Post by ravenwithoutcause on Nov 26, 2004 19:03:06 GMT -5
Story
A great set up, you wake up after a two year slumber, your father's dead and everyone has forgotten about you. So as prince Laharl, your mission is to secure your rights as the heir to the throne. And since the kingdom we're talking about here is the Netherworld (like Halloweentown in Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" with demons instead of people) this is quite a daunting task, demons don't really have an ethics code and so most of your tribulations will come from underhanded schemes that you or your enemy devise. Laharl is a bit one dimensional but I got a great kick out of leveling the hell out of him and making him almost omnipotent. The story progresses nicely, most of the speech is done while you watch a puppet show. Each of the main characters have about 4 different poses for angry, sad, confused, embarrassed, etc. These pictures will flash over the dialog box when the characters are talking or listening to one another. At other times you will watch the in-game engine animate the characters actions. While it's definitely the road less traveled when it comes to games it does bring to mind the great Final Fantasy Tactics which also used the in-game engine, the puppet show, however, is a really great way to watch the game unfold, truly original. In a word Disgaea is quirky. There's a great humor to this game that can't really be conveyed in print. Humor is what makes Disgaea really stand out. Now granted it is the wacky Japanese Anime style of humor that some of you might not get or like but for those that do it's really well done. And that's something we've never seen in games before, at least I haven't. It says here that humor is what made Grand Theft Auto 3 the great game it was - the best of the series. It was more of a social satire in GTA3, but the point is that it was damn funny, an added emotion to the experience that made the game so great. The same can be said of Disgaea. The one thing that Disgaea really lacks is a vile antagonist. It's really more the story of Laharl's journey to become the overlord, protecting his land and the people he meets along the way. This is fine, but without a strong villain that we can all look forward to beating at the end Disgaea has to fall back on its humor to keep us coming back for more. One other problem: there are quite a few different endings you can receive in Disgaea, but the "normal" one, which is probably the one most frequently seen by players, is very weak. The first ending I saw while playing this game was uncharacteristically somber and it also had no type of resolution for the intrigue involving certain characters who were observing your movements throughout the game. These people obviously had something going on here but it's never addressed in the "normal" ending. It wasn't open ended it just felt incomplete.
Gameplay
Fun, fun, fun! It's amazing how much fun Disgaea makes turn-based, strategy play. These are the games that give you a (normally) square faux-3D board and allow you to move your characters about the map and using different attacks or tactics. As stated earlier it's like chess but your pieces move differently and to capture a piece you must deplete all of its health points. But there's more! Characters that can't get to a square adjacent from an enemy can instead go adjacent to an attacking ally and join in a combo attack. You can do this with up to three characters giving you a four character combo attack that can really look cool. You can also lift and throw your own characters as well as your enemies around the board. This adds another tactical layer to the game. If you need to cover the length of the board in a single turn you can create a ladder of characters. The first character gets picked up by other and then that character gets picked up by the next one and so on until you have a human ladder reaching up to the sky. Then you throw the ladder a few squares per each character until all of your characters' feet are back on the ground. Add in special moves that allow for incredible damage to multiple enemies and enjoy beating the hell out of your opposition.
Presentation
Disgaea is visually pleasing, like a mix of the afore mentioned "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and the "Tenchi" animes. The characters are incredibly cute, but devilish, which is perfect since they are demon children. I submit to you this is the reason that you will immediately be drawn to the game.
Like any other RPG you will have access to many menus that will allow you to check your characters' status and equipment, rearrange their order and many other things. The menus are pretty straightforward and easy to navigate but there's no help determining what all those different statistics are good for, so you can be left in the dark at times. The voice acting is the best of this year; yes, I liked it better than even KoTOR's which was very professional but lacked a certain spark - save the homicidal droid - that made any of those characters memorable. Disgaea has a great cast, doing voices for several memorable characters and they're not even credited!!! I really do think it's quite horrible how little recognition the people get for the English versions of these games. The only bad thing about the dialog is that you have to hit "X" after every line of dialog. Why? It gets damn annoying and can break up the flow of the scene. This game is huge. Your first run through should take you anywhere from 38 to 55 hours. And that's really just going through the linear story arc. There are other features such as the Dark Assembly (the Demon congress, you can pass different resolutions such as to have the store carry more expensive and therefore better items, or to open optional levels for a few more hours of fun), the Item World (there's a whole world inside of every item with special characters that boost certain stats, by traveling into the item world you can make that particular item stronger and subjugate the special characters so you can relocate them to boost a different item if you wish), and dozens of unlockable character classes you can get into if you so choose. With at least 8 different endings one could spend over 100 hours on Disgaea. The game is so well made that there's a good likelihood that you will. This is a great game with a whole lot to offer. Its humor and visual style will grab and take hold of you as you take this wild ride across the Netherworld. It may be a bit too repetitive at times - the bad guy is sending more minions at you to cover his escape. And this happens in almost every chapter. Also the "normal" ending is very unfulfilling. But in the end the good far out weighs the bad. Disgaea is a wonderfully quirky game with more content then just about any other game I can think of.
