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For starters, the main character in the game is a teenage demon by the name of Laharl whose sidekick Edna is a young demoness who seems to be constantly ridiculing Laharl and maybe even plotting behind his back. Laharl is clueless and behaves the way he thinks demon lords should behave, Edna and the rest of his courtiers barely give him his due respect and yet they still follow him for some reason. Weird and unusual cast of characters for an rpg.
With Disgaea being an rpg in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle Tactics, there will be an inordinate amount of jobs you as a player can recruit to join your team. Jobs that can be recruited from can range from stereotypical fantasy fare like wizard, mage, cleric to more out there jobs like being a gunslinger of some type. There is even a a unit character one can recruit that is nothing but demonic servants in the shape of penguins that are called Prinnies and who always say "dood!'.
The levelling system in Disgaea is very extensive. If one had the time and inclination to do so, they can level up every character in their team into the 10000+ level. The same goes for the levels of their items. The good thing about Disgaea is that there are certain levels --- I will leave it up to the new players to figure out which --- that helps immensely in powerleveling a team member in the tens of thousands.
The story for Disgaea is funny and doesn't make sense at times, but I think that may have been a plan of the developers from the beginning. But in the end, the story and its many subplots meld well together and everything starts to make sense. The dialogue ranges from downright funny, some sexual innuendoes thats either very mature or juvenile, and to very poignant and sad. I enjoy the option of keeping the voice-over in its original Japanese voices and using English subtitles. Or one can just go straigh to English voice-overs. More rpg games should make good use of this option. It'll save alot of gamers from having to listen to very bad English dubbing.
The graphics is very simple and some may say dated for a PS2 game. It uses anime-style 2d animations unlike most rpgs that have gone the 3D-animation route. The animation looks very colorful and nice even if it's not 3D. The music ranges from operatic to J-pop in styles. Disgaea is really very simple when it comes to its visuals and audio. It could've been done better, but its a minor quibble when taken in context to the rest of the game.
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a fun time of a game and one that doesn't ever get old or boring. For gamers who enjoy powerleveling their characters and who like to micromanage every detail of their gears and abilities, then this is a game for you. I hope ATLUS will continue with the success they had with this game and make an even better follow-up. I highly recommend.
The gameplay is pretty much standard fare for strategy games. There is a bit of a kink thrown in as all of your characters move first and then all the enemy characters move etc. which allows you more agression but also forces you to be careful as all the enemies will be rushing back at you.
The Geo Panel system is simply wonderful and can make an otherwise easy battle very difficult with various area effects that can include damaging your characters or creating evil clones of them that come after you! Attempting to destroy all the Geo Panels then becomes a sub goal in each level which helps to keep the variety fresh.
Innovation is abound in this title, the most notable being the Item World. This is basically your "random battle" area. You are transported within an item of your chosing where you fight through different levels. You pass one level and you progress to the next etc. Every ten levels you can leave and when you do leave the item levels up based on how far down you went. So it's not just random battles and levelling up, it's also improving your items on the side.
Also added in to Disgaea is a Dark Assembly - basically a Senate in which you pitch ideas such as Improved Countrattack, More Expensive Items in Shops, Raising Military Funds. Each senator can be bribed if necessary allowing you to use your extra items to get some of the sweet bonuses offered via the Assembly.
You also have character creation which is a solid addition. You can create just about anything you kill, bosses excepted. You create them using mana (obtained by killing enemies) and based on how much mana you want to spend are able to raise their base stats. Spending mana to create also affords you infinite character creation so long as you keep on killing.
The graphics are certainly very nice art, although as far as *graphics* go I don't think they are that fancy. But they don't need to be, the cutscenes work to tell the story and the story is still entertaining. A nice break from all the same old "epic quests".
Disgaea brings a lot of innovation to the table for Strategy RPGs, but more importantly it's just a fun game. A good purchase for any RPGers or anyone interested in RPGs, definately a good one to break into the genre with as well!
Story- Finally, an original strategy RPG story that doesn't suck! Do you save the world? No. Do you find true love? No. Do you try and claim your rightful place in the Netherworld as king after you slept for 2 years? Yes. You, Laharl, wake up to find you father dead. In confusion, you seek out the demons that don't deserve to become king and beat them up. Whats better than that? Add the fact that the games dialouge is funny, and has voice acting and you have something special. But seriously, the story is very well done, while at the same time stupid
9/10
Characters- The colorful cast of characters for D:HOD are great. Most of them are demon people from the Netherworld, while others are from Celestia, heaven. Each character is great, and their personalities change very fast in this game. Not much more to say but they are great and funny, even the NPC's. My favorite characters are the Pengies, little penguins that hen they attack, they go "DOOOOOOOOOOD!" Its great.
