Disgaea: Afternoon Of Darkness- Worth getting again?

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:35 am

Oh yeah this reminds me. The Etna in Disgaea PSP isn't the original Etna, she's done by someone else. It's still a really good job though.

The DS version probably won't have voice acting.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:46 am

E. Randy Dupre wrote:It's a nice port - bar the facts that it introduces a new glitch

Do you refer to what I'd heard about not being able to get out of some of the item worlds due to their setup, or something else?

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:30 am

That isn't a glitch, that happened in the original game too. It's probably the Foresight glitch.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:11 am

I have encountered item world levels that I couldn't get to the exit on, but very rarely (one or two had the exit on a platform too high to jump to and one or more enemies out of reach, others had invincibility geo panels on the exit and no way to reach the geo symbol to deactivate it. In both cases, I could still use Mr. Gency's Exit to get out.

The big glitch in the PSP version is the Foresight glitch, where a couple of item types (Foresight and Tainted Staff, I believe) are bugged to have unusually powerful residents on them, including pre-subdued maxed out armsmasters, statisticianss, managers and brokers on them. You'll also find unusually strong (starting at level 566) enemies in the item world, and all of them will show up as Laharls. The armsmasters and statisticians are quite useful actually, but it does kind of break the game if you're trying to play it the "right" way.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:15 am

Elixir wrote: The DS version probably won't have voice acting.

I thought you said you'd played it?

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:56 am

The Foresight statisticians are very specific levelling related ones (xp, mastery, money, mana) and come ready for transfer, while Tainted Staff alchemists allow you to cheese bosses... it all seems too convenient for them to be glitches.

The level range is also rather handy, it's the point you'll see the best weapons appearing in bonuses and on monsters. It all points towards them being planted grind-tastic equipment. The Laharls inside also seem like a special case rather than a RNG gone wrong, though the equip effects are pretty fubar.

The Disgaea Item World generation often assumes you can throw 6 tiles and have an accelerator equipped. As the lovely attendant says, don't go in without a Gency Exit! Though I quickly generate an entire warehouse of those, anyway. Disgaea 2's LoC Item World was evil for this.

I don't think either of these are the bug mentioned, and I'm curious to know what it is now. I've just finished levelling the ultimate spear (trying to find a Legendary Cosmic Blade) and the Item God 2 has another for me to steal, so it must be specific to the blue-quality items?

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:23 pm

MX7 wrote:
Elixir wrote: The DS version probably won't have voice acting.
I thought you said you'd played it?

I did, I played the Japanese version of the game. It had some voice acting, but some parts were missing. Back when the game was released, someone ripped the data and there's only something like 2 MB of voice.dat information. The DS version most likely won't have both Japanese and English voice acting, and as for the English, it'll most likely be partial.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:31 pm

Elixir wrote:
MX7 wrote:
Elixir wrote: The DS version probably won't have voice acting.
I thought you said you'd played it?
I did, I played the Japanese version of the game. It had some voice acting, but some parts were missing. Back when the game was released, someone ripped the data and there's only something like 2 MB of voice.dat information. The DS version most likely won't have both Japanese and English voice acting, and as for the English, it'll most likely be partial.

Cool, thanks.

Did you play it on an emulator then?

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:24 pm

Are the graphics improved at all? I mean, even if they're in higher resolution, or the polygons are smoothed out a bit, that's fine.

I keep reading from the company line that they look better, but reviewers say the look "exactly the same". But they said that same about Disgaea 2, and I thought it looked noticably better than part 1.

s/m

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:32 pm

Elixir hates everything. The DS version of Disgaea is fine.

The English version is reported to have full voice acting.

UnscathedFlyingObject · Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:59 pm

I think he's trying to point out that the PSP version is excellent compared to the DS version which is just "fin.e" It makes little sense to get the inferior version unless you happen to not have a PSP and PS2 (fat chance.)

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:58 pm

Taylor wrote:The Foresight statisticians are very specific levelling related ones (xp, mastery, money, mana) and come ready for transfer, while Tainted Staff alchemists allow you to cheese bosses... it all seems too convenient for them to be glitches.

The level range is also rather handy, it's the point you'll see the best weapons appearing in bonuses and on monsters. It all points towards them being planted grind-tastic equipment. The Laharls inside also seem like a special case rather than a RNG gone wrong, though the equip effects are pretty fubar.

The Disgaea Item World generation often assumes you can throw 6 tiles and have an accelerator equipped. As the lovely attendant says, don't go in without a Gency Exit! Though I quickly generate an entire warehouse of those, anyway. Disgaea 2's LoC Item World was evil for this.

I don't think either of these are the bug mentioned, and I'm curious to know what it is now. I've just finished levelling the ultimate spear (trying to find a Legendary Cosmic Blade) and the Item God 2 has another for me to steal, so it must be specific to the blue-quality items?

