Malik
(5/18/04)
Disgaea (PS2)
Atlus
When this great title first
appeared, I dismissed it as another overly long and involved
strategy game that probably lacked the content to back up the time
commitment. Why would I assume so much? Because FFTA was a long and
involved game with not a damned thing to back it up, and was highly
prized by the vocal majority. I guess I over-generalized, or
stereotyped, future strategy titles all because of FFTA (goes to
show just how much I hated that title).
In the end, however, I was
feeling way too deprived of good RPGs, and decided that I would
rather give Disgaea a shot than wait around for Tales of Symphonia.
That was probably my best decision regarding strategy RPGs in a long
time.
Story
In Disgaea, you play Laharl,
the price of the Netherworld and sole heir of the late Overlord. As
the game starts, one of your loyal vassals (at this time, you have a
whole one of those) is trying to wake you from a long
slumber...you've been sleeping for the last 2 years, and thus missed
the news of your father's demise. So, being a demon, you decide to
do what comes naturally to you...you must succeed the throne. At the
same time, through-out the Netherworld, the other higher ranked
demons are trying to secure the throne for themselves. So, you are
in for a massive power struggle.
Additionally, you have to try
to secure the funding for your bid at Overlord. This means, in
typical demon fashion, you need to loot and pillage. This comes in
the form of looting and raiding your oppositions' homes and
followers.
So, with these two basic
factors (money and power) on your mind, you start a quest to
establish yourself as the best and strongest of all demons. However,
with a little playing, some more key figures come into play in this
war. These include the angel armies of Celestia (this game's equivalent
to Heaven), the human armies of Earth, and some internal strife from
the typical backstabbing of demons. That's the story in a
nut-shell.
Something as important to the
story as the actual plot is the methods used to produce it. In
Disgaea, silliness is key. Demons are typecast as greedy,
backstabbing, monsters devoid of all compassion, with no end to
their self-centered thoughts. Meanwhile, Angels are seen as either
blinded by their anger applied to the annihilation of demons or
blinded from reality by their immense sense of love and compassion.
Last of all, the humans of Disgaea are seen as ignorant and power
hungry, without enough common sense to ensure their own survival.
Using these stereotypes, the plot is presented with a large level of
humor as we watch an angel join Laharl's army. This angel, Flonne,
gets talked (by herself) into joining Laharl to try to see if love
and compassion can be found in the supposedly love-less demons. The
banter between Laharl and Flonne is pure comedy on it's own; but
then we have characters like Mid-Boss (Laharl decides to rename one
of his first enemies Mid-Boss as a sign of what Lahalr thinks of his
opposition), the constantly re-appearing boss who just doesn't know
when to give up, who serves as the game's main running joke (besides
Flonne's attempts to bring the love and cuteness out of Laharl).
The final piece of comedy
relief comes from the Prinnies. A Prinny is a human soul that committed
a great sin in it's former life and is reborn in either Celestia or
the Netherworld as a stuffed penguin suit. These Prinnies are the
ultimate slacker vassals who will do almost no work and demand a
high level of salary as they constantly call you "dood".
When these Prinnies get involved in a conversation with Laharl and
Flonne, the comedy hits a new peak for video games.
Personally, one of my favorite
plot devices is what occurs between chapters. The basic game is
broken up into about a dozen (give or take...well, give...) chapters
called Episodes. After each episode ends, the game will give a
"preview" of what's on the next episode, as told (usually)
by Etna (that one loyal vassal I mentioned earlier) in pure anime
fashion. Etna will tell of things that (for the most part) simply
don't happen in the next episode, as she makes herself sound like a
typical anime heroine. Usually, these Next Episode intermissions
will pay homage to a particular anime series or genre...for example,
Etna will parody Mobile Suit Gundam, Pretty Sami, etc.
However, don't get Disgaea
wrong. When it needs to get serious, it will with
authority. The serious times are few and far between, but they
are as close to a tear jerker as I have ever seen in an RPG.
Game Play
Well, I will glance the major
mechanics of Disgaea. Pretty much, Disgaea plays just like Final
Fantasy Tactics when in battle. You are presented with a large map broken
into squares with various altitudes. You place your army onto
certain squares on your first round, as the enemies are initiated on
their starting squares. Then you move according to the move
abilities of each unit, and attack (up close, or with a range if you
have a gun/bow/spear), or cast a spell, or use a skill, or whatever,
and setup all your actions for a round. When you end the turn, all
your actions go off before the enemy units do the same thing.
