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Language: GamerDad saw (and read) a lot of "crap", plus an appropriately demon-level amount of "damn" and "hell" Mild fantasy violence: Characters attack each other with fists and a variety of weapons, including guns, but GamerDad sees it as very cartoon-like and exaggerated. Mild suggestive themes: GamerDad witnessed "bouncy" females, a shirtless male celebrity, and some saucy jokes, such as a reference to "Napoleon Bonerhard" or a pimple (!) saying "I like boobies!" Delve into the world of Veldime and take control of Adell, the only human left after the big mean Overlord Zenon turned everyone else into demons. After Adell's foster parents attempt to summon Zenon but instead get his daughter, you're thrust into an adventure to defeat Zenon and lift his curse, battling everything from zombies and dragons to cat-girls and ninja. It's all very standard story-wise, but what sets Disgaea 2 (and the other Nippon Ichi games in the same series) apart from regular role-playing games is that the emphasis is very much placed on the mechanics of battle. Instead of freely roaming a map to find items and get to the next part of the plot, you simply choose a "room" of foes and set off to battle. As you progress, more rooms are opened up, but you can go back to any room at any time. The first time you encounter a particular room, you'll get a small cutscene both before and after you fight, to advance the story, but most of the time you'll be playing on a series of chessboard-like levels, the game grid defining how your characters can move and attack. Changing little from the original Disgaea title, the actual game flow for each room is quite basic ﾖ choose a character from your party (you can create and train new members from well over 100 different classes throughout the game), bring them to the battlefield, move them into position, and then choose whether to attack or use a special move or item. Do this for several characters (up to ten on the field at once), then execute your plans and wait for the enemies to take their turn. The complexity in Disgaea 2 comes from the sheer variety of tactics you can use, such as the new technique of stacking characters on top of each other for a visually silly but powerful attack. Some rooms become puzzles, as you work out how to best manage the specially-colored Geo tiles, each offering positive or negative bonuses for you or the enemy. The game is presented in a Japanese anime style, with lots of charming ﾖ if simplistic ﾖ graphics. It won't win any technical excellence awards, but that doesn't matter, it's all about the addictive gameplay and the silly humor that permeates through everything from the conversations to item descriptions. To be sure, the game is not for everyone - it won't hold the interest of people who crave cutting-edge graphics or get bored by looking at various item stats, and if you played the first game but wanted something new for the sequel, you won't find it. But for the type of person who will play a game to completion multiple times just to get every possible item, it's heaven.  
While the whole game revolves around combat with fists and weapons, it is all very comical and light-hearted. There is no blood, and when someone is defeated they just vanish in a magical swirl. It bears explicitly stating that the world is full of demons, and the unit of currency is Hell (as "HL"), so there is lots of associated imagery involved, but again, everything is cutesified. Indeed, the concept of being a demon isn't really shown to be terrible; many of the Veldime residents seem to prefer it. Some of the demon characters encourage the player to be "evil", but again, it's all pretty silly. Adell does show an admirable sense of justice however, and there are several examples of compassion from the other characters.
While he gets some of the best jokes, the Tink character is a walking (well, flying) stereotype ﾖ he is a womanizing frog with a bad French accent, who is sometimes shown as cowardly. There are plenty of strong female characters, but as has been mentioned, some of them are wearing the seemingly obligatory skimpy fantasy outfits, and someone spent quite some time on making the "bosom jiggle" animations. Most of this is limited to the low-res character sprites, but there are some more visible examples such as victory screens where physical assets are on show. A few more risqué phrases crop up in the quirky item and character descriptions, such as the option I was given to "Create a busty beauty". If you're not familiar with anime culture, it may be a little disarming to see some of these quite young-looking cartoon characters in some rather revealing outfits or making breast size jokes, and it's this sort of content that has me suggesting it only be played by and around older teens and adults. Even without this, the game would simply be too complex for a younger child to get any satisfaction out of playing. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "disgaea nippon ichi strategy rpg" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Disgaea 2 |
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