Disgaea 2: Cursed Addiction

[Bjorn]

If you've never played Disgaea, then my review is simple: go read the reviews for Disgaea. This is not a Nintendo-style sequel, taking a familiar world and characters in new and interesting directions.  This is the same game all over again, but with little fixes and additions to make the gameplay better.

Disgaea was a cult hit for two reasons: the over-the-top story, and the equally gonzo power-levelling gameplay.  The story of Disgaea 2 (D2) has been criticized by the usual troupe of Internet experts as being crappy compared to that of D1, but this isn't really fair.  D2 has a solid story, and it takes a prize for the best plot twist I have ever seen in a game -- despite being heavily foreshadowed, I completely did not see it coming.  While it's a little more serious, it still has the same twisted humour that D1 showed off so spectacularly.  And that's it, really: the story of D1 was unoriginal in its broad strokes (I mean, fundamentally it's the same plot as FF8!), but it was the out-of-the-blue zaniness that made it stand out.  But D2 follows a little too closely in its prequel's footsteps, and what was incredibly original and hence memorable in the first game becomes a return of fan favourites, and just a little ho-hum, in the second -- the Prism Rangers being a key illustration of this.

But if the story isn't all you could have hoped for, D2's gameplay will keep you from ever wanting to go back to D1.  You can turn off attack animations, there's more to do in the Item World, you can unlock the Dark World, which has revamped versions of each of the story maps with additional challenges, and when you get bored with that, you can unlock the Land of Carnage, which is the whole damn game over again, at two hundred times the enemy levels -- which means that power-levelling is good for more than just one-shotting Prinny Baal.  Healers get experience for healing, making it possible to level them up, and thieves are actually useful in combat now!  In fact, all the classes and equipment are better balanced, and it's a stark contrast to D1, where at any given point there was one class and one weapon that was so much disgustingly better than everything else that there was no reason to indulge in variety.

Some of the changes are less popular, though I actually mostly approve of them.  Class unlocking now requires that the required level be attained in the tier directly below the desired class.  This means you can no longer level up the tier 1 class, unlock all 6 tiers, and then transmigrate (thankfully renamed 'reincarnation', by the way, ending interminable "what does transmigrate" mean" topics) straight into the top-tier class.  A major hassle, but on the other hand, it's the first time I've ever used most the tier 2-5 classes.  Another major change is the introduction of Felonies -- each Felony put on your characters reduces the cost of equipment, makes it easier to pass Dark Assembly bills, and adds 1% to EXP gained.  Putting Felonies on a characters is a tedious procedure.  However, it makes it much harder to start power-levelling (making it more likely you won't be over-powered during the first run-through of the story), and Felonies can be permanently put on up to 9 characters at a time.  Unlike D1, then, the time when you stop using a party and start focussing on a single ubercharacter is greatly postponed.  One major pain in the ass, however, is that while the effect of Felonies caps at 300, the counter for Felonies maxes out at 99, which makes it an enormous pain in the ass to keep track of how many Felonies you actually have on a character.

The Dark Assembly is much improved, too.  Besides the ability to become a senator yourself (which, frankly, I haven't found to be very useful), the introduction of a party system makes it a lot easier to get benefits by bribing senators, which means it's actually possible to pass bills other than by force.  Which is good, because you're now only allowed a single character on the battleground if you do try to pass a bill by force.

So, the verdict?  Ask yourself this: do you still replay D1?  If so, you'll love D2.  But if you've gotten tired of the grind, then D2 will just be more of the same.

[Dracos]

Ow, you mentioned FF8.

Anyhow, sounds like what I heard.  A more balanced D1 with a tiny bit of improvement with a grind that I've no love for at the moment.  Heard most folks are enjoying it though.

Dracos

[Bjorn]

Ow, you mentioned FF8.

Just for you, really.

But honestly, the stories of both FF8 and D1 boil down to "boy betrayed at an early age learns to love again."  It's really easy to wave dismissively at stories and sneer about lack of originality, but it's implementation that matters.

Anyhow, sounds like what I heard.  A more balanced D1 with a tiny bit of improvement with a grind that I've no love for at the moment.  Heard most folks are enjoying it though.

Not surprising -- the people who jumped all over this are the people who loved the first game, were generally still playing it, and for whom those minor gameplay touches are actually a big deal (I can't tell you how great it is being able to turn off attack animations).

Speaking for myself, I was a bit dissapointed, though.  In the games that came out after D1, Nippon Ichi introduced a lot of really nifty elements.  I had hoped that they would take the best of them and bring them back to Disgaea in D2, but such was not to be.  On some level, it seems they're setting up two "streams" -- the no-grid games in PB and MK share a whole lot of similarities (I'm pretty sure PB's Remove system was meant to force you to develop a team of characters, instead of what it did, which was force everyone to the single same ubercharacter).

[Anastasia]

Glad to hear that it's not letting fans of Disgaea 1 down. I'm going to pick up Disgaea 2 this weekend or next, my fiancial situation finally improves!

[Dracos]

Ow, you mentioned FF8.