Typical strategy RPG controls on a grid...just like FFT (and the
craptacular FFTA), Shining Force series, Arc the Lad series (except
on a grid, so not like AtL:TotS), Front Mission series, etc.
Now, where Disgaea proves
different than all of these is with a few innovative features. It's
these features that help to make the game very long for those who
want to obsess (for well over 300 hours of play), and can be used
briefly for those who want a shorter (50 or so hour) game.
The most noticeable innovation
in Disgaea is the "Geo Panels". When on a battle map,
sometimes some colored squares will be present. If a Geo Symbol is
located on a colored Geo Panel, then whatever affect the symbol
dictates will be in effect on all panels of that color. The symbols
are character sized, moveable units (but they don't move under their
own ability) that have HP, defense, and magic resistance (thus, they
can be destroyed). Multiple symbols can be in effect on the same
colored panels. Effects from the symbols include damage every round,
boosting the enemies stats (but not the player), increase experience
or HL (money) from slaying an enemy (or player, if that's your
thing), creating killer clones of player characters (exact
clones...very dangerous thing), random warping to another affecting
panel at the end of each round, boosting selected stats (like
offense, defense, etc), regeneration, and no lifting (read on...).
Also, if a symbol (the symbols have colors too) is on a panel of a
different color and is destroyed, all of the color of panel affected
by said symbol get changed to the symbols color, and damage is dealt
to every tile of the panel's original color (you can use this to
rack up some massive combos...especially if there are a few
different colors of symbols and panels on the current map). Plus,
some symbols are of no color, and if they are destroyed, all panels
of the color said symbol is currently on are destroyed (the panels
are removed for the rest of the battle). You are given additional
bonuses for removing all geo panels from a map by using colorless
symbols. Due to these panels and symbols, the maps can sometimes
take on a sort of puzzle like mechanism (if the enemies are all
boosted drastically, and the symbols are far from your start, how do
you go about beating to enemies without killing all your characters
due to the boosted enemies, in the process? The answer usually takes
a lot of careful planning).
Another fun feature is the
bonus system. If you deal many hits to one enemy at a single time
(for example, tell 5 people to attack before initiating the attack
with the execute or end turn commands), a bonus meter will build. As
the meter fills, you are given additional bonus items, HL, or experience
at the end of a battle. Using the geo panels with this yields some
rather impressive rewards (rare items/weapons, massive money gains,
massive exp, etc).
The last innovative feature
that really adds to the game play is the lifting system. Each
character (for the most part...certain rare ones can't) can
"lift" another character (be it enemy, friend, or geo
symbol...unless the no lifting geo symbol is in effect on the square
of the target to be lifted) and toss them a given amount of tiles.
This can be used to manipulate the geo symbols (including, if you
throw an enemy at a geo symbol or vice versa, the symbol will be
destroyed), strengthen enemies (if two enemies are stacked, their
levels add up...this can gain some extra experience, provided you
have the strength to kill the new uber-enemy), or strategically
position both friends and foes. Last of all, the Prinnies, if
thrown, act like grenades...so if you feel like sacrificing a
Prinnie or two, toss them at an enemy and enjoy the fireworks.
With all these cool features,
there has to be a sacrifice somewhere, right? Yes. The one this
about Disgaea that didn't ruin the game, but sure annoys the crap
out of me is the experience system. The only person who gets
experience in a battle (unless you get a bonus of experience at the
end of the battle) are those who deal the finishing blow to enemies.
So, if three people attack an certain enemy, then only the last one,
who dealt the death blow, will get experience for the fight. You get
no experience for magic (at least towards your level...you can
improve the range and area of effect of a spell by constantly using
it...but you don't get the stat boost of a level up unless it's an
offensive spell that dealt the finishing blow to an enemy) or skills
that don't actuall prove to be fatal. At least there's...
...the ability to use support
attacks is a nice feature to balance some of the experience problem.
