Recently released on the PS3, Disgaea 3 is, as the name implies, the third game in the Disgaea series. The game is a turn-based RPG where characters duke it out on a battle grid, pulling off various combos and special attacks until one side has been beaten to a bloody pulp. You then repeat the process tens of thousands of times until the game's complete.
Don't worry, it's more fun than it sounds.
Story:
The basic plot of Disgaea 3 is... well, the word 'bonkers' is possibly the best choice.
The lead character is Mao, son of the Overlord and heir to the Netherworld. The Netherworld is, in fact, a giant school / university, which Mao has aspirations of ruling by defeating his dad (who is so massive you fight an entire battle on the palm of his hand). To defeat the Overlord, Mao must become a Hero; months of reading comics, watching movies and playing video games has proven the Hero always defeats the Overlord.
Along the way, the plot gets even weirder. There's a fake hero who wants to be a real hero, demons who are considered Delinquents for attending class, a princess who shoots first and tries to be your friend later, exploding penguins, Saucy Maos, Mexican Goblins and more besides.
Unless you've got a stash of mind-bending drugs on hand, following this plot is going to take a lot of work.
Suffice to say, it does come together quite nicely. The game isn't afraid to poke fun at itself, with characters making comments like "What a wonderful introduction! So considerate for players who are new to the game!" The fourth wall gets broken quite a few times along the way, but it never stops being enjoyable.
Game Mechanics - The Overworld:
As you'd expect from an RPG, the game follows a fairly basic cycle; you go into a fight, win, then go back to town to heal and resupply. However, the 'school' map does offer a few interesting elements to help you out along the way. For example, if you can't be bothered with the mindless Grind required to level up your Skills, you can simply spend Mana to level them up instead! Mana also purchases brand new Skills, as well as 'Evilities', and can also be used in the Classroom.
Speaking of which, the Classroom is a very, very useful tool! Firstly, seating. Characters have a +20% chance of initiating a 'Combo' with other characters if they are sat next to, in front or behind their classmate. As such, your seating matters; if you tend to use characters together a lot, then they should sit together in class!
As well as seating, your Teacher gives a 'Class Bonus' as well. Later on, you can purchase a Homeroom Club that will allow you to select teachers. Other Clubs you unlock give other abilities, such as giving +25% experience to members sat in the corner of the room, or getting 50% of the Mana earned by adjacent classmates. Members of the same Club can also use Magichange, which will be discussed later.
In order to unlock these Classroom features, you need more than Mana; you need the support of the Student Council! Every motion is put to vote, and if you lose you either accept defeat and lose the Mana you spent on the motion, or you grab your weapons and beat down the nay-sayers! Be warned; some of them are very high level! For those who can't take down a Level 260 Succubus, there are other ways to sway them; you can bribe them with gifts, get them drunk, knock them out with chloroform and so on.
Finally, the Classroom also lets you make new characters. Getting a good mix of characters is always a good idea, as you never know when you'll need a horde of Mages rather than lumbering Melee fighters.
All of this comes together very nicely. Whilst I'm certain you can do well without investing a lot of time and effort into the Classroom, using it properly will really give you an edge in battle.
Game Mechanics - Combat:
As mentioned, Disgaea 3 is turn-based grid fighting. Your characters have a set move, their attacks have a set range, and it's a case of ganging up and using strategy.
There are several features worth noting here. Firstly, the Combos. When attacking, there is a chance any ally to the directly to the side or behind you will join in, initiating a Combo. A Combo is more powerful than a standard attack, and all participants gain experience (it seems they each gain the full amount, rather than 'splitting' the xp, though this may not be the case). Only "direct" attacks can initiate a combo; fighting with a bow, spear or gun only causes a combo if the enemy is directly in front of you.
On a similar note, Special Attacks can also be combo'd! For example, if you use a "Big Swing" attack with one character, and a "Cocktail Shaker" attack with another, they will combine into a single "Big Swing Shaker" attack that does more damage than doing both separately.
To assist lining up these monster combos, attacks are not unleashed until you select the "Execute" command. If you choose to end your turn, any and all attacks you've ordered will execute first. This system makes it easy to plan out your actions, and you can undo character movements and attacks (providing you haven't clicked "Execute") as often as you need to in order to ensure you're inflicting maximum damage.
To help players move about, there's also the Throw command. This is great for getting to hard to reach places, or just getting the slower characters to where they need to be.
Magichange, as I mentioned earlier, is a Club-based ability. It allows a Monster character to "merge" with a Human character, turning into a weapon. This grants new Special abilities, making a single monstrous character... for about two turns. Afterward, the Monster is unusable for the remainder of the battle, so its use must be carefully considered.
The Colour Grid:
The Colour Grid is a system that needs mentioning all by itself. Most battles have coloured squares on the ground, some of which have special properties (ie: +50% Defence, +2 Enemy Levels, etc). Naturally, finding the ones that benefit you and staying on them is important, but there's more to it than that.
