6/15/13

Disgaea D2. Thought, review, and walkthrough.

Alright, for my first long post after quite a while, Im going to write about a game that I really like. Just bought it about last week though.

 

The game, disgaea D2 is a sequel from the original disgaea from... 2003 or something. So its not some random fist dude, or a smart student overload, or a vampire ( yes, I played all of the disgaea series ), its THE Larharl.

 

Anyway~ I bought the standard edition, without the nendroid Etna and Flone or the BMG discs ( obs). But I got a guide book along with the game for like 500 yen. I dont usually care about game guide book, but hey, this is Disgaea, the game is like verrrrry deep.

The game and the official guidebook that I got.

 

Oh, I should warn you. There are probably some spoilers in this post, but Im currently only on chapter 5 when Im writing this so nothing too serious.

 

So lets take a look as to why Im loving this game.

The interface is much prettier. Looks like monster hunter though.


Unlike 2,3, and 4. This time disgaea is having quite a makeover. The UI is unlike anything before. They threw out some things, make it simple, and touched up a bit. And, kinda like dragon quest, when you move around the castle, Flone and Etna will follow behind you. Its fun trying to lose them by double jumping up the balkoni. Lol.

However, if you remember the secret Etna room ( which opened after pushing 2 switches ) from the original disgaea, you need to lose Etna. Not by killing her, no one would like that, youd need to appeal at the court thingy. You can even change who you control, etc. not really important for the story, just for fun.

And then, for the item completion, the item preview will be appearing at a thumbnail. Neat~

Oh, as you can see, Ive only thrown like 7 hours into the game when I took the pic. Probably around 20 something right now Im guessing.

The status screen has gotten better too. Dont mind my naming sense. Btw my monk is named Maam. From the dragon quest manga. Id name my magician Pop, but nah~

 

The hospital has gotten better too. Your reward is listed when you reached some benchmark. As in, if you healed up to 500000HP, you'll be getting ???????. <-- its written like this, so youd know that youd be getting something, but you wouldnt know what.

Unlike before, the same rarity equip bonus is much easier to achieve. 2 gold equipment added to 20% bonus, 3 to 30, and 4 to 40. Silver gives 2 to 10%, 3 to 20, and 4 to 30.

 

Next, lets talk about characters creations.

So just like from disgaea 4, the old man is no more, and this guy is the new geomaster.

 

Oh, I should remind you that on this series. You dont need to tell the characters to learn skills. They will learn automaticaly when they leveled up. HOWEVER, there are some skills that can only be learn by money.

Each characters got they own personality that you can choose when creating them, which affect their passive skill. I just created my archer just now and I can choose whether to give her an a 100% against flying enemy, or extra 2 range for attack or 5% increase in stats for each enemy in range. I chose the second one.

Flone got the best ability. She gets a 10% increase in stat when she heal someone up to full health. My friend make a very interesting strategy to make another character health become unfull by equiping them with an armor that gives +HP and then after flone healed them, he would unequp and reequip. Nice idea. I didnt do that but this one time, my Flone stats is at 600 average while the other is like 150 tops. It was a tough battle and Flone is a good healer. :)

Larharl gets 10% increase in stat everytime he destroyed an opponent and Etna got an extra 50% damage if she attack a full health enemy. Which might explain why my Etna is still low level.

My Maam ability is to counter 2 times. i.e enemy hits you once, Maam will hit one time to get even and one more time for the interest.

 

From the ability perspective, Flone might be the best. But this guy next is probably the cutest.

This is the male cleric. As houuin kyoma said it "but he is a guy".

 

OK, probably not the cutest. My vote for the cutest is probably the female Larharl. The voice actress Mizuhashi Kaori ( bakatest minami etc ) is really good. Of course, she voices the male Larharl too.

Of couse, I still havent see the angel Flone yet. Ive heard rumors, but my vote now is for female Larharl.

The human characters is cute and all, but the monsters arent to be dismissed. Heck, there are just about as many monsters as there are humans. I tend to make every type of monsters and characters, looks like im going to need a bigger home panel.

A LOT of monsters to be summoned.

