Disgaea

[Dracos]

Okay, this has been a long time in coming and has undergone many delays.  Disgaea is a quirky tactical strategy game developed by Nippon Ichi and released as one of Atlus' many throwaway games.  It is also the best RPG of 2003.  Disgaea is the very campy and cleverly produced tale of the young son of the overlord of hell, waking up after a two year long sleep to find his father dead, his rule forgotten, and his vassals sassy.  Needless to say, he's a bit angry over this, so decides to...conquer hell again with the help of his sassy, gossipy, and petulant vassal Etna (the rest are too lazy to help) and her army of prinnies.   From there...it proceeds down into MADNESS, D00D!

A madness that is genuinely enjoyable, witty, and quite fun.  The script writers of this game obviously had a good time and it filters down in their work, producing a smoothly flowing and clever script.  The characters are lively and entertaining throughout many playthroughs, most especially the prinnies, infamous for both exploding and going 'D00D!'  Prince Laharl is well voiced, both in English and Japanese and provides a nicely developed lead for the whole affair.  Actually, both the english and japanese voice acting is superb throughout the game and the ability to swap between the two at any time is amusing.  The story itself is delivered in a chapter format, with Etna adding zany commentary between the chapters of the style of an old school anime series announcer.  Almost all of them being entirely fantastical and false lead ins to the next chapter.

As graphics goes they aren't going to blow anyone away.  But who cares?  They are stunningly appropriate to the style of the tale, used cleverly throughout, and are pretty easy on the eyes.  The combination of sprites in the background and anime style art in the foreground work quite nicely to deliver the scenes as the characters talk while acting out events in both layers of the scene.

The music is 'good'.  Very good.  Get the OST good.  It does suffer in some regard from the fact that a complete playing of the game will run you well beyond tolerance levels for some of the tunes, but it's consistantly appropriate, easy on the ears, and powerful in context of the scenes.

But what really counts on this game is the gameplay.  Which is sloppy.  In a good way.  They built an intentionally loose and fast moving battle system.  It appears like it has a lot of sloppy stuff in it, but a careful examination shows that they were carefully planned out and built along the theme of the game.  Those who've played FFTactics often compare the battle system to it.  That's about as unfair as you can possibly be to the game.  For a tactical strategy game it's fast.  The ability to do all of the actions for the team simultaniously streamlines the battle system tremendously.  The lack of 'well, you can use this move in 46 turns' spells and skills keeps the gameplay turn by turn, fast and regular.  Positioning, weapon ranges, character classes, and the geo square system provide plenty of strategy to keep the strategy hound happy as well.  Overall, a very fun system that holds together really well considering that the average run of the game involves about 100 battles and the completist run of the game counts that in the several thousand range.

A concern that should be noted is the game is very linear.  For explorers, there just isn't much there to explore.  The castle is streamlined with very little excess and the other areas are battle spots.  Are there extras?  Yes, quite a few and usually pretty fun, but they are all represented by item world or gotten by just arguing with the dark congress.

And before I forget, those two mechanics require special note.  The item world is a random dungeon generator with the two-fold benefit of powering up the items it's built off of and getting new items.  It's almost entirely unnecessary for playing the game straight through, but adds a lot of extra things to do and is necessary if you want a chance at beating the ubergod enemies at the end of the secret areas.  It isn't entirely perfect, but usually quite good.  In thousands of item world levels I only encountered one that I could not navigate through with the group I currently had.  Overall, pretty good on that note for random dungeon creation.

Dark Congress is well...  Hell is run by democratic procedure!  To get stuff done you sometimes have to convince this ever growing squad of demons that what you want is how it shall go.  You want to reincarnate?  Got to get it approved.  Want better weapons?  Congress is there!  This is both an amusing satire upon government, a parody of religion in general, and a cunning game mechanic in it's own right.  Good stuff.

Anyhow, if you don't have this game, you are likely already out of luck.  As with Atlus' normal fare, they don't print nearly enough CDs.  But if you see it somewhere, pick it up.  It's a very fun game on many levels.

Dracos
"People who haven't played Disgaea make Flonne cry!"

[Anastasia]

I haven't had time to comment to this, but let me say two things:

1. YES.

2. Dooooood!

[Olvelsper]

Well, the review is kinda sparse, but it doesn't capture the main selling points of the game.

*loves his widdle psychotic characters, oh yes he does* :p

[Dracos]

Hey, I started with the characters!

Dracos

[Olvelsper]

Their awesomeness deserves five paragraphs at least!

[kpjam]

Long Live Jennifer!

[Dracos]

Heh.

Dracos