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A hilarious, irreverent and well-done tactical rpg

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 55 / 57
Date: August 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Most rpg games that I have played always have had a serious tone to them. This is understandable since most rpg games, especially those of the fantasy genre, involved defeating a Dark Lord of some sort and saving the world from destruction. This is not the case with ATLUS' Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Disgaea is one of the funniest and most irreverent game I have ever played.

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.

Amazing, simply amazing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: January 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

To be honest, I bought this game because I liked the box art. Little did I know I was getting so much more. However reminesent of a bad comedy skit, the story somehow holds together and is not only humorous, it is compelling. You are the Prince of Darkness, who has been sleeping in a coffin for 2 years. You awake to find your dad, the king of the netherworld, has died choking on a 'black' pretzel. The netherworld has gone to hell, there are uprisings, battles for power, and anarchy. You then set off on a quest to plunder, loot, and take back the title of king of the netherworld.

Though the gameplay graphics are on the ps1 level, its not bad. Story screens are done in still anime pictures with voice acting to fill dialouge. This would be boring if the dialouge wasnt funny, and if the pictures looked bad. Luckily it has a high level of quality for each of those categories. Spells and other fancy attacks have spectacular effects, and are a joy to watch.

The gameplay itself is innovative and resourceful. You can throw teammates and enemies to attack, or just for strategic movement. Geo panels set up brilliant combo attacks for devasating damage, assuming you can plan them out correctly. Weapons can also level up just as your characters do. You give the item to someone and you go inside the weapon where a dungeon-like situation arises. Defeat it and your weapon gains power and attributes. A very nice feature. If you want better equipment at the shop or more money and the like, you have to take it up with a congress-like group of demons who vote in favor or against you, depending onhow much you bribe them. That right there is hours of enjoyment (or frustration, depending on your patience).

Music is good, it can get repedative and annoying if you listen to the same song for too long, but it doesnt hurt the game. Some of the music is fantastic. Sound effects are excellent, and the voice acting, though a little overdone is of good quality and moves the story along well.

In short, this is a great game worthy of any strategy RPG fans time. Actually, its not just worthy, it demands to be played. The game is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone.

And you thought Final Fantasy Tactics was adicting!?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 30
Date: October 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was in complete awe of this game. Nothing beats a good old fashion RPG that makes you laugh your pants off at the same time. I really can tell you right now, you will die laughing because this games dialouuge is stupidly hilarious. Lets begin.

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!

What is there not to like?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: September 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the best strategy RPG game I remember since FF Tactics.

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!

Why are all truly awesome games sleeper hits?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: April 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Scanning through other reviews, I saw someone had picked up this game due to the box art. I have a similar reason for picking up this game; a whole wave of Disgaea fanart had swept the art site deviantArt, and I thought "These character designs look really cool. I think I'll give it a shot."

I have to say that this game could've been priced at $70 or $80 and, with my opinion I've developed, I still would've purchased it.

I'll say this out front; if you want a game with a deep, thought-provoking storyline with tons of twists, betrayals, and suspense... don't play Disgaea. Go buy Final Fantasy Tactics and have yourself a jolly good time. However, if you're looking for a game with a lighthearted storyline filled to the brim with risque humor and general bashing of lots of pop culture, this game is the game for you.

Very little in the way of a detailed tutorial is given, which is a mixed blessing. First it means you can jump right into the game and get started, but if you're new to the Strategy/RPG Genre you'll probably be a little overwhelmed at first. It plays a little differently than most traditional ones as well. You can have up to 10 characters (either story-influenced ones or created ones) out on a battlefield at once, any type or class. (I have 10 Nekomatas that I use quite often!) You can move them about individually and assign them moves, and you have to tell the game to Excecute them once you've assigned them. Tedious at first, but after an hour or so it becomes automatic (You'll hit Triangle -> X without even thinking about it).

A rather neat feature this game has is a team-attack system. This goes side-by-side with the Master/Pupil system as well. If you have a character, say Laharal (The main character, Demon Prince of the Netherworld) is used to create a Warrior character. If you have Laharl positioned and attacking an enemy with the Warrior ajacent to Laharl, there's a very high chance that the two will both attack at the same time. You can have up to four characters in one combo attack, and some of which are pretty funny, as well as damaging (batting an enemy from the ground to the air, ground to air, etc., or knocking them in the middle of all four and just laying into the sucker).

Another interesting feature of the game is the "Geo Panel" system. In certain maps there will be colored tiles on the ground, and they may or may not have an effect on the battle. Pyramid-shaped gems on a single colored tile will give all of the same colored tile whatever effect they specify. This includes, but isn't limited to, Enemy Boost, Invincibility, Recovery, Atk/Def boost, and so forth. Using Geo Panels to your advantage can make a battle a lot easier, but it can also end up making it a lot tougher, too. Be careful!

