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Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness |OT|

M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
erragal said:
There are exactly the same number of classes as D4. It's strange this sentiment gets repeated with no reasoning behind it. Perhaps the fact that the vast majority of uniues are from old games creates the illusion of less variety? Not only are there the same number of classes but many of the mechanical changes make it easier than ever to build a powerful member of any class.
Click to expand...

True, I was going more off of D3 (vita) when I mentioned that. To be fair, D4 did have several DLC classes, while afaik, Dd2 has none.

It just feels odd to me to take out things like the male samurai, female gunner, or kunoichi, though some of it is probably due to the 3 evility option this time around.
 
R

rubius01

Member
Speaking of classes; am I the only one who is disappointed that the super class is absent? I would kill for the android class to be DLC. Also to those who have played the game: I've noticed that there is no experience sharing in this. Does the cheat shop/master/apprentice system negate the need for experience sharing? Or are we going to have just one super powerful character instead of a super powered army?
 
S

scy

Member
Well, a lot of the focus this time around is on making one powerful character just by virtue of how much time it would take to make enough perfect equipment for an entire army. Besides that, the total number of Stored Levels required is a lot higher this time around so you're really "forced" to stick to leveling a character normally over-and-over to get the most out of things.

And, for what it's worth, all classes can reach the same Aptitude cap.
 
E

erragal

Member
Super powered -small- army seems like the balance. Realistically though there's going to be a fairly huge gap between your top few characters you give your most worked on items to ; I don't think that means the other characters will be useless but you definitely want a small core of tightly developed favorites.

The real question becomes which ones to focus on most heavily?!!! So many lovely choices with a lot of interesting ways to focus/specialize them. Only a few more hours till my weekend begins!!!

Also anyone that is decrying the tactical aspects of the game should start at 1* difficulty; really puts the pressure on from the start.
 
Z

zulux21

Member
rubius01 said:
Speaking of classes; am I the only one who is disappointed that the super class is absent? I would kill for the android class to be DLC. Also to those who have played the game: I've noticed that there is no experience sharing in this. Does the cheat shop/master/apprentice system negate the need for experience sharing? Or are we going to have just one super powerful character instead of a super powered army?
Click to expand...

oddly enough... this is the first disgaea game where I haven't had one stand out character.... I am playing around with tower attacks a lot and thus my entire party is still around each others levels and I keep getting new gear for everyone lol
 
M

makeamidget

Banned
So.. I just got my Standard Edition in the mail like 5 minutes ago. Was putting together the Flonne and Etna figurines when I realized that it was the Special Edition... Checked the packing list saw Standard Edition on it and just smiled.


Edit: What is the dlc that's supposed to be free for the month?
 
Z

zulux21

Member
makeamidget said:
So.. I just got my Standard Edition in the mail like 5 minutes ago. Was putting together the Flonne and Etna figurines when I realized that it was the Special Edition... Checked the packing list saw Standard Edition on it and just smiled.


Edit: What is the dlc that's supposed to be free for the month?
Click to expand...

the classic costumes.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
I just had an Innocent ask me to go buy The Guided Fate Paradox because it's his favorite game.

I'm not letting this guy anywhere near my main equipment.
 
S

SuperSamyon

Member
Tower attacks seem almost overpowered in this game. I've been able to cruise through most of the story just towering attacking everyone and oneshotting just about every character and boss. It also helps you level up super fast.

Not complaining about it, it is just so vastly superior to individual attacking.
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
SuperSamyon said:
Tower attacks seem almost overpowered in this game. I've been able to cruise through most of the story just towering attacking everyone and oneshotting just about every character and boss. It also helps you level up super fast.

Not complaining about it, it is just so vastly superior to individual attacking.
Click to expand...

It is, but only the base person gets weapon experience, so you can be screwed skill-wise if you're not abusing the cheat shop or farming for Sparring Partners.
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
So yeah, 20 levels deep into an item. Just killed a bunch of pirates and got a sweet ship.

About to defeat the final enemy and........game locked as he was being hit by giga fire.

2 hours of gameplay down the fucking drain.

This is the second time this has happened to me already. The locking on a game like this is un-fucking-acceptable.

Going to stop playing until there is a patch. If not, this WILL be my last Disgaea game. If they cant fix the freezing issues, put an autosave in the item world. I should not have to worry about losing lots of progress because of a crash.

Fuck I am so pissed right now.
 
S

SuperSamyon

Member
Beat the game last night. I don't understand why so many people said they had to grind a lot to get through the game. I never had to grind until the final boss battle and just used strategy and combos throughout the game to win. It was fairly balanced. Of course, i did utilize the cheat menu and had my HL turned down as far as it could and cranked up my EXP to the maximum.