Using Colour Blocks, the Grid can be changed. For example, destroying a Blue block when it is placed on a red square turns all the red squares to blue, and damages anyone (friend or foe) stood on a red square. This can create massive chains, doing significant damage to your enemies (and yourself if you don't watch out!). You can ultimately clear the board entirely by using a 'Null Block' at the end of such a combo. Clearing the level of colours gives massive bonuses, so it's always worth trying.
Classes:
Disgaea gives a variety of classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. These include healers, spell-casters, Soldiers, Martial Artists, Knights and a whole host of weird and wonderful monsters. Almost all the enemies you face become available for you to use sooner or later, usually after you've defeated one in battle.
A nice touch is the ability to unlock 'enhanced' versions of each class. For example, after using a Thief in a few battles, I unlocked the 'Rogue' class; identical to the Thief, but with slightly better stats. This means if you ever need to go back and add a second Thief, Knight or whatever to your party, you can add a stronger version instead. This is very useful, since all new characters are Level 1.
Grind, Grind, Grind!
If you like Grinding, or feel a Level 1 Heretic won't help you level 87 Party, there's the option to grind your socks off!
The Item World and Class World offer (literally) endless opportunities to level up. You first pick an Item (in the Item World) or a character (in the Class World) as the 'generator' of your adventure, and off you go! As you complete each random level, the item / character host is made more powerful. There are exit portals in each Level so you can skip it if it looks too hard (or too boring), and there are occasionally 'bonus' portals that can lead to shops, boss fights or a nice bit of swag!
With infinite levels, the game will certainly appeal to those who just want to achieve maximum rank... which, based on the fact you start at "Level 0001", could well go all the way to 9999!
Summary:
Disgaea is a very cute game. Graphically it's very basic, but graphics aren't the point; it's all about gameplay.
That, though, is where we've got to be careful. This sort of game generally boils down to "Find a really awesome combo, and repeat it a hundred million times". Not everyone enjoys that sort of thing.
If you love turn-based strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, this is a must-have game.
If you enjoyed Advance Wars, this may well be worth a look as well.
If, however, you're one of these people who baulks in horror at the idea of Turn-based combat, give it a miss. You should also probably steer clear if you don't like Grinding - this game is going to need it. I really don't think I could have got to Chapter 5 without grinding two new characters from levels 1 to 19 / 24 respectively in the Item World.
Rating:
Rate your love of Turn-based combat games, Anime, quirky humour and Grinding out of ten, add together and divide by four.
4 or less = avoid.
5-7 = rent.
8+ = buy.
Don't worry, it's more fun than it sounds.
Story:
The basic plot of Disgaea 3 is... well, the word 'bonkers' is possibly the best choice.
The lead character is Mao, son of the Overlord and heir to the Netherworld. The Netherworld is, in fact, a giant school / university, which Mao has aspirations of ruling by defeating his dad (who is so massive you fight an entire battle on the palm of his hand). To defeat the Overlord, Mao must become a Hero; months of reading comics, watching movies and playing video games has proven the Hero always defeats the Overlord.
Along the way, the plot gets even weirder. There's a fake hero who wants to be a real hero, demons who are considered Delinquents for attending class, a princess who shoots first and tries to be your friend later, exploding penguins, Saucy Maos, Mexican Goblins and more besides.
Unless you've got a stash of mind-bending drugs on hand, following this plot is going to take a lot of work.
Suffice to say, it does come together quite nicely. The game isn't afraid to poke fun at itself, with characters making comments like "What a wonderful introduction! So considerate for players who are new to the game!" The fourth wall gets broken quite a few times along the way, but it never stops being enjoyable.
Game Mechanics - The Overworld:
As you'd expect from an RPG, the game follows a fairly basic cycle; you go into a fight, win, then go back to town to heal and resupply. However, the 'school' map does offer a few interesting elements to help you out along the way. For example, if you can't be bothered with the mindless Grind required to level up your Skills, you can simply spend Mana to level them up instead! Mana also purchases brand new Skills, as well as 'Evilities', and can also be used in the Classroom.
Speaking of which, the Classroom is a very, very useful tool! Firstly, seating. Characters have a +20% chance of initiating a 'Combo' with other characters if they are sat next to, in front or behind their classmate. As such, your seating matters; if you tend to use characters together a lot, then they should sit together in class!
As well as seating, your Teacher gives a 'Class Bonus' as well. Later on, you can purchase a Homeroom Club that will allow you to select teachers. Other Clubs you unlock give other abilities, such as giving +25% experience to members sat in the corner of the room, or getting 50% of the Mana earned by adjacent classmates. Members of the same Club can also use Magichange, which will be discussed later.
