territory is the Boss Floor and you won't be able to proceed until you've completed more of the town. The items we need to reach the boss in Wise Owl Forest is the Moon Grass Seed as well as 1 Sun Dew. You can find the Sun Dew items in chests throughout the Wise Owl Forest, you may even have one on you already from all of our dungeon crawling.
As for the Moon Grass Seed, you'll get this item from 100% completing the Mushroom House in Matataki Village. When you 100% this house and do the Event here you'll be rewarded with the Moon Grass Seed. Once you have this item you'll want to plant it in Territory 17 to sprout a plant then you'll use Sun Dew on the plant to make it fully grow instantly. Doing this will give you access to the boss of this dungeon, Master Utan.
Before fighting Master Utan I recommend you spend some time leveling up either Goro or Xiao, depending on who you'd like to use for this fight. Also, achieving 100% completion in Matataki Village isn't such a bad idea either since that will get Goro the Battle Axe weapon when you talk with Treant. This weapon can be evolved into Goro's Ultimate Weapon which is called Inferno.
Of course you should also run around town gathering all of the chests as well. If you think you've already done this - you have to check again once you reach level 17 in the Wise Owl Forest. Another pattern you may want to remember is every time you reach the bottom floor of a dungeon the best chests will spawn in your town. All of the items that give you permanent increases to Defense on your characters is what I mean.
A list of the items you'll want to keep an eye out for and where to find them is below.
If you'd like to 100% Matataki Village right now I recommend you check out my Matataki Village 100% Town Layout Walkthrough for more information. All of the information you need about fulfilling the villager requests is found there along with any additional information you could possibly need.
For this upcoming boss fight there are technically 2 strategies you can use to defeat him - my strategy and the "correct strategy". My strategy involves using Xiao and cheesing the fight to make it insanely easy. The correct strategy requires you to use Goro and is significantly harder but it's obvious that's how the fight is meant to be won.
Wise Owl Forest Boss - Master Utan Strategy
As aforementioned there are 2 strategies for fighting Master Utan, you have the "correct" way and my way. The way this boss was designed is you're supposed to use Goro and run up to the boss and whack his toes with your hammer after which he will fall to the ground for a moment giving you a window of opportunity to deal more damage to him.
However, doing it the "correct" way like this will result in you taking a lot more damage than you need to. What I like to do for this boss is to use Xiao and to whittle down his health slowly but avoiding every single attack that he throws at me instead. All you need to do with Xiao is stay close enough to Master Utan to deal decent damage to him but not so far away that he will use his seed spit attack.
There is a solid "dead zone" where he will keep using his melee attacks which are easily avoided and never use his seed spit attack. If you'd like to see a video of exactly what I am talking about check out my Best Way To Beat Master Utan Youtube Video, I beat him without taking a single hit.
Once you've beaten Master Utan watch the scene then head through the now opened path to Brownboo Village. In Brownboo Village you'll get some more scenes during which you'll learn that our next destination is the town of Queens. When you regain control of Toan you'll be able to open the World Map and instantly fast travel to Queens.
The only other thing I would recommend you do at this time (if you haven't already) is to achieve 100% completion for Matataki Village. Your reward for completing all of the requests in Matataki is a Powerup Powder item and the Battle Axe for Goro.
Continue to Matataki Village 100% Map Completion
Continue to Queens & Shipwreck Walkthrough
Return to Dark Cloud Walkthrough Index