If there are friendly people surrounding (no diagonals, just
directly surrounding) a character when they attack (only direct
attacks for this...no ranged ones), they might also get in on the
action (at no cost of actions for the current turn). The chance of
these extra players getting involved in a support attack depends on
what weapon they are using and what weapon the initiating attacker
is using. If the weapons match, or are at least not ranged, the odds
go up of a support attack. Best of all, if all of these players (up
to three support and one initiator per attack) are involved in the
supportive death blow, they all get experience. It doesn't quite
balance out the experience issue, but it does help, a little.
However, whatever you can do, so can the enemy. So, you must remember
to try to not allow any enemies to get into support attack
positions, or you can find your army decimated in no time.
A few last notes on the game
play; There is one town in this game that you can upgrade the shops
of by using the senate (keep reading...); You can have up to ten
players in a battle; you can upgrade your items by entering random
dungeons located inside each item (100 floors per random item
dungeon, with harder enemies per floor...as you kill certain NPCs
within an item, you can take their abilities from that item and put
it onto another item to create better weapons and armors...but this
takes a lot of time and effort); you can create hundreds of
followers using mana and a little help from the senate (read on...).
These extra players can be any base class to start, and as you play,
new classes can be unlocked (by meeting criteria along the lines of;
a level 10 brawler and a level 10 warrior of the same sex, someone
with archery skill at level 3, etc...a lot like FFT); and current
characters can be "transmigrated" to a new class, starting
over at level 1, but keeping some of their old skills and stats to
create uber-characters (this too takes a lot of time, so it's only
really useful for the obsessed Disgaea fan); last of all is the Dark
Senate...
Which is basically how you get
the world to progress as you progress the plot. Since there is only
one town in the game, in which you do all your purchasing, character
creation, healing, etc, you need some way to keep the merchants up
to date on the best stuff that is not too expensive for your wallet.
As you slay enemies, you earn a number of "mana" based on
the level of the monster you took down. Then you can use this mana
to either make a new character (the better the character starts, the
more it will cost you in mana) or try to pass something through the
senate. What sorts of things can you pass? You can make the shops
sell more expensive items, you can make uber-smart characters (the
idiots cost very little mana and require no permission to make, but
the geniuses require a lot of man and permission from a passing vote
in the senate), you can make cheaper items available from merchants
(did you make the items too expensive? This will correct that), you
can open hidden areas, or even try to force the senate to give you
money (way too little money for the effort).
To purpose a initiative in
senate is as easy as having the mana points (and saving first), but
to get it to pass is a whole different matter. You need to have
enough influence for the vote to pass by a number [yes votes - no
votes > mana cost for purposing the initiative]. Now the senators
will have a set opinion of your army as the session begins. Usually
half will hate you, and half will not give a shit either way. To
correct this attitude problem, you will need to give bribes (you
can't give money...rather you give items), which will influence the
opinions of the senators. As they start liking you, it will carry
over to future senate meetings. The only problem is that there are a
hundred or so senators and only about 20 or less senators per
session. Odds are, you will do ok with a little help from your
inventory (aka bribes), but every once in a while, you might pull
those 20 who really hate you. However, if your vote fails, and you
feel like the use of your mana was less than respectable, you have a
choice to make (besides re-loading the game). You can either give up
(and there goes your mana...why didn't you just reload your save?
That's why I said to save first...idiot), or you can try to pass the
initiative by force. To do this, you must defeat, in a fight, all
the senators who voted against you. Keep in mind, some senators will
be well above level 100 (yes, I said 100...you can get four digits
of levels in this game), and you can beat the game before you ever
hit three digits. Hence, you need to make friends with high level
senators (also, high levels senators who vote for you may influence
the lower levels to help your cause). However, if you do pass an
initiative by force, all those you defeated in combat will hate you
in the future. It's a double edged sword passing an initiative by
force. Also, if a friendly senator is hit by anything damaging
(including from an evil senator), they will join the fight against
you!
So, long story short...that's
the game play in a nut-shell. Overall, the mechanics are good, but
the experience reward to only the actual slayer of an opponent is
kinda lame (healers never level up that much without a lot of
coaching...way too much coaching), and the fact that there's only
one town sucks. However, the senate and supportive attacks can at
least make up for the flaws a little.
