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Starting off 2017!

http://www.racketboy.com/together-retro ... ub-disgaea

"The Strategy RPG genre ( or “Franchise Name + Tactics” as we know it outside of Japan) has been around for a very long time. Making a surprising home on consoles as opposed to PCs, simple games like Nintendo Wars evolved into easy licensed cash-ins for properties such as Tenchi Muyo or the early Robot Wars titles and complex stat machines like Front Mission or the much beloved Final Fantasy Tactics.

Regardless of the developer, setting, license, or style, SRPGs generally share more in common than titles in nearly any other genre. Taking a low level view of a traditional RPG combat sequence, you control a group of characters and move them through a play field where concerns such as cover, facing relative to the enemy, and position can be manipulated to influence the outcome of the battle. Your characters level up in a traditional sense and you use resources won in combat to arm your little troupe. Generally an RPG where the world exploration element is swapped out for a more complex combat system. Heroes vs Villains fodder, great for the masses.

And then there is Disgaea, the game series where all of the SRPG tropes are at once both relevant and true but also completely ignored and broken for the sake of ignoring and breaking them."

Advice for anyone looking at this month's TR choice and wondering how they can beat a Disgaea title in a month: Game the system. There's almost infinite playable content in a Disgaea title but if you focus on the main story line and figure out how to abuse the character progression system (which the games openly encourage you to do ), you can knock out a Disgaea game in a couple of weekends.

For any new comers to Disgaea, I highly recommend the PSP port of Disgaea 2. It's a great title (better than the first) with one of my favorite stories in gaming. Also, having a suspend play feature makes trips to item world less daunting. I play the PSP ports on my PSTV and the visual quality holds up very well.

I would also like to note that Disgaea is still $10 on steam today only. Grab it while you can!

So I started up Disgaea on PSP. How do I unlock new classes?

BogusMeatFactory wrote:I would also like to note that Disgaea is still $10 on steam today only. Grab it while you can!

Is the PC version worth it if I already own it on PS2?

Oh, man, I played the hell out of Disgaea 1 & 2.

I think I played both of them for over a year, separately. Yeah, I spent over 2 years of gaming on both Disgaea games.

The writing is fantastic. The battle system is addictive and the game just makes you want to keep playing. It is a LOOOOOOOONG game, but you just want to keep on playing.

If you love SRPG's, then you must give this one a shot!

Flake wrote:For any new comers to Disgaea, I highly recommend the PSP port of Disgaea 2. It's a great title (better than the first) with one of my favorite stories in gaming. Also, having a suspend play feature makes trips to item world less daunting. I play the PSP ports on my PSTV and the visual quality holds up very well.

Hi Flake,

I'm considering jumping in but I prefer to start the series from the first one. Would you recommend the PS or PSP port/remake for that one, and why?

Ivo wrote:

Flake wrote:For any new comers to Disgaea, I highly recommend the PSP port of Disgaea 2. It's a great title (better than the first) with one of my favorite stories in gaming. Also, having a suspend play feature makes trips to item world less daunting. I play the PSP ports on my PSTV and the visual quality holds up very well.

Hi Flake,

I'm considering jumping in but I prefer to start the series from the first one. Would you recommend the PS or PSP port/remake for that one, and why?

First piece of advice for the first Disgaea:

Important piece of advice for ANYONE playing the original Disgaea - NEVER KILL YOUR OWN TEAM. EVER. If you ever do, restart the fight. If you kill even one of your own team members and complete a battle, you cannot get the best ending.

I recommend the PSP port.

The original game is great but the key to beating Disgaea without grinding away your life is to abuse the 'item world' concept. You basically wager your time (as a player) to enter a series of procedurally generated levels that are associated with an item in your inventory.

Make it through 10 levels (with no guarantee of success or escape) and you fight a boss and are offered an opportunity to leave. When you beat 10 levels, the item will level up and become more powerful or unlock new abilities. Additionally, you can steal or win more great items in item world.

Here's the rub - if you spend an hour and make it to level 9 and lose, that's game over. There's no getting kicked out. You just lost an hour of your time. There is an item called "Mr. Gency's Exit" that let's you leave item world and come back but they are not very common and hard to stock up.

With the PSP port, you can do suspend play so you can actually walk away from an unexpectedly long item world run and come back when you want to. It will help prevent burnout on the game and help you get through the main story faster. Also, the PSP version has additional content, a new playable mode (that can be played as a New Game +), and more characters and maps.

Also, the PSP port looks great on a large screen TV using the PS TV.

Flake wrote:
First piece of advice for the first Disgaea:

Important piece of advice for ANYONE playing the original Disgaea - NEVER KILL YOUR OWN TEAM. EVER. If you ever do, restart the fight. If you kill even one of your own team members and complete a battle, you cannot get the best ending.

Oh bugger. Does this include detonating a Prinny by throwing him?

alienjesus wrote:

Flake wrote:
First piece of advice for the first Disgaea:

Important piece of advice for ANYONE playing the original Disgaea - NEVER KILL YOUR OWN TEAM. EVER. If you ever do, restart the fight. If you kill even one of your own team members and complete a battle, you cannot get the best ending.

Oh bugger. Does this include detonating a Prinny by throwing him?

I think it does. They are way more forgiving about team killing in all the other releases but Disgaea 1 will not allow you to get the 'Good' ending if you kill any friendly team members, even with area of effect.