Even if you can't throw 6 tiles in item world, the game always ensures that the exit is on the same platform you start on. This is fine, but if you don't have a character which can jump that high you can still run into problems. My team has a Shinobi with three accelerators equipped which makes quick work of most of this stuff (if I recall correctly, that's good for some ridiculous number like 19 tiles of movement.) The only problem is that the rare enemy that manages to hit him does a bunch of damage, and having him "dodge" heal spells more than half the time doesn't help either.

E. Randy Dupre · Post by **E. Randy Dupre** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:03 pm

Taylor wrote:I don't think either of these are the bug mentioned, and I'm curious to know what it is now.

Nah, it is the Foresight glitch I'm talking about. I've argued it over with myself quite a bit - is it a glitch or is it intentional - but I can't see it being something that NI would have put in on purpose. It's random, and NI don't do random where a game's underlying stats are concerned.

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:59 pm

As I asked, are the graphics or resolution any better than the muddy looking original?

I hear it looks crisper and brighter, which would be nice.

s/m

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:40 pm

Vexorg wrote:Even if you can't throw 6 tiles in item world, the game always ensures that the exit is on the same platform you start on. This is fine, but if you don't have a character which can jump that high you can still run into problems. My team has a Shinobi with three accelerators equipped which makes quick work of most of this stuff (if I recall correctly, that's good for some ridiculous number like 19 tiles of movement.) The only problem is that the rare enemy that manages to hit him does a bunch of damage, and having him "dodge" heal spells more than half the time doesn't help either.

Sure, but sometimes they’ll put the item boss and specialists on other platforms. Shinobi dodging healing spells is funny at first, but infuriating when it matters. I had one in my party but changed him to a different class after the “oh yeah? Well you can die then, can’t you?!” incident.

I hope Disgaea 3 doesn’t have an ultimate class so I’m not walking around with an army of Majins or Magical Knights named after their weapons again, especially if they’re slowly releasing new (read: old) characters. But I know that’s a false hope.

E. Randy Dupre wrote:
Taylor wrote:I don't think either of these are the bug mentioned, and I'm curious to know what it is now.
Nah, it is the Foresight glitch I'm talking about. I've argued it over with myself quite a bit - is it a glitch or is it intentional - but I can't see it being something that NI would have put in on purpose. It's random, and NI don't do random where a game's underlying stats are concerned.

It does seem strange it affects these items in particular as there’s nothing special about them, but it seems like a very convenient bug if it is one. Maybe if useless or statistics based ones showed up I’d buy it more. Or maybe it was a bug they adapted... Doesn’t really matter which way, though, it’s very helpful and cuts out a bunch of tedious grind.

evil_ash_xero wrote:As I asked, are the graphics or resolution any better than the muddy looking original?

I hear it looks crisper and brighter, which would be nice.

s/m

The graphics haven’t had any significant changes, but they are better because the sprites are at (or are closer to) their native resolution and the backgrounds aren't so jagged.

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:07 pm

Well, that sounds pretty decent. I'll be getting it in a few days. Looking forward to it.

s/m

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:47 am

On my main save file (I actually just started a new game to see how quickly I can get my characters back up to the same levels) I have a couple of Divine Majins (That's what my initial warrior and brawler turned into,) but I still find the Shinobi to be more useful in his current form than if I turned him into a Majin as well. Fully 97% of the attacks against him (including spells) miss, and even though he's a little weaker than my other fighters on attack he's still decent enough to hold his own on most stuff.

As for stuff on different platforms, there are cases when specialists or bosses are on different platforms, but those are rare enough that I can deal with them most of the time. There is a (somewhat hit-or-miss) technique you can use to throw characters diagonally (just keep alternating directions back and forth, then quickly hit the throw button while you're in between the two directions) and in some cases it will get you to platforms you might not have been able to otherwise. I'll leave it to the readers to decide whether or not this violates the spirit of the game though. If you reach an item general level where you can't get to the platform (I've never had it happen on an item king/god level) just Gency out and try again.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:27 am

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:I think he's trying to point out that the PSP version is excellent compared to the DS version which is just "fin.e" It makes little sense to get the inferior version unless you happen to not have a PSP and PS2 (fat chance.)

This is exactly what I'm getting at. If you don't have a PSP, well, I bought one for the Disgaea port. You're going to save over 20 hours in grinding on transmigration by using the PSP version instead of the PS2 version, thanks especially to the ability to remove animations. Although, you can still do the same on the DS version if you want. The slowdown will end up putting a few hours back into that, though. Seriously, a solid 1-2 seconds after every attack even with animations off is not "fine".

MX7 wrote:Did you play it on an emulator then?

I didn't. I can confirm that the slowdown in Disgaea DS is present in the actual cartridge, not shown on a rom or emulator.

MR_Soren wrote:Elixir hates everything. The DS version of Disgaea is fine.

Pretty much everything that's been pointed out proves that you're wrong and proves that the DS version isn't "fine". The graphics and slowdown are enough to warrant the purchase of the PSP. You can see the slowdown for yourself if you look at some youtube videos. If you're going to spend 60+ hours on a game, you might as well get the best version available. Not everyone is going to buy a PSP for Disgaea like I did, but it's worth it.

