The game I am talking about it Disgaea, as strategy-RPG released in November by Atlus. Apparently, Atlus decided that for someone reason people didn't want to play it so they only released about two copies. Anyway, on to the game!
The story thus far: You play as Laharl who is a demon prince. He awakens to find that his father, the king, has died...two years ago. Other demons are now fighting for the position of king. Laharl decides that he won't sit around while they take his rightful position so he sets out to make sure everyone knows who the next king is. Mild insanity insues.
Graphics: Well...it HAS graphics. For a PS2 game the graphics aren't that advanced, not to say that they are bad, but they're fairly simple. The 3D graphics are clean, however, which should be enough. The 2D models are about what you'd expect, nothing fancy, but they look good none-the-less. Overall it looks like a game that was originally meant for the PS1, but for some reason or another was delayed till now.
Gameplay: Like most strategy-RPGs the battlefield is set up like a grid. However, Disgaea offers some unique aspects to stir things up a bit. You can "Lift" characters and objects and "Throw" them to other parts of the playing field. This option allows you to move your characters to areas that would otherwise be unnacessible. Also you can lift enemies and throw them onto other enemies, this elimates one of the enemies, but the remaining enemy games several levels making it harder to beat.
Another unique aspect is Geo Crystals, which are different colored crystals which grant bonuses or penalties to characters who are standing on spaces whose color correlates to the crystals. The crystals can be destroyed however, and if you destroy the crystal on a colored space different from the color of the crystal it will change the color of all those spaces to the color of the crystal, and will do damage to all characters [friend or foe] who happen to be standing on those spaces.
What more unique stuff?! Yes, there are in fact two more things left to discuss. From time to time you must lobby the Dark Assembly for various things that will help you on your quest, such as funding, better items, and so on. Sometimes the senators don't feel like helping out so you can either bribe them or fight them to the death for their vote. That's demon world politics for you. Next, is the Item World, which I think is one of the coolest things about this game. You can enter inside of your items and fight hordes of various monsters. Not only does this allow you to level up you characters, but you can also level up the item and recieve money and goods along the way.
The battles: The battles are about what you'd expect from an SRPG. If your characters are in the right places you can pull off combos which deal out more damage than regular attacks. Other than that I can't really find anything special about it. Standard fare, though not in a negative way.
In-between battles: The story is told mostly through conversations between characters. High quality images of the characters are displayed on the screen as they talk with each other. It sounds kind of boring, but there's enough humor in this game to keep things moving.
Great Rumbler gives Disgeae a 9.5/10
OB1 is glad that Great Rumbler likes Disgaea.
![[Image: 20030915l.gif]](http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030915l.gif)
So it's a strategy RPG in the vein of Fire Emblem and Ogre Battle? If so I definitely have to check it out. I'm hopelessly addicted to Fire Emblem right now.
It does sound quite good...
I'm in love with Fire Emblem as well, and hope they not only release the first GBA Fire Emblem game, but decide to release a collection game with all the ones before GBA on it. Fire Emblem is just so good. I personally can't decide if I like it more than FFTA though. I will say that, FOR CERTAIN, FFTA's multiplayer experience is FAR above FE's mulitplayer (FFTA has whole missions designed for two or more players, while FE just has people pitting their characters against each other, not even on a field of combat with strategy, just to see which person has the higher level characters pretty much), but single player? Much harder to decide. Both are a lot better than the Wars games, well Advance Wars (the only one I've played) in my opinion. Simplicity is fine, for instance Pikmin is great fun, but Advance Wars is just a bit... well I kinda had to make myself play the game and as such it wasn't as fun for obvious reasons. That is the determining factor for what game is better, which one I had more fun with.
But AW is such a great pure strategy game! No deep complex story? So? That's a very, very common thing in TBSes...
FE is basically AW but with slightly less strategy in favor of a deeper story. I hesitate to say less strategy and instead different strategy, but AW is definitely more accessible and has far greater replay value than FE. I do like FE a bit more than both AW's (and much more than FFTA), but AW is still the best for a quick strategy fix.
Um, I didn't say a single thing about story. Don't defend against arguments I don't use. It reveals weak points in your psyche.
I'm talking depth of gameplay. I love being able to equip and unequip stuff, and level up, and of course explore and find hidden items and weak points in a fort's defenses. AW lacks that. Sure it's not a bad thing to lack it, simplicity can be very good, but I was just bored so much by AW after a certain point... Just me though.
I was responding to ABF's comment, Miss I-have-the-biggest-ego-in-the-universe.
AW doesn't have the RPG elements of FE, but it does have unit building, more units during battles and a greater variety of units. So for pure strategy AW wins, but everything else that FE offers places it slightly above AW for me. Both AW games are longer, though, and they have terrific multiplayer and near-endless replay value.
