Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories – Review

KOEI, the king of strategy and simulation, has once again brought some eastern talent to our shores in the form of Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories. What we have here is a turn-based tactical RPG, which, in terms of plot, doesn’t take itself too seriously, but is very serious when it comes to gameplay quality. Don’t worry if you haven’t played the original Disgaea, as it’s not essential unless you want some extra back-story, and just means that you’ll want to pay attention during the tutorial stages in order to get to grips with the gameplay style. However, once you’re past that, you’re all set for the main adventure.

To sum up the premise of the game’s story, there are many worlds, each ruled by an Overlord. Recently though, one of these Overlords, Zenon, has been killing the other Overlords, taking over their worlds and turning their inhabitants into demons with no conscience or memory of who they used to be. For some reason though, your playable character, Adell, is the only one who has remained human, and in true RPG-plot style, Adell seems to think there’s something special about him, and that only he can save the world. It’s all very tongue-in-cheek, as it constantly refers to itself as ‘no more than a game’, the characters are all well aware that they’re not real, and I think that’s what makes this title different from usual RPG entry. The story begins when Adell tries to summon Overlord Zenon to challenge him, and accidentally summon his secret daughter, Rozalin instead. Naturally, she’s none too pleased about this, but the summoning ritual binds her to Adell, and, seeing as he’s the self-proclaimed hero of the story, Adell feels compelled to go on a quest to find Overlord Zenon and straighten everything out.

The game is based on a series of chapters that advance the story, and it is filled with missions in which you have to fight tile-based tactical battles against various enemies. It is always obvious which direction the story is going, but in some sense it needs to be predictable for its stream of jokes to work, and for you to warm to the characters. Rozalin, being the evil Overlord’s daughter, is just waiting for the chance to get Adell killed, but with time, you never know, she might just end up liking him—if he stays alive long enough. Between each mission you can travel back to your hometown to upgrade your weapons, buy supplies, and banter with your family, who are getting far too used to being demons!

The missions are tactical in a chess-like way, but at the same time they employ all of the other elements of a typical RPG battle. You start by deploying your characters, which all have their own movement ranges, and then position them to attack the enemies in different ways, i.e. flanking. Characters also have their own attack styles that you can use, and there are special moves that involve more than one of the usable characters. You can throw enemies to create distance between you and them, and you can also throw your own team-mates to gain a positional advantage. This system is mind-blowing as it allows for so much easy thinking and variation. Speaking of which, there is also a lot of variation in the map layouts, and the environmental effects placed on sets of tiles also add to the challenges you have to be mindful of if you want to progress to the next stage. No two battles are the same, and for that reason you are encouraged to replay missions to pick up extra bonuses for becoming increasingly efficient. I’m really impressed with the detail that has gone into designing Disgaea 2’s battle system, but, that said, because missions make up 90% of the game, I would be disappointed if they were anything less than amazing.

Each mission has a small story segment before and after it, where the player can get to know the characters a little more, and have a laugh at many of their jokes, which mainly consist of cheap digs at other characters and cracks at how they are all obviously aware that they’re in a fictional RPG. There are even a few semi-offensive statements made, but they’re so rolled up amid the humour flow that you’ll likely find yourself laughing at them anyway.

The best lines come from the game’s strongest female character, Princess Rozalin, who looks down on everyone, especially our male hero Adell (who we’d probably feel sorry for if he wasn’t so cocky all the time). The story segments are made even better because of the excellent voice acting, which is present throughout the game. Everything in-game is also subtitled too, so the deaf and hard-of hearing gamer won’t miss out on any of the narrative or joke telling.

As well as there being missions to advance the plot, you can also enter the ‘item world’ where not all is as it seems. These are actual worlds inside your items, which can be challenged in the hope of upgrading weapons, armour, potions and the like; however, the world maps are so random that you can get lost extremely easily, and are definitely best left to the more hardcore of mission players.

The graphics in Disgaea 2 are a mix of 2D and 3D that help keep the game world looking good for the player while keeping the camera angles slick. You can rotate the view to any of the four isometric angles as well as pitch up and down, and it all takes seconds to get used to. All of the characters are drawn at multiple angles in 2D, which change in a pretty neat way as you rotate the game world and move about. The menu system is everything an RPG fan could want—though I did get slightly confused at the sheer amount of information and numbers presented when looking through item and character screens.

Overall, Disgaea 2 is a highly detailed, highly tuned, high quality tactical RPG that brings us something a bit different and refreshing to play, and keeps all of the classic RPG fans happy too.

Review by Colin

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