Makai Kingdom

[Bjorn]

Makai Kingdom is the newest strategy game from Nippon Ichi.  I'm not going to spend a lot of time describing the mechanics of the game, just give my "play or not" impression.  Short summary of my review:  it's closer to Disgaea than Phantom Brave, and while not as good as Disgaea, is a ton of fun.

Bad things first.  The developers admitted that they rushed this game, and it shows.  I've come across two glitches myself so far (an undeleteable character that I can't make wishes with, and a game crash whenever I try to reincarnate into a Mimic, if you care), and there's others out there.

Even more glaring is that the menu interface, especially in the home base, just feels clumsy.  You can sort characters in the status menu, and then go to the equip menu and find them in a completely different order; there's no way to de-equip a character from the Wish menu (which is a necessity for several wishes); there's no way to look at a character and find out what facility or vehicle he's placed in; and the list goes on.  None of this is game-breaking, obviously, but it would clearly have benefitted from a month or two more work.

All that aside, the battles are lots of fun.  There a good variety of character classes and weapons, all of which have some merit (even if, like the Balloon, that merit is mostly humorous).  There's no time-limit as in Phantom Brave, and the facilities (you can summon at most three to a given map) act as a combination of mobile base panels and Geostones from Disgaea.  The turn-based system is back, which is for the best.

Unlike all previous NI games, you get no unique characters to start -- they're all post-game unlockables.  On top of that, there's no way to level up equipment in Makai Kingdom (unlike the Specialists of Disgaea or the Fusion of Phantom Brave).  The only way to improve characters is to either level them or Reincarnate them.  All told, this means it's impossible to power through the game using only a single uber-character.  Having a balanced party of at least eight characters is key.

Makai Kingdom also introduces vehicles, but at this point, I'm going to have to say: so what?  Vehicles seem pretty weak compared to the characters, and a bit hard to use.  I mostly use them to transport characters about the battle map -- which is admittedly nothing to be sneezed at.

Many of even the story maps are randomized.  This is a good move.  The random map generator is good, with random maps that are completeable and easy to navigate, and using them in story maps makes the inevitable New Game+ a little less repetitive.

Tone-wise, NI has gone back to the humor of Disgaea.  Makai Kingdom doesn't have the gut-busting hilarious moments that its spiritual prequel managed, but it's still a light-hearted, amusing game.  The voice-acting is good, both in Japanese and in English.

Makai Kingdom is far from being a perfect game, but it still manages to be an excellent play.  Most especially if you ever lamented the super-character syndrom of Disgaea, this game could very satisfactorily scratch your strategy itch.

[Dracos]

Sounds pretty good for the strategy nuts of the board. =)

I probably will continue to ignore this myself.  Not that it looked anything but good when I saw it but...tolerance for NIS has been exceeded.

Dracos

[Rift120]

NUts I was going to try my hand at reviewing this. Ah well you snooze you loose.

A few addendums to your review.

Interesting thing- it appears their is a incentive to replay and unlock alterante endings, in that in doing so you can wrap up some loose threads (Example PRam's motives are never really explained that well, I assume its covered in her ending tho...)

Random dungeons could have been done a lot better, in fact I think its the only area where Phantom brave surpasses Makai Kingdom. My eye would tiwtch so much less if I could alter a few of the variables in the random dungeons. OR at hte very least include a in dungeon save feature (do NOT attempt to go through a level 20+ dungeon without a diver and Gency tonic, unless you have several hours freetime)

Also Item/charcter limit is incredibly annoying (especially if your aiming ot get some XP score bonuses on a variety of charcters.) THere is asmall glitch that allows you to move a equipped weapon to a unequipped slot, whichthen reduces the amount so you can often squeeze in one or two more charcters onto a screen.

Storywise.. Better than Phantom brave, not as good as Disgaea. Really should have more story scenes to flesh out hte charcters a bit.

Oh yes... one last thing. you MUST listen to Mickey in his English VA, if you do not at least snicker at that VA I will be surprised

[Bjorn]

Random dungeons could have been done a lot better, in fact I think its the only area where Phantom brave surpasses Makai Kingdom. My eye would tiwtch so much less if I could alter a few of the variables in the random dungeons. OR at hte very least include a in dungeon save feature (do NOT attempt to go through a level 20+ dungeon without a diver and Gency tonic, unless you have several hours freetime)

Agreed.  Particularly frustrating is that Gency Tonics aren't exactly common.  You get a guaranteed three at the beginning of a play cycle, but beyond that, it's just luck of the draw and hoping it shows up in a bonus gauge.  Especially when you're just getting started on the power-leveling cycle, this can really limit the number of free dungeons you can go through.

Also, I'm not sure why they changed the name from Mr. Gency.

Also Item/charcter limit is incredibly annoying (especially if your aiming ot get some XP score bonuses on a variety of charcters.) THere is asmall glitch that allows you to move a equipped weapon to a unequipped slot, whichthen reduces the amount so you can often squeeze in one or two more charcters onto a screen.

I'm not sure what you're saying here -- equipped items don't count towards the on-screen character limit.  I actually think MK handled bonus EXP quite well.  You can only have a maximum of eight characters on screen (i.e., capable of taking action) at a time, but you can summon up to three facilities.  Those facilities can have up to eight characters a piece, and since they are in the facility, they don't count towards the eight-character limit -- but they will get bonus EXP.  That makes it possible to get bonus EXP on 32 characters per map.  The bonus EXP is generally pretty generous, too -- characters that I've levelled exclusively via bonus EXP seem to trail behind my active party by about 10% levels or so.

[Dracos]

We do allow for multiple reviews, Rift.

Just title it differently.

Dracos