With that said, that final boss definitely makes you stop for a few hours and max up your characters.

As far as the story is concerned:
I agree with EGM's criticism of the story. A lot of it seemed phoned in and under performed. Laharl came across too passive throughout the story and was too "grown-up" most of the time. That is fine if that is how they want to take the story, but for a comedy they needed something else to fill the void.

I have to say the "Big Brother" dialogue really started to grind at my nerves. I know Disgaea games are ultra Japanese, but that colloquialism is just not said in a brother/sister western relationship. Also, the Magic Knight's obsession with being a "big sister" is weird too. I was pouring through Google to figure out how to change the voices in the game real quick.

It really felt like the dialogue was not given the level of attention one comes to expect from a Nippon Ichi game.

The story was also weak throughout most of the game and really didn't start getting interesting till the later chapters. The supporting characters were also carbon copies of each other. Lanzorote and Barbara were completely misused. I expected a bigger payoff with Barbara in the end but instead she just easily joins your team. Lanzorote was the biggest disappointment of all since she had no dialogue and was a simple redrawn sprite.

With all that said, the combat in D2 is the best yet and is now more seamless than ever. I appreciate the developers removing some of the cumbersome aspects of the game which has been a major complaint since Disgaea 1. I love how much faster it is to level up new characters utilizing the tower and Cheat system. Of course, you still have to level up their weapon usage the old fashion way but at least they won't be blown away the moment they step on the screen.

Out of all the classes, I was disappointed with the Ninja class. He doesn't seem as badass as he use to be and I really can't figure out why you would use him over the Martial Artist.

Overall, it is a solid entry in the Disgaea franchise that was only lacking when it comes to the story department. I would also like to see more differentiating aspects between some of the classes that are right now a little redundant.
 
S

SuperSamyon

Member
Mikey Jr. said:
How do you level up with the tower system?
Click to expand...

Stack all your characters up, then attack an enemy. Each character will receive the same EXP allowing you to rapidly level up lower ranking characters by combining them with high ranking characters. I like to stack up 9 characters, then have another character throw the monsters on top of each other to make them really strong and increase their EXP.

You can go from 1-100 in about 10 mins this way if you have the Cheat mode activated for EXP cranked up and have the character in the EXP slot in fight training.
 
T

The Grim Heaper

Member
Dear Future Overlord,

Thank you for the patience that you have shown so far with the delayed arrival of your Limited Edition of Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness!

We wanted to update you on the status of your order – unfortunately, our shipping partner has informed us that your Limited Edition will not be available at our warehouse for shipping until October 23rd. We have been working with our shipping partner to try to have our product arrive as soon as it is able, and will continue to try to push this shipment to arrive earlier than the 23rd if possible.

We understand that the change in delivery time can cause an inconvenience to our customers and are very grateful for your patience in this matter. Please let us know if you do need to make any additional changes to your order’s address or information at any time and we will be happy to assist you.

Thank you once more for your amazing patience, dood!

Best wishes,

NIS America Online Store
http://store.nisamerica.com/
store@nisamerica.com
(714) 540-1185
Click to expand...
This is ridiculous. Do I just contact them via email to cancel, you think? I don't even really want it anymore and I can use that $85 elsewhere.
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
SuperSamyon said:
Stack all your characters up, then attack an enemy. Each character will receive the same EXP allowing you to rapidly level up lower ranking characters by combining them with high ranking characters. I like to stack up 9 characters, then have another character throw the monsters on top of each other to make them really strong and increase their EXP.

You can go from 1-100 in about 10 mins this way if you have the Cheat mode activated for EXP cranked up and have the character in the EXP slot in fight training.
Click to expand...

Wow, did not know that, lol. Had no idea you could attack when in a tower.

I probably won't do this yet. I am finding the story missions pretty easy and the last thing I want to do is over level.

But that is definitely a handy trick for my level 1 guys.
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
I..cheated in the first game. I mean, gameshark wise, so I don't exactly know how difficult this series is. I played the 3rd game, and for some reason I just couldn't advance that far. How will I fare in this game?
 
R

rubius01

Member
TheSpoiler said:
I..cheated in the first game. I mean, gameshark wise, so I don't exactly know how difficult this series is. I played the 3rd game, and for some reason I just couldn't advance that far. How will I fare in this game?
Click to expand...

