Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories

"Best SRPG ever. What do you get when you make the best even better?"

Wowie. It's been three whole years since the debut of the very first Disgaea. You've gotta' admit, there has not been a great SRPG lately other than the games coming from NIS. This company has come along within the recent years and has produced comedy yet very technical Strategy Role Playing Games, filling a void which has been ignored for so many years. NIS has a habit of doing things great when it comes to SRPGS - Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics (I know, it can be tough to love), Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, and now Disgaea 2.

I liked LPT, I liked Makai Kingdom (Zetta is still my favorite Overlord). But none of them quite filled the shoes of Disgaea. Luckily, Disgaea has returned, packed to the gills with amazing content, over hundreds of hours of game play, tons of replayability and unlockables, and tile grid based battles; oh, sweet tiles.

And so it begins.

Disgaea 2 is the story about a 17 year old named Adell. Overlord Zenon has changed everyone in Veldime into a demon, with the exception of Adell, a young martial artist. Adell promises to defeat Overlord Zenon in hopes to reverse the curse that Zenon has placed on his friends, family, and all people of Veldine. When attempting to summon Overlord Zenon, however, the summon brings his daughter, Rozalin, complicating things even more. Why did Zenon do this to Veldime? Who is he really? And why is Adell the only human spared from the curse?

NIS has been great at telling comedic stories. Seriously, it's not all comedy, there's some serious stuff here, but NIS does so well with comedy. With Disgaea 2, however, it just doesn't quite have the "spark" the original Disgaea did. I like the story here, but the exchanges between Adell, Rozalin and Tink are just not as good as Laharl, Etna and Flonne. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad story, but story is good, but it just did not grip me the same measure the original story did. To be honest, that is the only serious gripe preventing me from getting this game a 10/10. Consider it a 0.5. Usually people will round up from the middle, but the other 0.5 portion comes later.

I really, really like this story. Remember that. Perhaps my favorite part of the story would not only be the witty dialogue and hook of the plot, but also the end-chapter commentary brought to you by the news, projected throughout different Netherworlds within the Multiverse.

As for the multimedia, sound, music, graphics...

We're good here when it comes to sounds. The battle field sounds are nice, nothing spectacular. The voice acting, on the other hand, is excellent. Each character is voiced extremely well. Yes, some original characters are back, and their roles are reprised very well. The voice acting is, perhaps, the most appealing in terms of the "sights and sounds" experience.

Then the music. There's great music here, plenty of good stuff to listen to, as well as a couple old pieces thrown in for nostalgia which still contain the creepy harmony which set the mood for the first title. As for the graphics, they're good, and "okay". I love the sprites and the updates made to the sprites. Each character here looks great from a simple attack to an over the top combo. The only drawback on the graphics side, however, are the backgrounds. They're simply PSone quality. No great 3d effects for the backgronds, just simple, flat graphics. Granted they're better than the previous title's backgrounds, there just needs to be a little more work when it comes to this area.

Also, and I have to say this, I know I'm not the only one who loves the drawn artwork sprinkled all over the box, in the manual, and within the strategy guide? I love this kind of artwork, and yes, it's in the game in the team attacks, and even at the end of each chapter via the... "news."

I don't know how the localization does it. They take a great game which has a ton of Japanese humor, put it in a bundle, wrap it in a bow, and deliver it in a delicious, plastic wrapped package. The voice actors do an excellent job delivering their lines - I have no idea where the voice actors come from, but the only level I can compare them to is ADV. They're that good.

The game play is where the title shines.

Truly at the heart of all NIS strategy games, as every longtime NIS player will tell you, is that the game play is the meat of these titles. Every item you can acquire has it's own attributes, and it's own "world." An opened can of soda? Sure, yeah, it's nice for HP recovery and even a little MP. I'm sure if you "leveled it up" to 10, it can restore more HP. Also, did I mention you can enter the opened can of soda's worlds and go into battle with numerous creatures? You can also have the inhabitants of the world submit to you in battle so that, let's say, Mr. Gladiator who gives an item a +1 in ATK can be moved to another item, and get leveled up even more so that he is worth even more good. You could also check out the variety of Mystery Rooms within different floors of the item world: some contain treasure, some enemies, secret shops and more. Did I forget to mention that you can also go to the item world's court system on the 10th level and try to pass a bill to give the item a little more "oomph" in a certain stat?

Seriously, that's just an unopened can of soda. Each item in the game is distinctly unique with it's own attributes, inhabitants, rarity level and residents. You can take a practically useless item at the beginning of the game and level it up to do great damage. And if it's Rare or Legendary, you can level it up even more than if it was a common form of the item.

The reason why these games offer over hundreds of hours of entertainment are most all due to the Item World. Of course, that's not all. The regular worlds are not without their charm. Here's a brief synopsis of my first day with Disgaea 2.

After I was able to control my party normally, I went into the early stages and cleared them using my tiny group of "good for nothings" that I received at the beginning of the game. After beating the stages, I went back and managed to nab that little treasure chest I made on my first play through. I then decided to go it solo. I tossed in a fighter and had him take out a bunch of enemies. When his life was in jeopardy, I stuck him in a Geo Panel "Heal 20%" square so he recovered health at the end of the turn. Then he came out with special techs and everything.