The replay value of this game is nigh endless. Why? Well, while Final Fantasy Tactics has Disgaea beat when it comes to storylines, your maximum level in FFT is level 99. Disgaea's maximum level? Nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine. 9999. Not only that, at any point you can reset a character back to level 1. Now WHY would you want to reset a character back to level 1? Well, depending on how much "Mana" you character has (Points racked up from killing enemies), he can keep more and more of its abilities as it resets. Also, a reset level character (called "Transmigrated" in-game) gains stat points much faster than a normal character.

That's not all! Your items aren't simply stoic things that you use in Disgaea. No no no, on the contrary. They're their own dungeons! This game has the unique "Item World" dungeon system, which random generates a dungeon to fight through inside of an item. Getting farther and farther into the dungeon levels up the item higher and higher, up to a maximum of 255 (for "Legendary" status items). These leveled up items can make your characters unstopable powerhouses, if you put the time into it.

Initially, you start with only Laharl, the demon prince, Etna, his vassal, and three "Prinnies", penguin-like beings that are a major highlight of the game, dood. However, you can create more characters. A standard few are available in the beginning, like Warriors (Sword/Axe/Spear users), Brawlers (Martial arts users), Skulls and Mages (Magic users), and Clerics (healers), but you can unlock many more classes as you level up the base ones. Also, you have the option to create any monster that you kill in any battle. The more of them you defeat, the less mana they cost to create.

Nippon-Ichi has put together a truly great game. Let's just hope they bring the others over! (Well, we've got Rhapsody and Disgaea... and La Pucelle is coming out [Phantom Brave has been announced for US release! Woohoo!] I'd highly reccommend this game to anyone who enjoys Strategy/RPGs, or wacky humor. Just watch out for those horse weiners, dood.

my new favorite PS2 game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: July 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You are Laharl, a demon prince of the Netherworld who has been asleep for years. Laharl awakes to find that his father is dead and that he needs to claim his rightful place as Overlord of the Netherworld. Disgaea is Laharl solidifying his place and encountering new adversaries. The first thing that must be said about this game is that it is a very funny game. So much of the dialogue and character interaction is played for laughs while advancing the story.

Disgaea is a strategy RPG. You have a home base (the castle) which you can wander around in. It is a smallish castle. But it is from this castle that everything in the game starts. The actual gameplay takes place on "maps" or "grids" where you set your characters and move them into the best position, turn by turn, to do the most damage to the enemies or also maneuver themselves to attack your characters. This is a turn based game and you can think of the grid as a chess board. It's a chess board with height and obstacles and environment and certain tiles have special properties (attack +50%, invincibility, etc), but that is the way the grid plays out. From the castle you can also purchase items and weapons, go to the "Item World" in which you can fight inside an item to increase the item's stats, or go to the Dark Assembly where you get proposals passed to open new maps or get better stuff at the stores, or create new characters.

The name of the game here is fun. This is a fun game to play and I didn't notice how much time I spent playing until I checked the game clock. For those gamers who aren't sure if they would like a strategy RPG, this is probably the game to try because it is superior to the rest. For those who do like RPG and Strategy games, it doesn't get better than Disgaea. It's a game with lots to do. I spent nearly 80 hours on the game before finishing the story and there was plenty left to do. Good thing there is a "New Game +" mode to go back through the game and make different choices (for multiple endings) as well as working on unlocking those new maps and creating different character classes.

-Joe Sherry

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: August 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

To start with, the negatives: The graphics in this game are nothing to write home about. You can find graphics like this on some of the later PSone games. Oh, and occasionally, the camera can get annoying...

The Positives: I bought this game yesterday, and I have been absolutely hooked. Like some of the previous reviewers have said, it is like an advanced Final Fantasy Tactics. That is just the start of this game. Combat occurs in a very FFT type setting. That's the simple part of the game.

The game them goes into greater complexity by having to convince various demons through "democratic" voting that you should be able to: create new party members, get new items at the shops, raise money, etc. There is also a chance to level up any item in the game by going into the "item world" and challenging your way through it.

However, for me, my heart was lost to this game by the anime-inspired animation and voice acting.

Raw Japanese Insanity

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Disgaea is going to be a love-it-or-hate-it game for nearly everyone who picks it up, and it's not hard to see which side of the fence you'll fall on. Chances are, if this game is indeed going to be up your alley, you've already heard of it, and probably own it. If you're not sure, however, or maybe if you're a vanilla gamer who's out to try something new, then this might just be the next big thing.