Just for you, really.

But honestly, the stories of both FF8 and D1 boil down to "boy betrayed at an early age learns to love again."  It's really easy to wave dismissively at stories and sneer about lack of originality, but it's implementation that matters.

Entirely fair.  As someone who studies games I'm hardly going to disagree with ye on that point.  Indeed, there are entire series that work on that principle of telling the same traditional story iteration after iteration (Zelda).  One might say at points that many good stories resonate with people because they've heard them before.

That said, hatin' on the FF8 Commencing.  With a capital C.

[thepanda]

Broken.

Early on, thieves are sooooo broken. I ended up beating the game much earlier than I should have because of how broken my party was with ONE thief.

Steal conciousness + steal health combined with level stacking = humerously broken thief. Considering I never had any use for thieves in the first game I find it hilarous! :o

Also, Tardo is awesome.

[Bjorn]

Broken.

Early on, thieves are sooooo broken. I ended up beating the game much earlier than I should have because of how broken my party was with ONE thief.

Steal conciousness + steal health combined with level stacking = humerously broken thief. Considering I never had any use for thieves in the first game I find it hilarous! :o

Status effects are a lot stronger in this game, it has to be said.  And a really nice feature is that the AI isn't shy at all about using them on you, either -- I've grown to really hate seeing thieves or kunoichi on the map, because I know that I'll end up with some sort of status effect on me.

Having said that, though, while thieves are a lot more useful than they were, they can still be frustrating in the same way they were in Disgaea.  That is: their primary function (stealing) depends first and foremost on their level, and it's not really that easy to level them up.  The thief doesn't gain experience for using her status attacks (rather, I think she gains some, but it's a tiny pittance compared to actually killing the target), and you don't gain anything for killing someone via poison.

The situation is a lot better than in the first game, of course.  The status attacks give you a reason to bring your thief out, and now the thief is just not one of the best fighters, as opposed to the utter and complete crap they were previously.

Also, Tardo is awesome.

A lot of people are saying that -- his tanking abilities, combined with his ability to self-buff, apparently make him one of the best solo characters you can find.  In fact, it seems like monsters are all-round much more useful in this game than they were in Disgaea -- probably mostly because neither the Yoshitsuna or the Divine Majin is as disgustingly overpowered.  I'm not making use of Tardo personally, though, as you can only give one monster at a time felonies, and Tink's use (really high MV) is great for the item world, and much harder to match with a generic character.

[Anastasia]

I'll start with Panda's point first then get to the review proper.

Status effects are a lot stronger in this game, it has to be said. And a really nice feature is that the AI isn't shy at all about using them on you, either -- I've grown to really hate seeing thieves or kunoichi on the map, because I know that I'll end up with some sort of status effect on me.

I'm of two minds regarding status effects now. On one hand, it's nice that they're more applicable, useful and relevant. Later in Disgaea 1 they failed to matter in the least - Divine Majins and most high tier classes had effective status immunity. On the other hand? There doesn't seem to be a discrimination based on the level of the attacker and the target. It gets tiresome and absurd to see a super high level PC get poisoned or slept by a low level thief. I find this stupid and bothersome - the entire focus of Disgaea is levels and equipment, and something that lamely sidesteps it offends me.

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[Rift120]

Well finally after finishing ACF I got to playing it so my two cents.

THe story is alright, but could have been better. It makes me chuckle, whereas DIsgaea 1 had me laughing out loud. Still I'm in the early stages (having been distratced byt he ITem world ^^;) so the jury's still out.

Still I must say Adell is a big disapointment... he just seems to lack the same sort of Style Midboss had...

As to the game mechanics, well its still fun and addicting... andeats up time like you wouldn't believe! I do find the charcters being better balanced as well... Even my Healer and Theif, unmodified, do decent damage with a top of hte line Bow.

THe addition of chests with miscelanious goodies, add variation and anice little bit of strategy (DO I go for the prize, or take advantage of the fact that enemies over their will be distracted destroying it for a round or two?)

The item world is pretty much all pluses, aside from the occasional camera trouble in floors with lots of hills. the extreme overhead helps, but since its still slightly angled, its not perfect but usually servicble. Still why do you have to zoom back in to execute a command, or end a turn? Especially since you can move charcters easily int he zoomed out area.

THe addition of the 'mystery gates' and the occasional 'innocent town' are wonderful additions. especially for long hauls through 60+ floors!  after 10 floors, seeing the innocent town pop up and being able to use a hospital... to completely recharge your forces can be a godsend if you want tot ackle the next 10 floors.

Although I am a bit distrubed that if you talk to the shopkeepers to often, int he mystery gates, they attack you... *Did it in my second item world by accident... here I am,s trongest guy level 15... facing off against 5 lvl 1000+ shopkeepers. Thank god the Mr. Gency exit worked!*

Best of all is that the 'impossible' ITem floors seem to have vanished. IN disgaea 1 I had several encounters with a item floor that had an enemy that was impossible ot reach... and since you had to kill all enemies to advance.... Ugh...