From the official Japanese character collection book which I recently had the joy of waiting two months for. From left to right, Laharl, Flonne, Etna and Prinnies (the little penguin-looking things)
Ah, yes, another Atlus game. I swear, Atlus has some sort of secret conspiracy to make my life miserable. Not only did I have to send over the internet for this title, a mere two weeks after I got it did the stores ALL restock with it. Atlus is playing a headgame with me, man... It teases and tempts me with game guides! Game guides I'll have to wait at least three weeks to order over the internet for. It... Oh. Guess I should talk about the game. English names will be used, but I will list the Japanese names I'm aware of in parentheses.
Just looking at the art, you can tell the game won't be uber serious. The prince of the Netherworld (Makai), a young demon by the name of Laharl (Laharu), awakens from a two year nap to find his father dead, and that he must now become Overlord in his father's place. The story follows his adventures in becoming and maintaining this illustrious title, as well as his acceptance and feeling of the concept of love.
I haven't seen an RPG this funny in quite awhile. The characters are... colorful at best, all out weird at worst. You can't help but fall in love with the zaniness and quirky attitude of the game. But while it's all in good fun, the plotline goes beyond simple jokes and strange situations. One that will make you stand back and go "OooOOooOOoo!"
Standard tactic RPG. You move characters on the field on squares like a living chessboard and depending on your position you can use special attacks, spells, etc. A few of the features I'm quite fond of however.
In this game, you create your own army. This alone keeps the game flowing smoothly. No two games will ever be alike. Different classes are available, and sometimes new classes open if you reach a certain level with one class (I.E., the "Samurai" class opens if you have a female of the "Brawler" class and a female of the "Fighter" class over level ten), or they can open a higher class in the same field (Once a Cleric reaches level five, the class "Priest" opens in the respective healer's class), or by conditions of weapons mastery ("Archer" becomes available after a character masters Bow to level three). You can even make monsters to fight with you, though they cannot use weapons.
Each character (except monsters) has a weapons mastery chart for each kind of weapon, and a rating for how well they can use said weapon. Some classes are better with certain weapons than others. For instance, the "samurai" class is good with swords and axes, but the "healers" class is good with staves. Sometimes, new attacks and/or spells become available depending on the level of weapon mastery.
An added feature to this re-make of the original Disgaea is the "Combo Attack" chain. You can get up for four people in a free-for-all brawl attack. This is accomplished by setting characters next to one another, then attacking with physical attacks. A rating appears with the percentage of possible combos and bam. I've found that they are often prone to doing less damage than individually, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
During character creation, you use "Mana" which you accumulate from killing enemies. The creator becomes the "Master" of the created character, and the new character is the "Student". Sometimes when students gain levels, the master receives a small percentage of the student's growth. This actually is quite a bit more useful than it sounds. My Laharl was like a tank because he had about seven students under him to pad his stats.
And now for the downfall of the game: You will spend a lot of time training. And I mean a lot. The more characters you make, the longer you will spend on this game. Battles can last anywhere from a couple rounds to a hundred, and depending on how fast the player is, this can be a long time. Most of this game will be spent in training. When I re-beat the game for the multiple endings, it took me less than eight hours to zip through the storyline, and most of that was characters talking. Of course, you can skip the characters talking, but some of the dialogue is priceless.
The music isn't too intrusive to the gameplay, and it does rather well to work with conversational parts. The cover says the game features Tsunami Bomb's "The Invasion from Within", but it only plays in one stage, and even then it's a one-time deal, which is kind of disappointing. Overall, the music isn't bad. It's even a little great in some parts. But let's face it: you might walk away humming some of the more catchy tunes, but it's not something you'd obsess over.
This is perhaps one of the best voice-acting jobs I've heard in quite awhile. The voice actor for Laharl is incredibly on, and even squeaks like you'd imagine a demon going through puberty would. Brave Fencer Musashi fans will recognize the voice of Flonne (Flon). Etna and Mid-boss/Vyers (Chuu-boss) are particularly well done as well.
Actual battles consist of sprite animation, but it's still rather fun (They have the best expressions!). The conversational parts of the storyline usually use actual animated expressions to convey the character's emotion during speech, except when it hinders the motion of the sprites on the screen. The art is rather good, and the style is almost cutesy without being so. Well, I guess they ARE young teenage demons, so they're bound to look sort of cute.
An example of their "SD" art. While the image at the top of the page is more common of the art in the game, the art book is filled with this rather unique style of art. Very highly recommended, even if you're a casual Disgaea fan or just like the style. The overall style appears to be semi-SD, or Super Deformed, though in this picture it's just plain Super Deformed. It also shows some of the classes of characters you can make for your budding army.
Ah, yes, I walked away from this title with a sense of pride and a warm fuzzy feeling in my gut. Well, then again, I WAS eating some iffy food from a week ago, so maybe...
The characters are memorable, as is the storyline. The art is comical without being overly adorable, and the storyline is serious yet whimsical. Sound a bit like an oxymoron? No description I give this game will really do it justice anyway. You see, you don't PLAY Disgaea. You EXPERIENCE it.
All names, images and logos are trademarked icons belonging to Atlus. Atlus is currently making me atone for my sins by making my life miserable and hates me. Oh why?! Why do you torture me so, Atlus!? The art displayed here is from the "Disgaea Character Collection", which I think was published by Playstation(?)