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Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
by Jolex Del Pilar
Saturday, August 30 2003
Disgaea brings back life and zest to the Strategy/RPG genre that hasn't been seen since the classic FF: Tactics.
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Title:
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
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Platform:
PS2
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Publisher:
Atlus |
Developer:
Atlus |
#
of Players: 1 |
Genre:
Strategy/RPG
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Origin:
Japan
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Expected
Release:
August 26, 2003 |
Grapevine:
Disgaea is also an animated cartoon series in Japan. |
I got my first look at Disgaea: Hour of Darkness at E3 2003 in May. At this time, the game wasn't fully complete but most of the essential gameplay elements were finalized. The question that first came to my mind when I was looking over this game was how does it compare to Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics, its primary competitors within the genre. Disgaea falls into that Strategy/RPG genre that the previously mentioned titles belong to. These are games that focus on grid based battles, and tactics, as well as character development. They usually require much more complex and creative battle strategies from the player than traditional RPGs. That's a big part of the appeal for games like these.
Disgaea's story is actually a little more creative than most typical RPGs. It's light hearted and doesn't attempt to take itself too seriously at anytime. Not to mention the Japanese anime presentation is comedic and even childish in many ways, not a bad thing, but somewhat charming even. Basically, Laharl, the Dark Prince of the Underworld, is a demon boy who awakens to find that his father has died and he is now the heir to the throne of the Underworld. However, Laharl has been asleep for over 2 years (Demons tend to sleep for a very long time). Other demons have tried to stake their claim to the throne during the Prince's absence and Laharl is determined to solidify his claim.
The cast of Disgaea is a fairly unique one. The main characters are Laharl, Etna (Larharl's Vassal), and Flonne, an innocent angel who originally comes to Laharl to assassinate his father, but then decides to stay and conduct personal research on whether demons feel love or not. Etna is a foxy, spunky demon girl who tortures Larharl endlessly with taunts and jokes throughout the game. It's seems there is a weird sexual tension going on there, but this game is rated G, so I could be mistaken. The great thing about Disgaea is that each of the main chracters, as well as many supporting characters, are fully voiced. The voice acting on the whole is excellent and conveys who the characters "really are" quite remarkably.
The Cast of Disgaea
As for combat, Disgaea pretty much has the same combat system as FF: Tactics and Ogre Battle. Battles are not conducted on a "time meter" but rather in turns like a chess game. You make your moves, then the computer A.I makes their moves. You move your soldiers around like pieces on a board and position them to attack by giving them orders. It's basically a grid based battlefield, in which you can move around in to attack your enemies. Disgaea determines how many squares a particular character can move on the grid by how fast your character is. Usually, a character with a high "Speed (spd)" rating will move a lot of squares at one time. A character with a low rating in that category will only be able to move a few squares before having to stop. Once you move your character into position, you'll be able to execute an attack, if you so choose. Keep in mind that weapons, special attacks, and even spells have a predetemined area of effect. Certain weapons can only attack in certain ways. For instance, a sword is a powerful and quick weapon but you can only attack enemies which are directly north, south, west, and east of you, as well as only 1 square away. You cannot attack diagonally with a sword, or anything beyond 1 square away. As implied in the previous sentence, weapons have different ranges. A spear, for instance, can attack an enemy two squares away, a big advantage especially if the enemy can only hit you at a range of 1 square. However, spears tend to be generally weaker than swords. The difference in weapons helps to add variety to the game as well as force players to try out all the variations of weapons to find what fits best with the given characters in their party. Disgaea also features a cool "linking" option in combat. If two or more of your characters are next to each other on a map, there is a chance that they will link with each other and do a double, triple, or even quadruple attack on an enemy. This adds another level of depth to the combat as placement of characters is very important.
Disgaea also has a few options that seperate it from the average "tactics" game. The most interesting of these options is the Item World, and environmental geo panel system. The Item World is a system in which you can take existing weapons, armor, and other items and give greater value to them. When you enter the Item World, it's basically the same as entering a regular level map, but the mission here is to make it through 10 levels of maps, battling the item inhabitants, and subduing item "residents" on the way. These item residents help power up the item you're inside of. For instance, if one of the residents is a marksman, and the item you have entered is a bow, subduing the marksman will give the bow greater accuracy once you exit the item. It's a pretty simple system and an excellent way to give longer life to old weapons or armor, especially if you can't afford upgrades. The geo panel system is another great element of Disgaea. As previously mentioned, the battle maps are grid based. Once in a while, the squares on the grid contain colors such as red, blue, or yellow. These colors determine possible advantages or disadvantages to conducting combat while on those squares. For example, on a given map, say there are red squares. If you move your movement cursor over them, it might indicate an attribute such as "+50% Attack". That means if you conduct an attack on a red square, you will be given a 50% boost to your attack. For each color though, there is a master Geo Panel that contains the determines the attribute for a given color. Placing this "master geo panel" on a given color, will give each square of that color the attribute. Master Geo Panels can be picked up and put onto other colors too. They can even be destroyed. So say that yellow squares give enemies a boost in defense, and the map is filled with yellow squares. Well, to solve this problem all you have to do is find the master Geo Panel, and move or attack it. If moved, then the advantaged disappears from yellow squares. Most of the time it's better to just destory the panel rather than move it. Just make sure you and your team aren't on any yellow squares when this happens, as the yellow squares will become explosive when the master geo panel is destroyed.
Disgaea is narrated by semi-animated cut scenes and greatly voiced dialogue. The guy on the right will bother Laharl throughout the quest.
Disgaea also features a deep character creation system. There are over 150 character, and monster classes. Character creation is handled by mana. The more mana you have, the better characters you can create. Mana is gained by defeating enemies in combat. What's cool is that any character in your party can create another soldier for your ranks. Once created, the new character will become the pupil of the party member who created it. This pupil and party member will also have a higher chance of "link attacks" if they are near each other in combat.
One of the more interesting things in the character creation system is a concept called Transmigration. For 300 mana, you can recreate any of your characters, possibly making them stronger. What happens basically is that your character moves back a few experience levels, however, the character retains a percentage of the skills gained by that time. Also, when the character does begin to level up again, that character will gain more stats overall than before the transmigration. Potentially a level 25 transmigrated character could be stronger than a level 35 non-transmigrated character of the same class.
One thing that really jumps out about Disgaea is the whole presentation of the game. Although it's very light hearted, and obviously has a few PG-13, saturday morning anime, characteristics to it, the game manages to entertain with its humor and charm. Putting characters like Laharl, the dark prince, and Flonne, the innocent angel, together create many opportunities for humorous exchanges in the game. I honestly found myself playing through certain levels just to progress the story a little more.
The soundtrack of the game is not overly moody or dramatic like a Nobu Uematsu composition, but it serves the purpose and on the whole is fairly good, and never grating on the ears.
Disgaea isn't a fancy game visually, but it doesn't need to be. The appeal of the game is in its depth, and that is something it has in droves. Disgaea is possibly one of the deepest RPGs that I've seen in a while on the PS2, and that includes Final Fantasy X. There is just so much to do in this game that it is impossible to cover it all in depth, especially in a review. What else can be said? Atlus has done it again. Along with SkyGunner, and Dual Hearts, Disgaea is a game that continues a pattern of excellence that we've come to expect from Atlus as a developer. Like Blizzard Entertainment, we're hard pressed to find a title that Atlus has developed that was actually bad. In a time when dozens of titles reach shelves and are destined for bargain bin status, Disgaea is a game that is both refreshing, and rewarding in what it offers. Reward Atlus with your gaming dollar and experience the gaming fun that is Disgaea.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
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