The plot of Disgaea looks relatively simple from a distance. Laharl, prince of the Underworld, awakens from a two-year nap to find that some things have gone wrong while he was dreaming. His father has died, and since he wasn't conscious to acceed the throne, the former vassals of the king are now scurrying to take the position that should rightfully be his. Laharl gears up and sets about to reclaim his place as ruler through any means necessary.

And from here, the plot will quickly descend into what can only be described as Japanese Insanity. In Laharl's travels, he'll encounter Angels that want to be ninjas, soldiers that want to be The Power Rangers, demons with lost memories, zombies made ultra-powerful through a particularly unusual endowment, spirits of the dead that serve pennance dressed in penguin costumes, alternate dimensions hidden within items, and an Underworld Governmental Assembly where "physical persuasion" is often necessary to get laws passed.

Seems relatively straightforeward, right?

Ah, but therein lies the rub, and also where the game gets it's charm. All that plot insanity carries over to the game's actual play mechanics as well. Disgaea is not a game that takes itself seriously. In fact, it doesn't take anything seriously whatsoever, ESPECIALLY basic game mechanics. It isn't ten minutes before starting that the game is gleefully skewering nearly every convention of the Tactical RPG genre imaginable.

For example, most Tactical RPGs keep statistics on the player's characters. Win battles with them and they become more powerful, typically indicated in the character's "level." A level 3 character at the beginning of the game will usually cap out at level 80 or so, with 99 being the absolute maximum. This holds true with Disgaea as well, and in a standard game, a level 90 character is indeed quite powerful and can stand up to some of the toughest battles in the main storyline...But why stop there? The maximum character level in Disgaea, should you feel like putting the time in to train them that high, is 9,999.

Yeah.

It's completely pointless, as there is no way that even the most powerful enemies in the game's most secret hidden dungeons (of which there are several) could ever stand up to such a powerful character, nevermind how long it would take to level them to that point - we're talking well over 100 hours, and that's if you're doing it really fast. However, at the end of the day, it's POSSIBLE to do such a thing. Really, that's the most important statement here. After all, you may not NEED to get your characters to anywhere close to that level, but if you WANT to do it...Why not?

Why not, indeed. One gets the feeling that the game's designers have long been fans of the genre, but when the time came to make decisions on things like level caps and attack ratings, the question "Why not?" came into play quite a bit. Ten controllable characters at a time? Well, why not? The ability for characters to pick each other up and toss them around the map, thereby getting around most movement restrictions per turn? Sure! Exploding penguins? Exploding penguins! The list goes on and on...

This could be a problem in other games, but Disgaea manages to pull it all off because, at it's heart, the tried-and-true methods of the genre are all here, and they all work flawlessly. They're just completely unshackled, and the really mavelous thing is that it still works.

And it's this key aspect that may very well kill the game for a lot of people. In order for Disgaea to be fun, you have to see all this as a good thing, which, to the uninitiated, is a difficult thing to do. The concept of going through a 100-floor randomly generated dungeon in order to level up a particular sword's base statistics will strike some people as brilliant, and some others as stupid. The fairly low (though very efficient) production values don't really give the game any added punch, and as a whole, it's really something that's aimed squarely at fans.

The game knows it's audience, but doesn't try to extend beyond that. If the features mentioned in this review strike you as something you'd want to play, then buy this game; you won't regret it at all. If you're unsure, however, then chances are this game's brilliance will fall flat for you.

It's a fans-only party, but those who "get it" will have an absolute blast.

A Good Time Filler

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 32
Date: November 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Lately I haven really been the type to buy games until they've been marked down at least twice. However for some insane reason I picked this game up very soon after it came out based on one person's recommendation. Sounds like a mix for disappointment personally but in the end it was a good idea.

For the most part I really hate these grid based Tactical RPGs. Final Fantasy Tactics was frustratingly boring/difficult/lame after like 4 battles. This game is ten times the game FFT was. The battles are much quicker for one thing, especially if you're replaying old matches for experience. Also you can move all your characters on one turn, something I really hated in FFT. Though I must admit after a few days of regular playing it gets a little old. I find eventually become a bit tired of this game and become distracted by other games or other things going on.

However, the game is easy to come back to, and the charm picks back up almost immediately. This game is a very good game. That is to say, its something good to pick up and play when you have nothing else to play.

Anyway, how about some information on the game itself. You are Laharl, son of the late Lord of the Underworld, your mission is to defeat everyone else and become the new Overlord. Its about time someone made a game where you play as the villain, or at least the less than heroic character. As you battle through various locations eliminating other contenders for the throne. You'll gain several of the characters you encounter to your party to assist you in combat.

You'll need more than just the story characters though if you want to make quick work of things. Any of the characters in your party can recruit followers from a large list of characters. New classes and upgrades of classes become available as your existing characters gain experience. One minor complaint, It would have been nice if the class upgrades would have gotten new sprite (graphics) instead of just recolors, but I suppose that would have made things a little too confusing.