The only true issue that comes
back to haunt the player near the end of the game (around episodes
12 through 14) is the vast time needed to level up to continue the
game. I for one was able to survive almost all boss fights with 9/10
or better survival of my party without resorting to spending extra
time leveling up on the side. This, however, ended with the final
battle of episode 12. After that point, I had to extend my playing
time greatly to prepare for each upcoming battle as the difficulty
sky-rocketed. When taking in conjunction with how only the
person/people who deal the death blow to an enemy actually gain
experience...sigh...you should get the idea, unless your a FFX
loving ass.
Visuals
Not much to really talk about
here. While the graphics are nothing outstanding, they are
definitely do-able for this game style. The graphics are almost a
total throw back to FFT. The characters are slightly details, but
not all that much in comparison to a game like Arc the Lad:TotS (I
picked Arc 4 since it's the most graphically enhanced strategic RPG
that I've seen). However, while the graphics are somewhat
simplistic, they fit a strategic RPG perfectly. So, while many
people can say that the graphics are the weak point of Disgaea, I
would have to say the opposite. Considering how they fit the mood of
the game, I say bravo.
As for the cut scenes; they are
all presented in an almost comic style. During cut-scenes, a large
anime inspired visual of the talking character is shown with one
level of emotion in a static image. As the emotions change in the
dialogue, so does the single emotion being conveyed in the image.
Very manga. Personally, I think this method works far better than
FMV would have.
As for the effects in battle;
about the same as the rest of the visuals. Pretty simplistic, but it
does the job perfectly. The spells are presented much like how FFT
presented them, with a nice swirl or explosion type of effect with
some bright and shiny lights. Nothing all that revolutionary, but if
you're playing Disgaea, you are not looking for revolutionary;
you're looking for fun game play and intriguing (yet humorous)
story.
Audio
The audio is pretty much
typical of a strategy RPG. The music has a fantasy feel. It's not
all that exciting, but it doesn't need to be. You don't play a
strategy RPG for the audio aesthetics. However, the audio is a
definite step up from the music of FFT...a big step...
The voice acting, which is
found in everything from cut-scenes to in battle, is actually pretty
well done. The voices seem to fit the roles they were cast for.
Emotions are also conveyed rather well by the voice actors, which is
a lot better than something you'd get from...say...FFX.
As for the audio
effects...well, they are typical. I mean an explosion sounds like an
explosion, fire sounds like the whoosh of flames, a gun sounds like
a gun, blah, blah.
To summarize the audio and
visual at once; the job done was not cutting edge by any means, but
the requirement was not for something cutting edge. The purpose of
an RPG (not just a strategy one...this is something that Square has
forgotten) is to present a story and some game play mechanics that
best allow the player to interact with the world presented. The
visuals and audio are merely extras. If someone is going to put
enough emphasis on the aesthetics that the story and mechanics are
overshadowed, then that is the only flaw an RPG can have in terms of
aesthetics...well, that and having graphics so awful or misplaced
(like the bright shiny world of Spira in what is supposed to be an
apocalyptic FFX) that they distract from the plot. If that doesn't
make sense, then go back to your precious Tidus and leave the good
games to the true geeks.
Conclusion
Disgaea brought me back into a
genre that I thought SquareEnix had forever pushed me away from with
their pile of shit known as FFTA; the strategy RPG. Disgaea does
pretty much everything right from blending humor, fantasy (I freakin'
hate reality as a main concept of a RPG...I play a game to escape
reality...and I think I'm not alone in this), great game mechanics,
a high level of customization, and a good blending of a straight
forward (and relatively short at ~60 hours) experience with
something that can be dissected into a much larger entity (that one
can put more than 300 hours into) that is readily available for the
more diehard strategy geeks. Almost everything was done to a level
of perfection that is rarely seen in today's world of putting
eye-candy first and game play and plot second. Besides the flaw of
only giving experience to the person who actually kills the enemy, Disgaea
is as close to prefect as I have ever seen in a strategy RPG. So, I
would give Disgaea a 9.75/10
(if everyone got experience when they acted rather than only when
they killed, it would have been a 10...this game is that damned
good).
On a final note; for those
ready to put in the time and effort, the endings are some of the
best I've seen in a long time. The multiple endings are pretty
short, but they do in a matter of a few minutes what Square could
never do in dozens of minutes. Plus, you get the often
neglected new game+ feature (start over with your characters from
when you beat the game)...this is a major bonus for those who want
to go for a normal game the first time and then retry for the
hundreds of hours of hidden stuff after they get a breather.
Malik
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