Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness

Original Title: Disgaea: afternoon of Darkness
Publisher: NIS America
Console: Playstation Portable
Category: Strategy Role-Playing Game

Description: The Netherworld – a place darker than a pitch-black cave, located deeper than the depths of the sea. It is a cursed land where evil reigns and foul beings dwell. Nobody knows its whereabouts, but everybody fears its existence…

The story takes place two years after the death of King Krichevskoy, the ruler of the Netherworld. His son Laharl slept for two full years, unaware of his father’s death, while demons fought for supremacy over the Netherworld. With the help of his surbodinate Etna and her underlings, the egocentric Prince Laharl fights his way to become the next King.

I played this game on a whim. The real reason was that I wanted to play Yggdra Union but at that time, the English version wasn’t out so I was left with no choice but to look for other SRPGs small enough to fit into my 2GB memory stick, which has already 1gb plus worth of games inside. Disgaea and Final Fantasy tactics fitted the bill nicely but I chose Disgaea because of its Ragnarok-ish feel.

The game was downright enjoyable. There’s your usual yet unusual cast of characters, ridiculous albeit humorous storyline, spartan leveling (if you’re hardcore enough, you can even play till the thousands) and the oh-so-many-ways of fighting (try picking up the prinny, a penguin-like character, and throw it at your oppenents).

The game is divided into chapters, with each chapter having a certain ‘goal’ to accomplished while at the same time moves the story along at a nice pace. Most of the the time, you’re either out there battling/training or at your home based doing usual stuff like healing or buying weapons. Combat is like any other SRPG, with it being turn-based. Thus, careful planning on where to place your characters and what to do with them is needed. First-time players might find it confusing, with stuff such as Geo Panels, but you will get the hang of it over time.

Character creation is one aspect of the game that I simply loved. Besides the story-related characters, you’re able to create characters to help you in your quest to become King. There is a huge variety of classes available to choose from, and even more available to you when you ‘unlocked’ them after certain requirements are met. Classes range from your usual Warriors and Mages to the Divine Majin and Angel. My favourite character is of course, the Archer class. You can also create monsters as well although they’re rarely used as the classes have a lot more advantage but that didnt stop me from transmigrating my prinnies into other monsters. (You can catch monsters as well so I was feeling kind of assed when I find that out as i had already trained my Neko girl to level 70+ and my dragon to a 60+ that time.)

What is transmigrating? It is sort of like a rebirth system,  where you will be able to reset your characters to level one but with better stats and in some cases, you are able to transfer the skills over as well. Transmigrating isn’t limited to the class itself so you can cross transmigrate like for say, a Fighter to a Ninja (with the exception of story-related characters).

You can also petition stuff to the dark assembly which includes stuff like unlocking extra worlds, getting better weapons or even make your enemies stronger. There 3 ways to pass the petition: either you are at a high level where they will vote for your idea without any trouble, bribe those who are rejecting your idea or simply force them. I did try to force them once into unlocking an alternate world (god knows how I survived and won without my characters dying) but just be sure the senators who reject your idea is not of a uber high level. There’s more stuff actually but I will end the post here for now. Might do a follow-up if I’m not lazy. Now, what are you waiting for? Grab your PSPs and start playing the game if you haven’t done so!