For me, the game isn't hard per say but it is extremely deep. The trick is to powerlevel, and the areas and tricks and tips to do that are all over the net. I know that this is heresy around here but I found that the gamefaqs (*shudder*) disgaea boards are extremely helpful and informative. But the main stories in the games are very straight forward--kind of like a tutorial for the post game stuff--just pay attention in the first tutorial battles and if you feel the need to repeat them so you get get the fundamentals down.
 
Mikado

Mikado

Member
Once I got the puppy-paw stick going in D3, I pretty much slaughtered that game. I got into D4 after the Asagi patch (and its stats duping nerf) and the post-game felt pretty much like a chore.

I've only played a bit of D-D2 so far but being able to promote and tower-level seems like a decent way of boosting an entire party up quickly.

I'm nowhere near the post-game on this one yet.

Does the store ever sell items with innocents in them? It kinda makes some of the weapons feel less different when the base models don't seem to have any special features.
 
S

scy

Member
Amassing levels isn't that big of a hurdle this game since you have so much EXP at your disposal. Statistician farming isn't the most fun thing ever but you also don't really need the full 4900 of them. Then again, this game also has the most reason to just keep farming levels (and/or just flat out farming stats) so you'll also be spending even more time farming CoO6 here.

rubius01 said:
For me, the game isn't hard per say but it is extremely deep. The trick is to powerlevel, and the areas and tricks and tips to do that are all over the net. I know that this is heresy around here but I found that the gamefaqs (*shudder*) disgaea boards are extremely helpful and informative.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, I find GameFAQs better at doing mechanics discussions than GAF :x
shots fired etc.

Mikado said:
Does the store ever sell items with innocents in them? It kinda makes some of the weapons feel less different when the base models don't seem to have any special features.
Click to expand...

You get an Item World vendor randomly + a guaranteed one every 10 Floors that has items with Innocents. Plus, they also sell Rare and Legendaries.
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Amassing levels isn't that big of a hurdle this game since you have so much EXP at your disposal. Statistician farming isn't the most fun thing ever but you also don't really need the full 4900 of them. Then again, this game also has the most reason to just keep farming levels (and/or just flat out farming stats) so you'll also be spending even more time farming CoO6 here.
Click to expand...

Yeah, how many stacks of statisticians you need depends on how long you want to be stuck in the mid post-game, where the jump happens post (potential spoilers on unlocks, I guess?)
Valvatorez/Fenrich.
, into Super Death Man or whatever his name is. I only have 3 full stacks, and I've got 3 charas at 9999 before facing Pringer X, though it did take a while to grind out.

As long as you abuse the innocent route in the item world and get a few lucky visits from the Random encounter in which you can buy a Guardian, Statistician, or Sparring Partner in levels 70-90, then transfer and combine what you have stored, getting high level 'key' innocents is probably easier than it was duping them post-nerf in D4, since the innocent multiplier goes up to 3.9 on floor 95-99 instead of the usual 2.

On an unrelated note, I really wish NISA would speed up the DLC release schedule compared to Japan's.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
How is the game? Did it fall flat? There was way less fanfare than the usual disgaea release. I didn't even know it got released until after a couple of days it had been out.
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
Trojita said:
How is the game? Did it fall flat? There was way less fanfare than the usual disgaea release. I didn't even know it got released until after a couple of days it had been out.
Click to expand...

Ehh its disgaea. You played 1 of them, you've played them all. I feel like they might have to really change it up for the next gen version. Graphics are really starting to get stale. The sprites are nice, but they still only have a few frames of animation and still look low res. Textures are ps2 quality. Camera still pisses me off. I mean, why is there only set angles still? Give me 360 degrees of movement.

Etc etc.

Still a great game, but still playing it very safe not rocking the boat at all. The page count on this thread is proof of that.
 
S

scy

Member
Trojita said:
How is the game? Did it fall flat? There was way less fanfare than the usual disgaea release. I didn't even know it got released until after a couple of days it had been out.
Click to expand...

As far as the game itself is concerned, it's a fairly budget (more so than normal) release in Japan so don't expect a lot of "new" assets and stuff like that.

It, however, does play around with testing a lot of new things with the mechanics of the game. Items go to Level 999 but you can run them infinitely. Killing enemies yields bonus stats to the item. You use HL to pass Item Bills whenever you want rather than needing the Item Assembly.

Generally speaking, a lot of RNG was cut out of the game. It's still there, of course, but nowhere near the level it was before. As far as the mechanics are concerned, this game changes the most since the D2 -> D3 jump.
 