10/10
Graphics- Despite other reviews, I found the graphics to be very pleasant. Yes they seem to PS1 graphics, little 2d sprites, but once you start playing the game, it truly feels like the good old days. You can trust me that the graphics are beautiful, full of color and depth. The battle field and other walking areas are in full 3d, and are very detailed as well, each carrying many seperate details, whether it is a small weapon, or noticable specks of dirt. Great graphics, just not something this game truly shines in.
8/10
Gameplay-.............................oh my gosh. You will absolutely love the gameplay. First off, the strategy battles are the best I have ever played. you dispatch the characters you would like to use (up to 10) in battle, then select where to move them and what commands to take.Basically its simple you know how it is, attack defense item magic. You can do combos with nearby allies also. But then, there is LIFT. If you are standing next to another character or enemy, you can pick them up, and throw them to other places. This adds huge strategy. For instance, say you want to throw a character over a gap onto another platform not reachable by walking, but still want them to move and attack on the other side. Run to them, lift them up, throw, and select where they will land. Then carry out other movements! Its fantastic. In terms of monsters, if you are surrounded by four monsters and you can't move, chuck one and get the heck away!
Another area the games depth increases is the "Geo system." Its incredibly confusing and I don't fully understand it yet, but here goes. Colored platforms below your feet flash in certain areas. Red yellow blue green purple, blah blah. These can add stats to your characters and enemies, as well as posibly grant invincibility when you STAND on them. But say they add stats to only monsters, this is a problem. Solution: Destroy the Geo Sphere, a triangular thing in a certain color. Say you want to destroy the red areas on the map and turn them to blue. You should throw a blue Geo Sphere onto any single red area and destroy it. It will turn all of the red platforms to blue, and add the blue Geo Spheres effect, as well as hurt anyone who was standing on the original red surface. Confused? Theres more. If the (color) platforms blow up on another Geo sphere on that color, the same effect will happen, possibly hurting or killing you party immensly. A couple good things come out of this: You can hurt your enemies, and the more chain reactions you do, the ore your bonus gauge goes up and after battle, you will get numorous gifts, depending on teh bonus level!
The battle system is very well done, surpasing a lot of systems in the past, including FFTactics.
20/10 lol
Sound/Music- There is nothing like some good tunes. These tunes are good, not great. Its not worth buying the sound track fo, but its very catchy.
9/10
Replay/Toughness- Replay value is to the extreme on this game! One thing that completely blew my mind, is that you can grow to level 10,000!!!!! AHHH! And theres more.
Item World is the best idea any game has come up with. You go inside your items in your inventory, and go through a series of levels defeating monsters. You can escape the item every 10 levels, so you best have a good 2 hours to go through. The purpose of Item World, is that the further down you go in your item, the higher the items stats will increase! So going inside weapons and armor is essential to survival. Every level you go down, the selected item will increase 1 level.
Dark Assembly is another fun thing to do. You can present cases to the Netherlands council of senetors, like allowing you to access certain "class" types, or supply the shops with more powerful weapons. The councils descision basically depends on your persuasion points, which you can gain after passing "Promotion Tests." In addition, completing "Promotion Tests," (which are battles) will enable you to present more topics to the council. Its very fun, and adds tons of replay value.
You can also create characters, name them, select class types, and stats too. Creating players with a certain person means the created pupil is a "Pupil" and the creator is the "Master." The master will gain additional EXP whenever the pupil kills an enemy. Yet another thing that adds to the replay value.
Lastly the toughness level. Disgaea is extremely difficult, and requires a lot of patience if you want to win. The battles are fast paced and slow, and can be confusing. But heck, battling is the fun part right? D:HOD boasts over 40+ hours of gameply, add to that if you want level 10,000 characters, fully level up all the items, and get all the character classes. That can have you playing for a good long while.
10/10
Believe me guys, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is more than a good strategy RPG. It is one of the most awsome games out there, and would be a real shame to miss. The greatest battle system, awsome replay value, and to top off this sundae, hillarios dialouge, Disgaea is pure brilliance. It definately falls in my #2 spot of favorite games, replacing Wild Arms 3. Definately worth you $50 bucks!
It has deep character customization, you can create your own character from... Read more
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