In order to unlock these Classroom features, you need more than Mana; you need the support of the Student Council! Every motion is put to vote, and if you lose you either accept defeat and lose the Mana you spent on the motion, or you grab your weapons and beat down the nay-sayers! Be warned; some of them are very high level! For those who can't take down a Level 260 Succubus, there are other ways to sway them; you can bribe them with gifts, get them drunk, knock them out with chloroform and so on.
Finally, the Classroom also lets you make new characters. Getting a good mix of characters is always a good idea, as you never know when you'll need a horde of Mages rather than lumbering Melee fighters.
All of this comes together very nicely. Whilst I'm certain you can do well without investing a lot of time and effort into the Classroom, using it properly will really give you an edge in battle.
Game Mechanics - Combat:
As mentioned, Disgaea 3 is turn-based grid fighting. Your characters have a set move, their attacks have a set range, and it's a case of ganging up and using strategy.
There are several features worth noting here. Firstly, the Combos. When attacking, there is a chance any ally to the directly to the side or behind you will join in, initiating a Combo. A Combo is more powerful than a standard attack, and all participants gain experience (it seems they each gain the full amount, rather than 'splitting' the xp, though this may not be the case). Only "direct" attacks can initiate a combo; fighting with a bow, spear or gun only causes a combo if the enemy is directly in front of you.
On a similar note, Special Attacks can also be combo'd! For example, if you use a "Big Swing" attack with one character, and a "Cocktail Shaker" attack with another, they will combine into a single "Big Swing Shaker" attack that does more damage than doing both separately.
To assist lining up these monster combos, attacks are not unleashed until you select the "Execute" command. If you choose to end your turn, any and all attacks you've ordered will execute first. This system makes it easy to plan out your actions, and you can undo character movements and attacks (providing you haven't clicked "Execute") as often as you need to in order to ensure you're inflicting maximum damage.
To help players move about, there's also the Throw command. This is great for getting to hard to reach places, or just getting the slower characters to where they need to be.
Magichange, as I mentioned earlier, is a Club-based ability. It allows a Monster character to "merge" with a Human character, turning into a weapon. This grants new Special abilities, making a single monstrous character... for about two turns. Afterward, the Monster is unusable for the remainder of the battle, so its use must be carefully considered.
The Colour Grid:
The Colour Grid is a system that needs mentioning all by itself. Most battles have coloured squares on the ground, some of which have special properties (ie: +50% Defence, +2 Enemy Levels, etc). Naturally, finding the ones that benefit you and staying on them is important, but there's more to it than that.
Using Colour Blocks, the Grid can be changed. For example, destroying a Blue block when it is placed on a red square turns all the red squares to blue, and damages anyone (friend or foe) stood on a red square. This can create massive chains, doing significant damage to your enemies (and yourself if you don't watch out!). You can ultimately clear the board entirely by using a 'Null Block' at the end of such a combo. Clearing the level of colours gives massive bonuses, so it's always worth trying.
Classes:
Disgaea gives a variety of classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. These include healers, spell-casters, Soldiers, Martial Artists, Knights and a whole host of weird and wonderful monsters. Almost all the enemies you face become available for you to use sooner or later, usually after you've defeated one in battle.
A nice touch is the ability to unlock 'enhanced' versions of each class. For example, after using a Thief in a few battles, I unlocked the 'Rogue' class; identical to the Thief, but with slightly better stats. This means if you ever need to go back and add a second Thief, Knight or whatever to your party, you can add a stronger version instead. This is very useful, since all new characters are Level 1.
Grind, Grind, Grind!
If you like Grinding, or feel a Level 1 Heretic won't help you level 87 Party, there's the option to grind your socks off!
The Item World and Class World offer (literally) endless opportunities to level up. You first pick an Item (in the Item World) or a character (in the Class World) as the 'generator' of your adventure, and off you go! As you complete each random level, the item / character host is made more powerful. There are exit portals in each Level so you can skip it if it looks too hard (or too boring), and there are occasionally 'bonus' portals that can lead to shops, boss fights or a nice bit of swag!
With infinite levels, the game will certainly appeal to those who just want to achieve maximum rank... which, based on the fact you start at "Level 0001", could well go all the way to 9999!
Summary:
Disgaea is a very cute game. Graphically it's very basic, but graphics aren't the point; it's all about gameplay.
That, though, is where we've got to be careful. This sort of game generally boils down to "Find a really awesome combo, and repeat it a hundred million times". Not everyone enjoys that sort of thing.
If you love turn-based strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, this is a must-have game.
If you enjoyed Advance Wars, this may well be worth a look as well.
If, however, you're one of these people who baulks in horror at the idea of Turn-based combat, give it a miss. You should also probably steer clear if you don't like Grinding - this game is going to need it. I really don't think I could have got to Chapter 5 without grinding two new characters from levels 1 to 19 / 24 respectively in the Item World.
Rating:
Rate your love of Turn-based combat games, Anime, quirky humour and Grinding out of ten, add together and divide by four.
4 or less = avoid.
5-7 = rent.
8+ = buy.
.