You can also recruit any monster you've battled before, but the cost of doing so is generally excessive for as weak as they are. If you want monsters, the real way to do it is to capture them. If you've weekend a monster in battle you can pick it up and toss it into your home base panel. If the monster is weak enough and the party members in the panel are strong enough, you'll capture the monster.

It doesn't take an eternity to gain levels either. I once made a new level 1 character and had her kill a very strong (weakened) monster and she gained 19 levels in one fight. She was ready to battle along side my stronger characters in no time. Which is really nice since otherwise I$B!G(Bd have had an essentially useless character that late in the game. Also this is the only RPG I can think of where levels go into the hundreds and thousands.

Speaking of levels, you can level up a lot of things. All your characters have regular experience levels of course. Each character can also level up their special abilities, magic spells, and weapon skills for each weapon type. These levels are dependent on how much you use the skill or weapon. Weapons and items themselves can be leveled up as well. You enter the Item World and fight through maps repeatedly. Each map cleared is a level up for the item/weapon. Along your trip through the item world you collect Residents. The Residents are special monsters that give bonus status effects to weapons and items. Once you've collected a Resident you can also move it to another more useful or more powerful item.

There is also the Underworld Senate. You can bring bills to the Senate for things like "Better items for Sale" or "Stronger Monsters". The probability that they will pass depends on your favor with the senators. By bribing the senators with items you can gain more favor. Also if you're strong enough you can challenge the senators that vote against you to a battle. You can also take tests to increase your level in the senate.

Back to the core of the game, battles. Like I mentioned, they are fairly quick and generally easy. They do get more difficult in the later worlds, but there are some easy tricks you can use to gain levels quickly. One of the main gimmicks in battle are the colored Geo Panels. Random squares on the map will be colored one of several colors. There are also colored Geo Stones lying around the maps (Note: Not every map has Geo Panels). The stones add affects to the colored panels. For example, a stone may have the effect "Recover 20%" and it's sitting on a red panel. This will cause every red panel to recover 20% of the HP of any character on that space. The Geo panels also affect monsters, so some strategy has to be used sometimes. There are a ton of different effects from "Enemy Boost" to "Warp" to "Invincibility". Also you can initiate massive chain reactions by destroying Geo Stones on the Geo Panels. These chain reactions are often the only way to gain bonuses on some maps.

Also, in battle characters will often initiate combination attacks with nearby characters. If done correctly it$B!G(Bs possible to do many more hits of damage than you would have done with single attacks. Also you can toss monsters or heroes around to help cover more ground. Monsters can be combined into stronger monsters for more experience as well.

Unfortunately, I am out of space, bottom line is that this is a really fun RPG. There are a few points I didn't even get to touch such as the quirky plot or other battle features.

The Deeper You Go, the More There Is

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 31
Date: December 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the first 'strategy' RPG I've purchased for the PS2. I generally prefer the more traditional RPG's, whether they be pure hack and slash, or heavily story based like the Final Fantasy series. I've never much cared for strategy style games when I used my PC as a gaming machine, so I stayed clear of Disgaea despite its tremendous reviews. But with my back acting up I grabbed the game as entertainment during a long bed rest - and that's more than enough about me.

My first reaction to Disgaea was a bit of disappointment with the graphics of the game, which are pretty basic. An initially the strategy element reminded me of games I had played 10 years ago - you moved your characters around the field and hit the kill button. The story line seemed pretty mundane as well; an overly cute demon wakes from a very long nap to discover his father (the overlord) had choked to death on a pretzel, and now young Laharl has to win back the title for himself. Laharl is aided initially by a group of preset characters. But you will quickly discover that you can tailor make new characters to fit your needs and the game becomes very much your own creation.

In fact, the real strategy elements to Disgaea stay hidden unless you go looking for them. There is a demonic council you can petition for an amazing list of things, including several major side quests, as well as better items and fighting skills. My favorite is the way weapons are leveled up, which requires you to take your party into the weapon and fight your way through an everlasting (almost) series of levels that are not just difficult, but extremely complex as well. This really brings out the strategy element much more than the straight foreward story line battles.

And then, there are eight possible endings...

My first pass through to the end took about 60 hours, and I thought I had covered most of the game. At this point I took a look at a walkthrough and promptly discovered I had missed almost half of the options available. That says a lot for the game's ability to hold interest on a repeat play through. It has certainly made me reconsider the 'strategy' style game as genre worth playing.

The story line turns out to more depth and originality than it initially appears to have, as it ranges from hell to outer space and heaven. In fact, the only real downside to the game is the graphics and lack of animation. Here it is acceptable, but lacks inspiration. Since the game's success begs for a sequel, I'm hoping for improvement on that front.

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