R

RoeBear

Member
I've actually been enjoying post game grind a lot more than with the other Disgaea games. I used to be so OCD about maxing out the items I wouldn't even play cause I was worried I was doing something wrong. Getting a portion of absorbed stats for LoC and seeing it in the stats screen makes it a lot easier to understand. I've probably spent the most consecutive time on this Disgaea than past games, even though I didn't like the story as much as 4.
 
graywolf323

graywolf323

Member
I got my copy of the guide today and redeemed my code on the Prima site but the code it gave me to redeem on PSN turns up an error message saying "The Prepaid Card code you entered is incorrect or is no longer valid" :-/

edit: apparently someone got a response from Prima Support

"10/11/13 - got an answer for the code error Hi, We apologize for the inconvenience. The Raspberyl DLC is not yet live on the PSN. Sony has confirmed that it will be activated on Wednesday, 10/16. The DLC code you have received is a valid code. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your patience, Terri Prima Support so i can wait "
 
Z

zulux21

Member
graywolf323 said:
I got my copy of the guide today and redeemed my code on the Prima site but the code it gave me to redeem on PSN turns up an error message saying "The Prepaid Card code you entered is incorrect or is no longer valid" :-/

edit: apparently someone got a response from Prima Support

"10/11/13 - got an answer for the code error Hi, We apologize for the inconvenience. The Raspberyl DLC is not yet live on the PSN. Sony has confirmed that it will be activated on Wednesday, 10/16. The DLC code you have received is a valid code. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your patience, Terri Prima Support so i can wait "
Click to expand...
good to know, I haven't decided if I was going to activate the dlc in general... I am sad with the lithograph that I got though, by far my least wanted one... I wanted the one that looked like a fan... instead got the stupid ghost.
 
F

fatgamecat

Member
rubius01 said:
For me, the game isn't hard per say but it is extremely deep.
Click to expand...
Disgaea has always been like this. It's a sandbox game to play around in (basically the tactics game equivalent of Skyrim). And it includes the usual JRPG fanservice.

Some people think that makes it more "hardcore" than series that generally require more strategy like Fire Emblem. I think that's a pretty liberal use of the word "hardcore".
 
R

RoeBear

Member
Here's after farming for forever. Still haven't found the heart innocent guy.

heHOnZH.jpg
Click to expand...
 
R

RoeBear

Member
I got the platinum but still haven't grinded enough for Baal. Overall this was a fun Disgaea for me, even though I prefer them being on handhelds.
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
RoeBear said:
Here's after farming for forever. Still haven't found the heart innocent guy.
Click to expand...

One of the topics on Gamefaqs suggested that in order for it to show, you need to have a pair with zero hearts as a prerequisite before going into an item to search. Wasn't confirmed, though.

Also, holy shit @ your Tank, lol. I'm just now getting to grinding out the traps to 300, then LoC'ing a lot of stats while hunting down anti-status ailment innocents for Baal.
 
R

RoeBear

Member
Metroidvania said:
One of the topics on Gamefaqs suggested that in order for it to show, you need to have a pair with zero hearts as a prerequisite before going into an item to search. Wasn't confirmed, though.

Also, holy shit @ your Tank, lol. I'm just now getting to grinding out the traps to 300, then LoC'ing a lot of stats while hunting down anti-status ailment innocents for Baal.
Click to expand...

Yeah I finally got one to show up. I just had him have max dislike for everyone since you need that to get the full effect of the innocent anyway.
 
graywolf323

graywolf323

Member
zulux21 said:
good to know, I haven't decided if I was going to activate the dlc in general... I am sad with the lithograph that I got though, by far my least wanted one... I wanted the one that looked like a fan... instead got the stupid ghost.
Click to expand...

I got the one with all the girls

would have preferred the fan as well

oh and I was able to successfully activate my Raspberyl code earlier this evening :)
 
Mikado

Mikado

Member
RoeBear said:
I got the platinum but still haven't grinded enough for Baal. Overall this was a fun Disgaea for me, even though I prefer them being on handhelds.
Click to expand...

Dammit how do you guys finish these games so fast. I haven't even finished the story yet ;_;

I am terrible and feel terrible.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
They're definitely trying to make the franchise more accessible while keeping (and amplifying via rasetu) its hilarious scaling and order-within-madness approach.

The extremely archaic mechanics you really wouldn't have had a clue just by playing the game, like having to have a very specific method to numerically max out items, duping, etc have are what's been been cut, although (I might be wrong) the lv99 kill XP peak still exists... I guess they want to treat the first playthrough and postgame as discrete entities?

Truth be told as hilariously fun it was to strut about with some sense of geeky superiority with past Disgaea games, I don't miss all that bloat. Maybe I'm just growing older and having less free time to max out pixels.

Definitely looking forward to how Disgaea 5 turns out mechanicswise, if this was a testbed.
 
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