Disgaea 2 was getting some play at E3, and we played it back.
Atlus is the beloved developer of Ogre Tactics and the first Disgaea title, Hour of Darkness. Having just recently fallen into the endlessly fun mind-trap that is Disgaea, I can say that I was doubly excited to get my hands on an early build of part two.
For those of you who aren,t familiar with the series, The first Disgaea game plays very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, in the sense of turn based super strategy on a grid based combat system. There are, of course, a couple of twists. This type of strategy has been called “Chess on PCP” because everything you do has an effect. Whether you attack from the sides, the front or the back, whether you attack from higher ground, equal or lower, whether or not you,re standing on an area effect panel (called geo-panels). Depending on the character, their level, aptitude, weapon, proficiency, you can affect different areas with different attacks and abilities and not only have to plan your next move, but the next several as well.
Disgaea,s own genius additions to the strategy pool is in several key areas. The geo-panels are newly-created additions that can modify EXP, damage, defense, abilities, and many other attributes, depending on where you,re standing. Along with the “Lift and Throw” system, with which you can actually throw other characters to reach unreachable places, or move enemies within range, or even stack enemies to make higher level enemies. This, along with a clean format and uproarious storyline, made the first game a smash hit in US and most especially in Japan.
The second game borrows heavily from the existing format, but they have addressed a lot of the existing problems, changed the appearance slightly, and expanded the world to an impressive degree. Some of the more relevant changes involve a whole new cast of characters, which will hopefully will give players the opportunity to craft a totally new, hilarious, unique storyline from scratch. As far as tactics and classes go, some things have been beefed up. For instance, the archers are now much more useful, in the previous game the archers seemed to be unnaturally short-ranged until MUCH later in levels. Now they start out with a much more satisfying range of attack. One of the characters is a gun wielder who has to shoot in straight lines, but appears to have no range limitations either.
To be fair this build was only about 60 percent complete, but the combo/team attack system is fully intact, life and throw, geo-panels, everything that made the previous title an absolute blast to play were all available. Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is sure to bring back some wonderful memories as well, and to be at least as good if not better than its predecessor, which is more than enough reason to watch for this one.