 

Oh, by the way, the one that got the most stats is prinny. So think twice before you start throwing one.

...

......

Nah~ just throw them. Its much more fun that way anyway. Their passive ability affect how they blow. Short but powerful or long but much weaker.

 

Enough about character creation! Systems! Lets talk about the new system next.

First, the affection thing.

New feature that shows the affection of others.

 

You gain their affection by healing them, adding them, etc. You get hated by them by well.... Killing them is the fastest way.

What does that do you ask. Firstly, it allows Protect action and Cover Attack. Your teammate takes the damage for you instead and the enemy attack the enemy again after you respectively. And well... I think some cut scene will happend if the hearts are full. There is a trophy for that for sure.

Next, is the piggyback system

They scratched out monster change ( or was it monster weapon? ) and add in piggyback system.

 

This is one way to transport your human character. When killed by enemy units, only the monster got killed, bit if they win, then both the monster and the person piggied got the exp points.

But the best part of the piggyback system, is the skill.

An example of the skill that initiate from the piggyback. Yes, that does seems like bomberman. Not even going to single line that one.

 

Next, theres the new item world.

They made the item world more challenging. First, youd need a ship. The default ships can only go as far as floor 30 and 60.

Of course, thatd enough. Thing is, the legend rarity (gold) items goes up to 100. To do that, youd need to eliminate the pirates (which are sometimes 2 times your level).

One more thing, Ive never completed the item world on disgaea 4 before, so i dont know if this is new or not. but from what I read, after you completed all 30 level on common rarity, the rarity will increase to rare (silver), and after you completed that, it will increase to legend (gold). After you completed that, the rarity doesnt change but the you can go to the item world from the floor 0.

Caption : A ¥500/30minutes rent boat. Thought about returning it but was afraid of the late fee. Not returning it. Lol.

 

The geopanel is the same as the.... Second? Not the one that block type and can be stacked. Its the triangle pyramid thing. Simpler.

Oh, when going into item world, its quite frustrating to manage which item to bring right? No? Oh well. Nevertheless, there is no chest item as such. You will bring all the items with you.

No more "OMG, I forgot the escape door"

 

The item court is still a feature in the game. The catch is; for the item court, you are going to need money instead of mana. Which costs like a fortune.

The court too has gotten much better. For one thing, there is the judge. The judge is usually asleep, but if he is awake, he can use special ability to support or condemn you. Like before, you can bribe, although there are many see saw effect in the game. Got too much support from one type, one other type will start to hate you.

Of course, you can always beat the hell out of them to make them approve. Or.......!

A new feature, you can literally throw money at them and make them approve. Requires A LOT of money though.

Lastly, is the gym. Much like digimon world, you can make your characters go to gym so theyd get an extra bonus when leveling.

Oh, I got Fuuka and Decco as a free DLC when the game came out.

One of the best axe in my team.

 

The story goes like this. Up until chapter 5 though.

Most demon dont recognise Larharl as the overlord. There are some that supports the former overlord but dont think the heir for the throne is suitable. (One of them is voice by Kuroyuki Hime from Accel World).

Some weird things are going at Makai. The heaven flower is blooming all over and causing some weird phenomenon. Like 2P Etna and Girl Larharl.

 

Overall, great game. It brings the memories back in a good way. Where most developer fail to deliver a sequel, NIS brings what people love about DISGAEA and present it with flowers all over. The humors are as good as ever and the seriously who didnt cry on the first game where the pink prinny goes back to the red moon? Its a sequel of that. DLCs are coming out too. Not sure if that a plus though.

The one in the middle is the angel from Kamipara (the guided fate paradox, great game too. Much like ZHP)

 

Coming out this fall for the PS3.

The clear file that I got as a gift. ^^

 

Have fun! If your stuck somewhere and wanted a guide, just give me a message below. I'll look it up on the book that I got. :)

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really, not a single comment?

I really did like your preview, you must be one of the first to preview it. It's allways different reading a player/fans point of view rather than a reviewer.

Thank you for doing this, I reallt appreciate it :D

Anonymous said...

Thanks for putting this up, it was a nice intro to whats new to the game. Especially since it isn't out in the US for a little while