As for Item World, there are some situations where it's impossible to pass a certain level. Imagine there's an invincibility panel in the middle of nowhere, and the gate to the next level is blocked by a guardian on an invincibility panel. This is especially frustrating if there's an invincibility + no lifting combo on the stage, since you can't simply lift the invincibility geo symbol and shove it elsewhere, so that the gate keeper's possible to kill.

It's extremely rare, but in the time that I've played Disgaea, I've come across some really poorly randomly generated dungeons. One I took a screenshot of:

But most of them are pretty tame.

MX7 · Post by **MX7** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:43 am

I've looked at videos and the DS version looks fine. If we were talking about a game that required reflexes, then the slowdown might bother me, but it's Disgaea, so it's not a problem with me. Thanks for all your opinions though

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 2:33 pm

Momijitsuki wrote:will the DS port be worth getting? ... I don't have a PSP though.

Elixir wrote:So buy one? The DS version is shit, sewage, slime, and a disgrace to the series.

UnscathedFlyingObject wrote:I think he's trying to point out that the PSP version is excellent compared to the DS version which is just "fine."

He's giving unreasonable answers to good questions. Disgaea DS is a fine way to spend $30 if you want a portable strategy rpg. Telling people to buy a PSP and writing long-winded posts full of praise/disgust for the PSP/DS game is interesting and all, but completely fails to answer the question.

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:59 pm

When I first played Etna mode I did it from the start and was impatient to do much grinding between stages, and during this time my Shinboi was vital because he'd dodge everything. Though late-game he fell behind, so got the affective name “Fist” and became Soulless Divine Majin #3, but ultimately went neglected in my base-panel. Gah, NIS titles need a fast way to level groups of people and gated level-caps, end-game focuses purely on one Godly character using sword weapons.

The DS version simply isn't going to be as good as the PSP version, it doesn't have the graphical power, resolution, screen size, or storage space. While Elixir may lack tact, his points about the slowdown and voice-acting sound legitimate and nobody has argued to the contrary.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:15 pm

Taylor wrote:The DS version simply isn't going to be as good as the PSP version, it doesn't have the graphical power, resolution, screen size, or storage space.

I think everybody who has a DS knows that it doesn't have the graphical power, resolution, screen size, or storage space that the PSP has.

Taylor wrote:While Elixir may lack tact, his points about the slowdown and voice-acting sound legitimate and nobody has argued to the contrary.

nobody wrote:The English version is reported to have full voice acting.

I have nothing to say about slowdown, but I did state that the US version will have full voice acting.

1up.com wrote:NIS has managed to retain all of the voice acting despite the move to away from discs

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:35 pm

Not caring doesn’t circumvent it being worse.

But I concede, I’m surprised they’ve fit all the voice-acting on there, as the EU PS2 version had half of it cut for storage restraints previously.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:47 pm

Taylor wrote:Not caring doesn’t circumvent it being worse.

But I concede, I’m surprised they’ve fit all the voice-acting on there, as the EU PS2 version had half of it cut for storage restraints previously.

No, but my entire point is that the people who don't have a PSP aren't looking for a comparison between the two. They just want to know if the DS version is a good game. Everything I've read suggests that it's still a good game on the DS.

Regarding VA, I hear the US version will use a bigger cart than the JP version. The EU PS2 version may have cut voices because it probably needed to support more languages.

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:29 am

The other languages aren't on there, I'm pretty sure they crammed it onto a CD instead of a DVD.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:32 am

Taylor wrote:The other languages aren't on there, I'm pretty sure they crammed it onto a CD instead of a DVD.

Seriously? I don't think I've ever heard of a game's disc format varying by region...maybe others have heard of different examples, but if this is the case it's news to me.

EDIT: Huh, learn something new every day, it seems.

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:40 am

I just peeked on Wikipedia and it says EU/JP got a CD, while the US got a DVD (which has both language tracks).

Edit: And it seems DS carts can go up to 2gb if they want to, so it should be no problem anyway.

spongdangly · Post by **spongdangly** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:47 am

Taylor wrote:I just peeked on Wikipedia and it says EU/JP got a CD, while the US got a DVD (which has both language tracks).

Edit: And it seems DS carts can go up to 2gb if they want to, so it should be no problem anyway.

It can hold 2 gigabits of data which is only 256 megabytes.
Example: if you put it on a 2GB flashcard it would only take up 256MB of space.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:14 am

spongdangly wrote: It can hold 2 gigabits of data which is only 256 megabytes.
space.

What are you talking about? 2 Gigs = 1024 x 2 or 2048 megs...

spongdangly · Post by **spongdangly** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 3:25 am

Pixel_Outlaw wrote:
spongdangly wrote: It can hold 2 gigabits of data which is only 256 megabytes.
space.
What are you talking about? 2 Gigs = 1024 x 2 or 2048 megs...

Megabit (Mb) and Megabyte (MB) are two different ways of measuring data.