Quote: Um, I didn't say a single thing about story. Don't defend against arguments I don't use. It reveals weak points in your psyche.
You didn't mention story specifically, but it's a obvious major part of the things you mention...
Quote:I'm talking depth of gameplay. I love being able to equip and unequip stuff, and level up, and of course explore and find hidden items and weak points in a fort's defenses. AW lacks that. Sure it's not a bad thing to lack it, simplicity can be very good, but I was just bored so much by AW after a certain point... Just me though.
Equipping items? Levelling up?
How about saying what you mean, DJ. What you mean is that you like Strategy-RPGs more than strategy games. That is what you mean. Because there aren't many pure strategy games with inventories, that's for sure! And especially in the strategy/war style genre like AW... but really, you need to be specific here. The elements you propose adding seem to be in the realm of added complexity that gives you more busy work, but the amount of actual strategy added is debatable.
Honestly, the very idea that adding all that complexity makes games far deeper strategically doesn't make complete sense. Yes, when you add complexity (like FFTA does) you add more things to do...
Now... on the PC front we can look at some nice examples in this arguement. (to get away from AW vs FFTA or FE) How about, oh, Warcraft II and Starcraft vs. Warcraft III? WC3 incorporates items, levelling up, an even more cinematic story than before, heroes, supply, etc... adding a lot of complexity to elements of the game. However, to make the load managable, they reduced other elements of the game like base-building, resource management, the effectiveness of defences... my point is something has to go. In the case of adding RPG elements what usually goes is the hard core of strategy. There is a reason some people prefer SC to WC3 strategically... they like SC's hard facts, compared to the randomness added in War3 with things like creeps, items, damage ranges (3-5 in wc3 instead of 4 like in sc damage), etc... FFTA does the same thing when compared to other tactical-strategy games. It adds complexity but generally cuts somewhat on the hardcore strategy base... do you understand what I mean by that? The 'pure strategic' part of a strategy game that is the centerpoint of everything that happens.
In a game like AW that IS the game. It is like a game of chess -- strategy at its most basic, simple yet infinitely complex. Civilization, I'd say, works like a super-scaled version of this (with a much broader focus). It's just a very different approach from one where you focus on more RPGish elements that inevitably bring in randomness to the equasion... randomness and complexity that really isn't needed and just confuses the gamers if the strategic depth is left the same (which necessitates either confusing the players or cutting on the strategy).
My point really is that you seem to think that adding those things would be an improvement to the game. By the standards of how AW is designed, in fact, adding random elements and unnecessary complexity like that would probably be seen as a failure.
I don't know how FE handles this, of course, since I haven't played it...
Quote:I was responding to ABF's comment, Miss I-have-the-biggest-ego-in-the-universe.
Uh, I think that that comment there was a response to my last post and not yours, OB1... it just makes more sense.
And I was responding to ABF silly :D. *Irony detector explodes* Need to get that thing fixed... well obviously...
Story wasn't even a major part of the things I mentioned. It wasn't a part at all of the things I mentioned. I suppose you misinterpreted me.
Also, I wasn't suggesting they change anything. Some people love that kind of game. I'm just saying I don't. I also made it clear I know simplicity can make a game better, but in AW's case, it did not.
Finally, I just mean I like one game more than the other, as I stated. I did say what I mean, just not the way you wanted me to. I had no idea there was a sub-genre name I had to use.
You didn't answer all my questions... like SC/WC3, or Chess (do you find that uninteresting like AW? It's the same style there...)... Civilization (sure it's nothing like AW but it doesn't have that RPG stuff...)?
And of course you wouldn't like wargames. They are all about unit positioning (OB1 I know we argued about this, but you cannot deny that the combat is a lot like combat in a wargame!)...
You did say what you mean? But as I said, when you add those things in the extent you like you don't have pure strategy games anymore, you have Strategy-RPG generally, so you didn't say exactly what you mean. And as for story... well with more RPG influence generally comes a lot more story...
Thank you for turning my thread about an awesome but unknown game, which I think everyone should go out and buy RIGHT NOW, into another arguement!!
I didn't answer them on purpose because I'm not trying to argue here. I'm just saying my opinion. Leave it at that.
Quote:Thank you for turning my thread about an awesome but unknown game, which I think everyone should go out and buy RIGHT NOW, into another arguement!!
Yeah I know. Yeesh.
And perhaps if DJ would learn how to use
quote tags we could avoid this confusion!
AW is definitely not simpler than FE. Where FE adds some things to the AW formula (leveling up, switching weapons), it also loses a lot from the Wars games (building units, bases, the sheer number of units on screen at once). So really they break about even, with AW being a more pure strategy game than FE.
