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Platform:
Playstation 2 Genre:
Strategy RPG Publisher:
NIS America Developer:
Nippon Ichi ETA: August 2006
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Disgaea
2
Are
you guys ready to put the beat-down on some evil penguins?
Those
of you who are will be happy to hear that Nippon Ichi software has
announced that Disgaea 2—the followup to 2003's Disgaea: Hour of
Darkness—will be available not only in Japan, but also in North
America for the Playstation 2.
Currently
expected to be ready for North America sometime around August 2006, the
strategy RPG will draw players into a vast 3D underworld inhabited by
cute anime demons. Unlike Hour of Darkness, however, where players
stepped into the role of Laharl, crown prince of the netherworld,
controlling his team of demons in an attempt to take the place over,
this time you'll be playing a good guy.
In Disgaea 2, you'll play as Adell, the last surviving member of the human race. It's up to you to descend into the underworld in an effort to defeat Overlord Zenon—a nasty demon who has cursed Adell's peaceful home world of Veldime and turned all of its inhabitants into monsters. Several characters from the original will also have supporting roles, including Etna and her legion of demonic "prinny" penguins.
This plot will be borne out through anime cut scenes, but the heart of the game is hard-core turn-based strategy role-playing. Hour of Darkness received a lot of praise from critics for targeting experienced strategy RPG fans and refusing to dumb down the game for players new to the genre, and it looks like Disgaea 2 will take that tack as well. Characters will once again be able to level up into the thousands, morph into an ever-expanding roster of |
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character
classes to achieve new skills, and launch complex combination attacks
with the help of their teammates. Players will also once again be able
to customize and improve their equipment by taking side-quests inside
their weapons and items (this being the underworld and all—where the
laws of time and space become really trippy).
The underworld's "Dark Assembly" is still in place of course, so creating more powerful characters will be a process occasionally mediated by this demonic senate. Fortunately, since its members are all demons, they're once again corruptible through bribes, threats and cajoling. One new development, albeit one with a |
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similar
theme, is a separate "dark court" system, which will
occasionally issue your team a summons to either reward or punish you
for transgressions such as leveling up too quickly or throwing too many
penguins around during a battle.
Overall, while Nippon Ichi is promising an all-new and "vastly improved" 3D environment, as well as a few tweaks to the battle system (such as a "master" and "student" system that allows newly created team-members to receive special bonuses by fighting alongside their assigned mentors) recent developer interviews have focused mostly on how the game will retain the look, feel and surreal, dark humor of Hour of Darkness.
There
already appear to be a few fans of the original upset that Larhal won't
be returning—at least in any kind of major role. But, judging from the
press releases, gameplay footage and other information that's available
right now, it looks like Nippon Ichi took an "if it ain't broke,
don't fix it" approach to this sequel. Although that always has the
potential to make some players feel like they're covering familiar
ground, it's tough to argue with the 100 hours of gameplay the title is
promising. And, if this franchise gains more traction in the North
American market, Geneon, Nippon Ichi and D-Rights have already expressed
an interest in getting their upcoming Japanese Disgaea animated series
on television here as well.
Be on the lookout for Disgaea 2 late this summer, you penguin killers.
-M. Enis (March 3, 2006) |
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