September 22, 2011
Disgaea 4 - like coming home
I enjoy playing strategy RPGs as much as any other genre of game - maybe a little more, as a good one will have lots of deep mechanics that you can sink your teeth into. The classic of the genre is Final Fantasy Tactics - good story, good strategy elements, and lots of quirky character types and customization options. (Not in the shallow sense of "hm, what RGB value do I want for this guys' hair", but in the sense of "hm, if I level him up some in Ninja he'll be able to equip the Blade Grasp ability when he goes back to Knight!")
If a normal game is a meal, and a good strategy RPG is a feast, then the Disgaea games are a Brazilian buffet where waiters bring you endless quantities of barbecued meat.
They're silly, don't get me wrong. The plots are less an example of great writing and more of an example of how odd Japan can be. The fourth wall is broken with gleeful abandon by genre-aware characters. No trope is safe. I can't imagine even trying to take it seriously.
And yet... there's just so much that you can play with. Level up characters to unlock new classes, then reincarnate the characters INTO those classes and level them up again. Equip basically any item you want, then travel into the item through some randomly-generated (quick) levels in order to increase the item's stats. Fight monsters inside the items to gain stat bonuses that you can move into completely other items. Mix and match abilities, borrow 'em from your allies. Fling your troops across the map with reckless abandon. Eventually get to the point where your abilities, and even the damage you deal, is expressed in scientific notation.
Disgaea 4 has all of that and a bunch of new stuff. Not only do the items have Item Worlds to enter, but now the characters have their own Character Worlds, giving self-improvement an entirely new meaning. People's characters will hop into your Senate sessions in order to wreak havoc or collect bribes (fortunately, not player-controlled, so nobody can grief you on purpose... but that doesn't mean their level 5000 foreign minister won't vote you down anyway!) A grid system lets you assign certain characters to territory and then give them bonuses based on buildings you create (and you can upgrade the buildings too). At some point you can even get a pirate ship and go raiding other players; apparently something called Reverse Pirating is the source of some of the best stuff in the game, not that I have clue one how you'd actually DO that yet.
Three chapters in and Fuka's running away with the show. Or maybe I'm just weak to the Prinny hat, who knows? But I'm having tremendous fun.
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
If a normal game is a meal, and a good strategy RPG is a feast, then the Disgaea games are a Brazilian buffet where waiters bring you endless quantities of barbecued meat.
They're silly, don't get me wrong. The plots are less an example of great writing and more of an example of how odd Japan can be. The fourth wall is broken with gleeful abandon by genre-aware characters. No trope is safe. I can't imagine even trying to take it seriously.
And yet... there's just so much that you can play with. Level up characters to unlock new classes, then reincarnate the characters INTO those classes and level them up again. Equip basically any item you want, then travel into the item through some randomly-generated (quick) levels in order to increase the item's stats. Fight monsters inside the items to gain stat bonuses that you can move into completely other items. Mix and match abilities, borrow 'em from your allies. Fling your troops across the map with reckless abandon. Eventually get to the point where your abilities, and even the damage you deal, is expressed in scientific notation.
Disgaea 4 has all of that and a bunch of new stuff. Not only do the items have Item Worlds to enter, but now the characters have their own Character Worlds, giving self-improvement an entirely new meaning. People's characters will hop into your Senate sessions in order to wreak havoc or collect bribes (fortunately, not player-controlled, so nobody can grief you on purpose... but that doesn't mean their level 5000 foreign minister won't vote you down anyway!) A grid system lets you assign certain characters to territory and then give them bonuses based on buildings you create (and you can upgrade the buildings too). At some point you can even get a pirate ship and go raiding other players; apparently something called Reverse Pirating is the source of some of the best stuff in the game, not that I have clue one how you'd actually DO that yet.
Three chapters in and Fuka's running away with the show. Or maybe I'm just weak to the Prinny hat, who knows? But I'm having tremendous fun.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
06:55 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 474 words, total size 3 kb.
1
They need to port the Diagaea games to PC and sell them on Steam. Then at least I could buy them, even if I'd still have no time to play them.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 24, 2011 01:54 AM (PiXy!)
2
Desco steals the show from Fuka - at least for her introduction at the end of chapter 3.
Posted by: Karl at September 25, 2011 11:25 AM (USMrf)
3
Aw, she's a cute widdle final boss, ain't she.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 25, 2011 06:57 PM (GJQTS)
4
A Prinny hat....Does it get 'splody if thrown?
Nevermind...
I've really liked the Nippon Ichi games I've played, especially the first two Disgaeas. I just can't justify buying a console right now.
Prinny hat
Baseball bat
Zettai Ryouiki
Curse you Nippon Ichi
You conspire to bankrupt me
Nevermind...
I've really liked the Nippon Ichi games I've played, especially the first two Disgaeas. I just can't justify buying a console right now.
Prinny hat
Baseball bat
Zettai Ryouiki
Curse you Nippon Ichi
You conspire to bankrupt me
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at October 04, 2011 04:42 PM (EJaOX)
5
The image is fan art, you don't see her legs much in the game. (Well, sprite format...)
She does NOT explode if thrown. However, she can get a bonus to all stats depending on how many prinnies have bought it on the current level, and her thrown prinnies explode for triple damage. That said, throwing prinnies is still not a great strategy. However, she's a versatile bonebreaker otherwise, with a nice long-range starter attack and more flexibility than you normally get from an axe-user.
It's worth saying that the "we're standing around and talking" images during the cut scenes have improved quite a bit - still not fully animated, but with animations (Fuka, for example, does a lot of dramatic pointing gestures, Val is fond of throwing his cape back, etc.)
She does NOT explode if thrown. However, she can get a bonus to all stats depending on how many prinnies have bought it on the current level, and her thrown prinnies explode for triple damage. That said, throwing prinnies is still not a great strategy. However, she's a versatile bonebreaker otherwise, with a nice long-range starter attack and more flexibility than you normally get from an axe-user.
It's worth saying that the "we're standing around and talking" images during the cut scenes have improved quite a bit - still not fully animated, but with animations (Fuka, for example, does a lot of dramatic pointing gestures, Val is fond of throwing his cape back, etc.)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 04, 2011 06:21 PM (pWQz4)
13kb generated in CPU 0.0232, elapsed 0.1313 seconds.
30 queries taking 0.1255 seconds, 54 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
30 queries taking 0.1255 seconds, 54 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
