Goliath
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,830
(For the clueless: the Disgaea games are - infamous - SRPGs for consoles)
By now there is an additional Disgaea - Disgaea D2. Fortunately that game is only available on the PS3 and thus I am not tempted to complete that one too. I do not own any non-portable consoles and there is no way I am going to play Disgaea on a non-portable anyway.
Platform
Which brings me to my platform recommendation: The PS Vita is the ultimate Disgaea station by far. All four games are available in the online store and look great on that platform. Disgaea uses simple 2D graphics, 1 & 2 even relatively low-res ones which look much better on a small screen. More importantly Disgaea's strength (for me) is that it is the ultimate time killer. Spend an hour when and where you want doing fabulously brainless grinding to relax.
Gameplay - Grinding
Which brings me to the gameplay of Disgaea. It is rightfully called the ultimate (single player) grinder, because of the "post-game" features, the roguelike-ish item world etc. which means you can easily spend hundreds of hours grinding if you REALLY want to complete every single map and beat even the uber-uber-uber-boss extreme badass edition 2X. The main game / plot does not require that much grinding however. Still if you are one of those people who hate grinding with passion stay the hell away from Disgaea.
Personally I like well-done grinding and Disgaea 1 and 2 feature the most fun grinding I have ever experienced. Unfortunately, Disgaea 3 and 4 are not even in the same league. I have to say that I almost considered not completing Disgaea 4 when I faced the prospect of having to grind some more to complete the last few maps. The primary difference between the two systems is that in 3&4 you simply buy everything with "mana" and to get mana you simply kill enemies. That simplifies (and speeds up) grinding a lot and ruins the fun for me.
Gameplay - Tactics
I can honestly claim to have played most SRPGs released outside of Japan (I am a big fan of the genre but do not understand Moonspeak) and very few require actual "strategy" .. and Disgaea is no exception there. Except for a few things which should be obvious to the average 12 year old boy there is no thinking involved. If you are looking for tactical challenge look elsewhere. This for me is by the way not a bad thing. I play Disgaea to relax i.e. when I want to rest my brain.
Style and plot
Disgaea is totally goofy and does not pretend otherwise, careless fourth wall breaking and all. If you are looking for Bioware deepness here you should - again - look elsewhere. And - again - this is a feature not a bug for me. The art - silly Jap cartoon style - fits the theme. Disgaea is very Japanese in general and thus occasionally a little pervert from a Western point of view. However there is no actually pornographic content. At this point I would like to illustrate the goofyness and art style of Disgaea with a video:
(Note that you can turn off those attack animations)
Where to start
Disgaea 1 - no question. The first game features the best comedy, characters and plot and the game mechanics are almost as good as in Disgaea 2.
Tl;dr: Disgaea is my favorite SRPG series but certainly not for everyone.
By now there is an additional Disgaea - Disgaea D2. Fortunately that game is only available on the PS3 and thus I am not tempted to complete that one too. I do not own any non-portable consoles and there is no way I am going to play Disgaea on a non-portable anyway.
Platform
Which brings me to my platform recommendation: The PS Vita is the ultimate Disgaea station by far. All four games are available in the online store and look great on that platform. Disgaea uses simple 2D graphics, 1 & 2 even relatively low-res ones which look much better on a small screen. More importantly Disgaea's strength (for me) is that it is the ultimate time killer. Spend an hour when and where you want doing fabulously brainless grinding to relax.
Gameplay - Grinding
Which brings me to the gameplay of Disgaea. It is rightfully called the ultimate (single player) grinder, because of the "post-game" features, the roguelike-ish item world etc. which means you can easily spend hundreds of hours grinding if you REALLY want to complete every single map and beat even the uber-uber-uber-boss extreme badass edition 2X. The main game / plot does not require that much grinding however. Still if you are one of those people who hate grinding with passion stay the hell away from Disgaea.
Personally I like well-done grinding and Disgaea 1 and 2 feature the most fun grinding I have ever experienced. Unfortunately, Disgaea 3 and 4 are not even in the same league. I have to say that I almost considered not completing Disgaea 4 when I faced the prospect of having to grind some more to complete the last few maps. The primary difference between the two systems is that in 3&4 you simply buy everything with "mana" and to get mana you simply kill enemies. That simplifies (and speeds up) grinding a lot and ruins the fun for me.
Gameplay - Tactics
I can honestly claim to have played most SRPGs released outside of Japan (I am a big fan of the genre but do not understand Moonspeak) and very few require actual "strategy" .. and Disgaea is no exception there. Except for a few things which should be obvious to the average 12 year old boy there is no thinking involved. If you are looking for tactical challenge look elsewhere. This for me is by the way not a bad thing. I play Disgaea to relax i.e. when I want to rest my brain.
Style and plot
Disgaea is totally goofy and does not pretend otherwise, careless fourth wall breaking and all. If you are looking for Bioware deepness here you should - again - look elsewhere. And - again - this is a feature not a bug for me. The art - silly Jap cartoon style - fits the theme. Disgaea is very Japanese in general and thus occasionally a little pervert from a Western point of view. However there is no actually pornographic content. At this point I would like to illustrate the goofyness and art style of Disgaea with a video:
(Note that you can turn off those attack animations)
Where to start
Disgaea 1 - no question. The first game features the best comedy, characters and plot and the game mechanics are almost as good as in Disgaea 2.
Tl;dr: Disgaea is my favorite SRPG series but certainly not for everyone.