Hours later my Fighter is up around Lvl. 17, and I decide to visit the Dark Assembly. Stepping into the Senate I choose, out of a large list of things to do, to Reincarnate my Lvl. 17 Fighter into a much stronger fighter on a higher class. So I reincarnated him, he kept some of his stat bonuses from his original form, and he even got some better ability points to boot. I then took my now Lvl. 1 fighter back into the first world and used other characters to "fuse" enemies together in order to strengthen their level, then I used the abilities of the fighter to take them all out. Needless to say, his power rocked to Level 8 shortly.

After finding the challenge too easy, I made my way to the Dark Assembly and tried to pass a bill to increase enemy strength. Of course, the assembly was only 43% in my favor. What do you do when the Senate is mostly against you? Bribe, bribe away! I took a goody bag full of fun little things into the assembly. One senator of a high influence was "leaning no" on his decision. Luckily he had a sweet tooth for the Angel Cake, so I gave him some and he immediately reconsidered his judgment. Another senator loathed me, he was totally against me, and worst of all, he had great influence. Of course, I slipped him some Chloroform, and he fell right asleep during the voting process which came later. Finally, one of my supporters was sleeping through the session, so I gave him... a bomb. He wasn't to happy with the following explosion from the bomb, so he decided to turn against me. Huh. Some gratitude. But I guess I owe it to a drunk guy who hated me, but was too drunk to remember it, so he voted in favor of me. And yes, in the end, the bill got passed.

This is just a summation of the events which took place on the first day. This title is so massive that it's hard to give a fair description of just half of the things you can do. I can go into the fact that I took on the Dark Sun within the Dark World, but that's a story for another day. Then again, I could mention how I created a Thief and gave him leveled up and enhanced equipment which made him a mini Juggernaut.

Battle System, battle system. There are two words to describe the battle system: "Finely Tuned." This is the most complex and entertaining battle system I've every played in any Strategy Role Playing Game. The strategy involved is amazing. Maybe I ought to Reincarnate my Red Skull into a Blue Skull so that, not only can they use strong fire magic, but they can inherit that when they are remade into a Blue Skull with better starting attributes, and the knowledge not only of Ice, but also the knowledge retained of the Fire Magic? In battle, should I try to take this foe out with these two heavy hitters, or should I weaken him with a strong hit, then have two weaker units pummel him with an attacks resulting in a combo? When you come to another point, you then ask yourself, should I sneak in a team attack so that this other character can get in on experience? Or should I go for broke, tower all my character together using the Lift command, and get EXP for all using a tower attack?

The Geo System is back and better than ever before. There are actual Geo Symbol Monsters which will move from tile to tile during turns. You may have an EXP +50% stat on a Red Panel, but then the Geo Symbol Monster will move, another one will sit upon a Red Square, and you may be stuck with an Ally Damage effect if you don't move. This is just another level of strategy brought to the table. Also, the puzzles themselves will give a headache. Not the headache as in "run out of the room screaming" headache, but a "this is challenging, and I'm loving it" headache. "I can take out this geo symbol, destroy it, and open a combo so that all panels of that color will be changes to the color of the geo symbol." "I can open a combo which can clear all geo symbols on the map and take out a ton of enemies standing on panels, and ultimately score much higher on my end-stage bonus." Then again, sometimes you'll even think, "I could score a big combo right now, but this character isn't doing so well, but he has a strong attack. I can place him on this invincibility panel and he can't be killed, and he can get a shot at another character. While I'm at it I can place my ax-donning Battle Master on the Attack +1 panel and have him let lose two combo blows in one shot."

In closing...

Nothing sweeter than an awesome title having amazing replayability? Not only can you play through the game several times, but you can experience different endings within the game based on your actions. There's the Item World, the Dark World, the secret cave, the hidden bosses, the bonus unlockable items and equipment. If you want, you can play through the title normally and finish the game in a fair time. If you want, you can step it up a notch, beef up your characters, bass some bills to unlock more character classes, strengthen enemies, and power your characters up not only to Lvl 99, not only to Lvl 999, but even up to Lvl 9999. Yes, your characters can be Godly. In fact, there's only one challenge which can stand up to a maxed out character, and that's even difficult. Your characters HP stats will fly off the charts, your damage reaching a suspected top of over 2 Billion Damage.

If you get this title, I highly suggest getting the Strategy Guide. It provides, step for step, guidance on every level in the game, how to power up your characters, all sorts of techniques you can learn, and is jam packed full of charts, tables, and is one thick son of a gun strategy guide.

Should you rent the title, or purchase it? Definitely purchase it. You may be playing it for years to come. I like Final Fantasy Tactics, but even it's customization and battle system just doesn't reach the Finely Tuned level of Disgaea. If you want an amazing title, dynamic game play, a great story, tons of replayability and my personal vote for the best SRPG I've played, get Disgaea. Don't just rent it, buy it.

Disgaea 2 improves on all of the previous games of it's kind, and adds so much more to the mix. And yes, the sweet, sweet tile grid based maps are back. Oh yes. Hands down, best SRPG I've played, ever. There's only a couple small aspects holding it back from getting a perfect 10, but none of these points should stop you from running out your front door, down to the game shop, and purchasing one of the best games to come around in a long time.

The Good:
- Excellent Game play
- Perfect Battle System
- Great Story

The Bad:
- The characters didn't quite hit it off with great exchanges and emotional attachments like in the original Disgaea
- Backgrounds need a little work

The Rhetorical Question:
- Could Axel's Director get any more annoying?

Disgaea 2, review by NWalterstorf

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06