A great set up, you wake up after a two year slumber, your father's dead and everyone has forgotten about you. So as prince Laharl, your mission is to secure your rights as the heir to the throne. And since the kingdom we're talking about here is the Netherworld (like Halloweentown in Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" with demons instead of people) this is quite a daunting task, demons don't really have an ethics code and so most of your tribulations will come from underhanded schemes that you or your enemy devise. Laharl is a bit one dimensional but I got a great kick out of leveling the hell out of him and making him almost omnipotent. The story progresses nicely, most of the speech is done while you watch a puppet show. Each of the main characters have about 4 different poses for angry, sad, confused, embarrassed, etc. These pictures will flash over the dialog box when the characters are talking or listening to one another. At other times you will watch the in-game engine animate the characters actions. While it's definitely the road less traveled when it comes to games it does bring to mind the great Final Fantasy Tactics which also used the in-game engine, the puppet show, however, is a really great way to watch the game unfold, truly original. In a word Disgaea is quirky. There's a great humor to this game that can't really be conveyed in print. Humor is what makes Disgaea really stand out. Now granted it is the wacky Japanese Anime style of humor that some of you might not get or like but for those that do it's really well done. And that's something we've never seen in games before, at least I haven't. It says here that humor is what made Grand Theft Auto 3 the great game it was - the best of the series. It was more of a social satire in GTA3, but the point is that it was damn funny, an added emotion to the experience that made the game so great. The same can be said of Disgaea. The one thing that Disgaea really lacks is a vile antagonist. It's really more the story of Laharl's journey to become the overlord, protecting his land and the people he meets along the way. This is fine, but without a strong villain that we can all look forward to beating at the end Disgaea has to fall back on its humor to keep us coming back for more. One other problem: there are quite a few different endings you can receive in Disgaea, but the "normal" one, which is probably the one most frequently seen by players, is very weak. The first ending I saw while playing this game was uncharacteristically somber and it also had no type of resolution for the intrigue involving certain characters who were observing your movements throughout the game. These people obviously had something going on here but it's never addressed in the "normal" ending. It wasn't open ended it just felt incomplete.
Gameplay
Fun, fun, fun! It's amazing how much fun Disgaea makes turn-based, strategy play. These are the games that give you a (normally) square faux-3D board and allow you to move your characters about the map and using different attacks or tactics. As stated earlier it's like chess but your pieces move differently and to capture a piece you must deplete all of its health points. But there's more! Characters that can't get to a square adjacent from an enemy can instead go adjacent to an attacking ally and join in a combo attack. You can do this with up to three characters giving you a four character combo attack that can really look cool. You can also lift and throw your own characters as well as your enemies around the board. This adds another tactical layer to the game. If you need to cover the length of the board in a single turn you can create a ladder of characters. The first character gets picked up by other and then that character gets picked up by the next one and so on until you have a human ladder reaching up to the sky. Then you throw the ladder a few squares per each character until all of your characters' feet are back on the ground. Add in special moves that allow for incredible damage to multiple enemies and enjoy beating the hell out of your opposition.
Presentation
Disgaea is visually pleasing, like a mix of the afore mentioned "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and the "Tenchi" animes. The characters are incredibly cute, but devilish, which is perfect since they are demon children. I submit to you this is the reason that you will immediately be drawn to the game.
Like any other RPG you will have access to many menus that will allow you to check your characters' status and equipment, rearrange their order and many other things. The menus are pretty straightforward and easy to navigate but there's no help determining what all those different statistics are good for, so you can be left in the dark at times. The voice acting is the best of this year; yes, I liked it better than even KoTOR's which was very professional but lacked a certain spark - save the homicidal droid - that made any of those characters memorable. Disgaea has a great cast, doing voices for several memorable characters and they're not even credited!!! I really do think it's quite horrible how little recognition the people get for the English versions of these games. The only bad thing about the dialog is that you have to hit "X" after every line of dialog. Why? It gets damn annoying and can break up the flow of the scene. This game is huge. Your first run through should take you anywhere from 38 to 55 hours. And that's really just going through the linear story arc. There are other features such as the Dark Assembly (the Demon congress, you can pass different resolutions such as to have the store carry more expensive and therefore better items, or to open optional levels for a few more hours of fun), the Item World (there's a whole world inside of every item with special characters that boost certain stats, by traveling into the item world you can make that particular item stronger and subjugate the special characters so you can relocate them to boost a different item if you wish), and dozens of unlockable character classes you can get into if you so choose. With at least 8 different endings one could spend over 100 hours on Disgaea. The game is so well made that there's a good likelihood that you will. This is a great game with a whole lot to offer. Its humor and visual style will grab and take hold of you as you take this wild ride across the Netherworld. It may be a bit too repetitive at times - the bad guy is sending more minions at you to cover his escape. And this happens in almost every chapter. Also the "normal" ending is very unfulfilling. But in the end the good far out weighs the bad. Disgaea is a wonderfully quirky game with more content then just about any other game I can think of.
