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Published
by KOEI Co. Ltd
Developed by NIPPON
ICHI SOFTWARE INC.
Released - Out Now
Price : £39.99
All
too often these days games arrive on a tidal wave of hype
only to be found wanting when they are released. Occasionally
though a real gem, that is worth the price of the console
just to play the game, sneaks onto the game store shelves
with little fuss. If you're a fan of strategy RPG games
(or tactical games as they are sometimes known) you'll already
know about Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. The game has been
a huge success in both Japan and the US and on the 28th
May it arrived here in the UK. If you were impressed by
the original Final Fantasy Tactics then be prepared to be
completely amazed by Disgaea: Hour of Darkness as it has
to be one of the finest strategy RPG games ever created.
The
game is set in the Netherworld, a dark and evil place filled
with demons, and the story begins two years after the death
of King Krichevskoy, the ruler of the Netherworld. Whilst
the King passed away, his son and heir to the throne, Prince
Laharl, was asleep and only now, two years after the King's
death has he awoken. As you can imagine with there being
no one to immediately succeed the King, because of Laharl's
exceedingly long snooze, many have had designs on the throne
and Laharl awakens to find the kingdom in disarray and filled
with enemies who have designs on the throne. With only his
trusty sidekick, Etna, and a few other poorly skilled allies,
Laharl must bring order to the Netherworld and claim the
throne that is rightfully his.
Disgaea:
Hour of Darkness will be quite unlike anything else you've
ever played. At it's heart it's a brilliant turn-based tactical
strategy game but whilst these games are usually dry, occasionally
dull affairs, Disgaea has so much charm and humour that
it will appeal to those who are usually put off by games
in this genre. It's makes every attempt to brighten up what
is usually a rather dry genre. When purchasing weapons for
instance you get a brief description of that weapon. For
the Common Bow the description says that it's been 'made
during an arts & crafts class' and for the Iron Lance
it says that it's 'an average spear, popular among housewives.'
These aren't really the kind of comments you'd expect to
find in such an in depth game. It's also rather humorous
the way you can throw your own characters at your enemies
(and use them as bombs in some cases) and you can even pick
up and throw your enemies at your enemies. Some of the conversations
are also rather comical. Such is the appeal of the game
that even my children have become interested.
From
looking at the screenshots you'd be forgiven for thinking
the game is a clone of Final Fantasy Tactics but whilst
initial impressions are that it's a similar game only a
short play will make it quite clear that Disgaea is so much
more. The game begins in Laharl's castle and between battles
you'll return to the castle to heal up at the Netherworld
Hospital and purchase weapons and other items from the Rosen
Queen Company store. There are also many other things to
do (which we'll talk about in a moment) but as any strategy
RPG gamer knows the main focus of these games is the battles.
If you enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics or more recently Final
Fantasy Tactics Advance (or any other game of this nature)
then you'll be completely bowled over with the battles in
Disgaea and they take turn based battles to a whole new
level. You can perform combo attacks (where different characters
attack the same enemy on the same turn) and you can even
perform team attacks. Team attacks are where an attack character
has allies close to them (and in a certain position) and
as a result benefits from their assistance in battle. It's
possible for up to 3 allies to assist a character in an
attack. Only the character who initialises the attack will
actually use up their turn. As we've already mentioned you
can instruct one of your characters to pick up another character.
As well as employing certain characters as human missiles
this has the benefit of throwing the lifted character to
a location they wouldn't be able to reach on that move.
In fact it's even possible to have several characters piled
high on top of each other and cover vast distances in one
move. The combat itself is excellent and most of the special
attacks are visually spectacular.
In
battle you'll also have to make use of what's called Geo
Tactics. Essentially in any given level you'll have different
colour Geo Panels that will flash. When you place a Geo
Symbol, which is a pyramid shaped object that offers a certain
effect, onto these panels all units standing on those coloured
panels will be affected by the effects of the Geo Symbol
that's influencing the Geo Panels. However it gets even
better because if you destroy the Geo Symbol in question,
all of the Geo Panels it's influencing will be destroyed
and any units who were standing on the panels will suffer
damage as a result. There is actually a lot more to Geo
Tactics and what I've described here is the basics. Essentially
though Geo Tactics can be a good and a bad thing and making
clever use of them can swing a battle in your favour. They
are a good addition to the battles adding variety and an
extra level of strategy to the game.