Quote:AW is definitely not simpler than FE. Where FE adds some things to the AW formula (leveling up, switching weapons), it also loses a lot from the Wars games (building units, bases, the sheer number of units on screen at once). So really they break about even, with AW being a more pure strategy game than FE.
Fewer units, of course, doesn't mean less strategy, as Warcraft III proves... no bases or units, though, is a real thing. I've played RTSes without base building and generally I just don't think they have worked out as well... FE probably works fine because it is a TBS/Wargame, not a RTS.
Quote: I didn't answer them on purpose because I'm not trying to argue here. I'm just saying my opinion. Leave it at that.
Um... how would that be some super-contentious thing to say whether you agree with what I think, based on analysis of what you said, you'd agree with? Especially considering that I love all the games/generes I mentioned...
But of course first I'd have to ask if you've ever played either Civilization or a wargame, because I don't know... if you did and didn't like it that's all you have to say... I know plenty of people who dislike games like that (because of either the detail or the slow pace, generally).
Fewer units and a smaller variety of units as well. You get around seven or so units on your team per round, and that's it. You can't "grow" units.
Which could either lead to a simpler game or more squad-based tactics, I'd think...
Not simpler, just different.
It'd be simpler if they didn't add things to make up for what was removed... FE of course adds stuff.
But it loses more than it adds. By a bit.
Well, as I explained in depth a while back, that's exactly what I'd expect...
But you just said---
oh never mind.
I said
Quote:Equipping items? Levelling up?
How about saying what you mean, DJ. What you mean is that you like Strategy-RPGs more than strategy games. That is what you mean. Because there aren't many pure strategy games with inventories, that's for sure! And especially in the strategy/war style genre like AW... but really, you need to be specific here. The elements you propose adding seem to be in the realm of added complexity that gives you more busy work, but the amount of actual strategy added is debatable.
Honestly, the very idea that adding all that complexity makes games far deeper strategically doesn't make complete sense. Yes, when you add complexity (like FFTA does) you add more things to do...
Now... on the PC front we can look at some nice examples in this arguement. (to get away from AW vs FFTA or FE) How about, oh, Warcraft II and Starcraft vs. Warcraft III? WC3 incorporates items, levelling up, an even more cinematic story than before, heroes, supply, etc... adding a lot of complexity to elements of the game. However, to make the load managable, they reduced other elements of the game like base-building, resource management, the effectiveness of defences... my point is something has to go. In the case of adding RPG elements what usually goes is the hard core of strategy. There is a reason some people prefer SC to WC3 strategically... they like SC's hard facts, compared to the randomness added in War3 with things like creeps, items, damage ranges (3-5 in wc3 instead of 4 like in sc damage), etc... FFTA does the same thing when compared to other tactical-strategy games. It adds complexity but generally cuts somewhat on the hardcore strategy base... do you understand what I mean by that? The 'pure strategic' part of a strategy game that is the centerpoint of everything that happens.
In a game like AW that IS the game. It is like a game of chess -- strategy at its most basic, simple yet infinitely complex. Civilization, I'd say, works like a super-scaled version of this (with a much broader focus). It's just a very different approach from one where you focus on more RPGish elements that inevitably bring in randomness to the equasion... randomness and complexity that really isn't needed and just confuses the gamers if the strategic depth is left the same (which necessitates either confusing the players or cutting on the strategy).
My point really is that you seem to think that adding those things would be an improvement to the game. By the standards of how AW is designed, in fact, adding random elements and unnecessary complexity like that would probably be seen as a failure.
I don't know how FE handles this, of course, since I haven't played it...
. :)
Yeah but a few posts up you said something else.
No, I really don't think I did. Though you could quote what you think I said that was different and I could explain what I meant...
Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
It'd be simpler if they didn't add things to make up for what was removed... FE of course adds stuff.
I understood that as "FE would be simpler than AW if...".
Hmm, I don't see how that is contradictory...
What I mean there is just restating what I said in that long post -- if you add RPG elements to a game, you necessarially change the game... and it generally results in less pure strategic depth and more "stuff" in the game. If FE took away the base-building, large unit groups, etc. and didn't add anything, it'd be a simpler game than AW. It still very well could be good, and small unit tactics definitely have a lot of strategy to them too, but it would be simpler in gameplay and strategy. But they didn't do that, they added things... maybe not quite enough to make up for what they lost, but enough to get close and to make FE a deep game in its own (and different) right.
That's what I've been saying...
I know, and I was agreeing with you (in depth)...
You sounded like you weren't.
I wouldn't have if you had read my long post there!
You know this isn't a thread for discussion of strategy games.
Hey, we're actually on topic this time! Kinda...
I guess it could be worse. You guys could be talking about purple squid-people or something weird like that.
I was just about to bring that up...
Purple monkey dishwasher?