Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
May. 29th, 2012 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroLord Valvatorez is a gentleman vampire who got himself thrown into the crappy part of the Netherworld as a prinny instructor (read: lowest of the low) because he refuses to ever break a promise. In the intervening 400 years, he’s developed a bizarre obsession with sardines. But he’s about to be pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the Netherworld, Celestia, and Earth itself…
Sometimes, you just want something familiar. You don’t want to learn a fancy new system or try to tease out the quirks in something “inventive” that the developers haven’t worked the bugs out of. You know where you stand with Disgaea games: Turn-based tactical combat, silly demons performing wacky antics, extremely Japanese sensibilities, and the ability to grind beyond any challenge.
There are a number of new gimmicks, as usual: Two monster characters can merge to become a 5-square mega-monster (or magichange into an item for a human character to use). In item world, every five levels you can choose to get bonuses powering up the item or bonuses for the innocents you capture. There are new geo effects and mystery rooms, and new map items that you can throw at enemies. There are “symbols” that you can arrange on the party screen (Cam-Pain HQ) that give different characters special abilities, like sharing XP or attacking on each other’s behalf. (Though it seems like more of the new and returning systems need to be unlocked via the Dark Senate than in previous games—you need a motion to capture enemies in the base panel, or to use the Character World introduced in the previous game.)
The biggest new gimmicks all involve the online aspects. Disgaea 3 didn’t even have PSN trophies enabled without a patch. This has a system for designing your own item-world-roaming pirate crew or your own maps, and sharing them with other players online. You can even fight directly against other players (but I wouldn’t—the range for it not being a curb-stomp is vanishingly small).
The voice acting is fantastic, and the localization is top-notch. It’s hilarious, and obviously deliberately (as opposed to accidentally) so. The characterization is solid, and the mythology of the overall Nippon Ichi-verse continues to build out in an understandable manner.
And I need to particularly call out Desco, a genetically-engineered little girl/Lovecraftian monstrosity who wants to grow up to be a Final Boss. Much as I loved Valvatorez and his not-as-dumb-as-he-looks characterization (He’s much more Captain Carrot Ironfounderson than he seems at first), Desco was just too much fun. Desco Attack!
Overall: This won’t make you love Disgaea if you didn’t before, being very much a new plot in essentially the same system. But it’s a most worthy addition to the series and I highly recommend it to fans of srpgs and wacky anime.
Sometimes, you just want something familiar. You don’t want to learn a fancy new system or try to tease out the quirks in something “inventive” that the developers haven’t worked the bugs out of. You know where you stand with Disgaea games: Turn-based tactical combat, silly demons performing wacky antics, extremely Japanese sensibilities, and the ability to grind beyond any challenge.
There are a number of new gimmicks, as usual: Two monster characters can merge to become a 5-square mega-monster (or magichange into an item for a human character to use). In item world, every five levels you can choose to get bonuses powering up the item or bonuses for the innocents you capture. There are new geo effects and mystery rooms, and new map items that you can throw at enemies. There are “symbols” that you can arrange on the party screen (Cam-Pain HQ) that give different characters special abilities, like sharing XP or attacking on each other’s behalf. (Though it seems like more of the new and returning systems need to be unlocked via the Dark Senate than in previous games—you need a motion to capture enemies in the base panel, or to use the Character World introduced in the previous game.)
The biggest new gimmicks all involve the online aspects. Disgaea 3 didn’t even have PSN trophies enabled without a patch. This has a system for designing your own item-world-roaming pirate crew or your own maps, and sharing them with other players online. You can even fight directly against other players (but I wouldn’t—the range for it not being a curb-stomp is vanishingly small).
The voice acting is fantastic, and the localization is top-notch. It’s hilarious, and obviously deliberately (as opposed to accidentally) so. The characterization is solid, and the mythology of the overall Nippon Ichi-verse continues to build out in an understandable manner.
And I need to particularly call out Desco, a genetically-engineered little girl/Lovecraftian monstrosity who wants to grow up to be a Final Boss. Much as I loved Valvatorez and his not-as-dumb-as-he-looks characterization (He’s much more Captain Carrot Ironfounderson than he seems at first), Desco was just too much fun. Desco Attack!
Overall: This won’t make you love Disgaea if you didn’t before, being very much a new plot in essentially the same system. But it’s a most worthy addition to the series and I highly recommend it to fans of srpgs and wacky anime.