Outside
of the battles you'll have the ability to save the game,
heal your characters, level up your items and address The
Dark Assembly. Addressing The Dark Assembly allows you to
create your own customised units, take rank promotion exams
and present proposals to the Assembly. These proposals could
be, for instance, triple experience on your next enemy kill.
You're going to need a lot of influence with the Assemblies
senators to succeed with certain proposals though and you
can't propose anything in the early stages of the game.
The character creation is rather impressive and you'll need
to use a character's mana in order to pay for a character
to be created. The character whose mana you use to create
the new character will become the master of the new character.
Mana is given when a character finishes off an enemy so
you have to be choosy who you pick to finish off an enemy
if you need to amass your mana points. Nothing in Disgaea
is mundane and even the item leveling is done in an unusual
way. To level up an item you'll have to battle your way
through that item's world (yes even the items have worlds
in Disgaea) which, to cut a long story short, means that
you'll have fight your way through 10 consecutive battles
without no means of saving the game as you can't return
to the castle. Bearing this in mind you'll want a strong
bunch of units to attempt leveling up an item.
You
may have taken a look at the screenshots and thought that
the game was fairly simplistic for a PlayStation 2 game.
Whilst to a certain degree this is correct, there are plenty
of great graphical effects in the game to easily compensate
for it's initial simplistic appeal. The game is played from
the classic isometric viewpoint and once again it works
well in a tactical strategy game. The camera can be rotated
in 90 degree increments and you can also zoom out if you
need to. The only complaint I would make, and it is a small
complaint, is that it can be awkward moving the cursor around
on levels where there is a lot of height variation. The
special magic attack effects are simply stunning and easily
some of the most impressive in a game of this nature. Some
of the magnificent combo attacks are also a sight to behold.
What I really appreciated though was the pace of these special
and combo attacks. Unlike some of the Final Fantasy games
where you're sitting there for several minutes while the
animations are carried out, Disgaea keeps everything fairly
short and snappy and never fails to hold your interest.
There aren't any cutscenes in the game as such and you'll
have some great anime still images with the text displayed
below them instead which works really well.
It
would have been truly criminal if one of the greatest PlayStation
2 titles ever created had not been deaf gamer friendly but
thankfully you have nothing to worry about with Disgaea.
Virtually all dialogue in the game appears in text with
the only exception being the comments that your characters
will occasionally make during a battle. The conversations
that take place outside of battle are all fully subtitled
and you have to press the X button to move the conversations
on. What is impressive with Disgaea though is how it makes
every attempt to explain how to do things. Everything in
the game has tutorial sections that can be accessed whenever
you need them and these are all in text. The game manual
maybe fairly short but it's fairly comprehensive and explains
the various aspects of the gameplay.
To
be completely honest we could go on about how good Disgaea:
The Hour of Darkness is for days. It's not often that a
game impresses us with its sheer playability and charm but
that's exactly what Disgaea has done. It's one of those
rare games that has the potential to lure gamers who wouldn't
normally look at a strategy RPG game as well as delight
those who've been fans of the genre for years. The game
isn't perfect, the AI isn't as sharp as it could be in certain
situations, but it's probably as near as you're going to
get in the strategy RPG genre. Whilst reading up on Disgaea,
I was very please to find that the developers have created
a new game called La
Pucelle Tactics which also looks very promising. Let's
hope that this game also makes it to the UK because we are
going to need something wonderful with which to follow Disgaea:
Hour of Darkness.
Overall
Game Rating: 9.5/10
What a game! Those of you who have been waiting for a game
to surpass Final Fantasy Tactics, and those of you who enjoy
strategy RPG games in general, should definitely rush out
and pick up Disgaea: Hour of Darkness because there isn't
any game out there quite like it. Even if you aren't usually
into games from this genre I would give it a go because
what we have here is one of the finest games you can buy
for the PlayStation 2.
Deaf
Gamers comment:
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is absolutely fine for deaf gamers.
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