Greetings, reader. By placing text here it activates the little mini-ToC thingie. But otherwise I have nothing important to say up here.
Games I play[edit]
This list is exhaustive.
I used to be a more broadened gamer but, in my old age, have narrowed the spectrum to a specific type of game that I like: the Turn-based Strategy. And then I further narrowed it to a few specifics; the near perfect incarnations of TBS presented by the aforementioned games. I play them the same way other casual folk play Bejewelled or Collapse. I just kick 'em up and enjoy a 30-45 minute brain teaser now and again.
PCSX2 : The Power of PS2 Emulation[edit]
I play all of the aforementioned games on my PC anymore, via the PCSX2 emulator. I find it way more convenient than the actual PS2 for a number of reasons:
- Save states ('nuff said right there)
- Can pause the action any time with a quick hit of the Escape key; no more need to fumble around for a remote with a mute button if the stupid phone rings.
- Higher resolution graphics: All three games look much sharper at the zoomed-out levels, which is both pretty and functional (easier time seeing units and such).
- Can load a game in 4 seconds, instead of the marathon 1-2 minutes needed to boot through the usual plethora of PS2 startup crap.
- (subjective) I really honestly prefer controlling Disgaea games via the keyboard. I suspect most people would not agree with me on that one, though... and that's ok.
And most importantly:
- No need to leave my computer chair to enjoy my favorite games of all time. Just click-and-go.
... and ...
- No need to leave my favorite games of all time to check my e-mail, or reference a strategy guide, or answer a PM. Just hit Escape, run some apps, and return to the game when I'm good and ready.
Let's face it. Console gaming is so 20th Century. I'm ushering myself into the new world! ... with my undying love of what most people consider glorified 2D Isometric games, no less. I do love a good irony.
Mini-critique - Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories[edit]
For lack of a better location, I shall post my mini-critique of Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories here. I'll use one of those Good/Bad/Ugly formats that people like to use when they want to be compact and yet witty at the same time.
The Good[edit]
Music[edit]
Actually, music would go under a The Great! section, if I had one. But that would make my review more complicated, would shatter it's illusion of brevity, and would also lose the direct reference to one of the greatest spaghetti westerns of all time. Anyway, this should be of little surprise given the sheer quality of music in it's predecessors. And in a subtle stroke of continued genius, Nippon Ichi continues to put unmodified non-remixed versions of songs from prequels in the sequel. This includes the Demon World Theme from La Pucelle, along with a couple of boss themes from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. There's also a cheerfully remixed version of Disgaea's Item World theme, which is ok because anyone who played Disgaea probably subjected themselves to 50+ hours of listening time to that one song alone. In other words, a remix is a welcome change in this case. Additionally, the Holt Village music is fun and the Item World techno jam is pas perfect as it gets when writing a tune that you'll likely be exposed to for 100 hours of your life.
Strategy[edit]
When it comes to strategy and gameplay, Disgaea 2 is in almost every way superior to it's prequel. Imbalances have been fixed, more options have been added, map design has improved greatly, and there's now a third 'overhead' view that makes life easier on wacky maps. The merits of D1's strategy are well-documented, so suffice to say in this case "even better" is a pretty hefty achievement. Nobel Prize it, if you ask me.
In particular, the stages toward the end of Story mode are some of the coolest and funnest stages I've played. The geo panel puzzles are neat and challenging, and the geometry of the stages themselves is spooky and immersive.
The Bad[edit]
Voice Acting[edit]
Ugh. So what is it with Nippon Ichi games and atrocious English voice acting? Disgaea 2's is actually quite a bit better than it's predecessors, which is why it gets a Bad instead of an Ugly .. notables include [Dave Wittenberg] as the voice of Tink, [David Lodge] doing the voice of Kurtis, and [Shiloh Strong] giving a spirited delivery of Adell. Everyone else is garbage. Yes, I know any die hard fan just switches on the Japanese voices to cover up the bad Americans, but I'm not even sure the Japanese voice acting is all the swell either. I've seen enough anime to know good voicing from bad, and Disgaea's Japanese voices aren't exactly fluid or inspired.
Jumping[edit]
There's a new feature to the game where you can jump when you're walking around Holt Villiage. The designers of the game used this to add a little Crash Bandicoot to the Disgaea genre, I guess. So now you have to spend a few minutes between each stage of Story Mode trying to jump onto trees and roofs, and you have to do so with some incredibly over-sensitive controls and rather unforgiving collision detection. Pointless addition.
The Ugly[edit]
Etna's Voice Actor (english)[edit]
Yeah, I already put the voice acting under Bad, but this is a special case. Has there ever been a worse voice acting job other than Etna's in D2? What makes this Ugly material is the fact that the original English voice actor for Etna in D1 did a great job: [Amanda Lee's] delivery of Etna was actually an excellent performance by video game standards, and she was by far the best voice in the game. And it gets uglier! They didn't bring her back for D2, but they did bring back the voices for Laharl and Captain Gordon, who were hands down the most annoying voice actors in D1. Way to go guys.
Story / Plot / Script[edit]
For real. The story/dialog this time stinks. It makes La Pucelle look good. It starts out pretty neat, actually! Right about Chapter 5 the whole thing starts to unravel, and by Chapter 8 there's really nothing left except revisiting jokes that weren't all that funny the first time. Where a couple of pot-shots at levels and power early in the game were charming, characters' undying fixation on it later on becomes annoying and repetitive (you could get seriously hammered if you take a swig every time Etna uses the word "level"). Etna herself is seemingly out-of-character: She goes from being an archetypal example of a chaotic neutral personality in D1 to being plain chaotic evil in D2 -- a great personality if you're a stereotypical Disney arch-villain, but entirely out of place in the quirky world of Disgaea. I have to wonder if they did it on purpose: the story is so bad at times that I found myself preferring to go to the Item World and Dark World instead. My second encounter with the Prism Rangers, for example, was a thoroughly enjoyable side quest that I'd do again just because it's funny. Had the story been more compelling, I might have missed out on it!
And that's my Good / Bad / Ugly synopsis, concluded.