Disgaea 4: A promise revisited

BUY.

Now I'll not hide the fact I'm an avid Disgaea fan -- as anyone who's been reading this blog long enough, or even listened to the podcast will know.

To start off, I'll answer a very important question: "Jim, I've bought and played Disgaea 4 on the PS3; is it worth it to upgrade to the Vita version?"

Yes.

"Why?" You might ask. It's simple -- the game, much like any other of NIS's remakes, includes all of the DLC for the original game, as well as a new scenario which will enhance the original's story. If you were already a fan and enjoyed the original Disgaea 4, D4:APR will only make you love it MORE. They added the cheat shop from Disgaea Dimension 2, and there's of course a nifty new dupe method that hasn't been patched yet, that will help you get back to where you were originally in no time. 

The Etna code of course exists if you wish to jump into the DLC right away, but if you want to start from scratch, you can. Overall, I'd definitely say buy it if you're a fan of the series who owns a Vita.

Now, if you've never played a Disgaea game before, or you're a a bit on the fence? This game is a must-buy for the Vita, if you enjoy Strategy RPG's.

Disgaea is a unique flavor in that your characters can level up to 9999, and reincarnate to Lv 1 again, gaining a stat boost each time. It's a game about leveling, re-leveling, and boosting your character and gear to absurd limits, to challenge equally absurd bosses and enemies. The game's story is actually one of the best of the 5 games, I'd say, as well.

While nothing can touch the magic of the original Disgaea's story, Disgaea 4 DEFINITELY reminds me why I loved the games so much. Alright, alright, enough gushing, time to do some splainin'. 

The game is divided up into chapters for the main story. You visit a npc from your central hub and choose a chapter and then act inside that chapter to go on. You can re-challenge any mission in the game, and some missions geo-panel layouts change after you've completed it once. 

"Geo-panels? What are those?" Well you see, the entire game grid-based. There are sometimes colored tiles on the ground, and there's a unique block, called a "Geo-panel", that will affect all blocks of the color it's sitting on. So if you have a geo-panel sitting on a red tile, every red tile for the map will have the effect of that geo-panel. You can also stack geo-panels ontop of eachother, so you can set up the map in your favor against the enemy, if you'd like. 

Outside  of the NPC who teleports you to the main story missions, there's a character who will teleport you into "item world". What you do is, choose an item, and depending on how powerful that item is, it will generate a world for you to explore INSIDE OF THAT ITEM. (It will let you know what level the enemies will be before you enter.) Once inside, you go through randomly generated levels (100% completely random) and every 10 levels, you meet an item general/king/god/etc.; clearing levels and defeating these bosses will let you powerup your item, boosting it's stats! There are also enemies called "innocents" inside items that you can only find in item world; if you kill or capture them, you'll be able to move them around your items as you wish. They give you boosts to your items, like increased STR, INT, more health, more exp from monsters, all of it! 

Newish to the series (starting from Disgaea 3, I believe) there's also a character world -- with the same concept. You delve into a character and clear levels, to give them a boost to their movement, attack range, all of that good stuff. It's a really deep game with a ton of customization; there are a lot of character classes to unlock, unique story characters with special moves, and a ridiculous amount of weapons (that you can change the appearance of at your central hub later in the game!) 

It's just astounding how much they've managed to pack into these little games. If you enjoy strategy games, I highly recommend checking it out -- I didn't even talk about the post-game, where the game REALLY starts!

I haven't done a write up on this because I've been busy with other things, and then we lost internet for a while, so I've been horribly sidetracked. My sincere apologies! I'm trying to stay regular for you fine folks, thank you all for your patience.