nippon ichi yay or nay?

[sjewkestheloon]

ok i've been playing makai kingdom now for about 7 hours and i think i'm totally addicted. i'd previously played disgaea and found it a little dull for one reason or another, maybe just due to what was going on in my life at the time (dissertation hand in date and revision for uni finals...) but after some consideration and finding it new for £15 i couldn't resist this one.

seriously accessible for a strat rpg, it leads you in and constantly offers you new possibilities. i decided to try out the 'make a wish' command last night only to find out it's an option to make a random dungeon of what appears to be relative difficulty for the character who made a wish. if i'm correct in this it takes away so muc of the frustration of being stuck at a difficulty spike between a piece of cake map and a hard as a bitch one as you can just blast through some random floors to not only gain levels but find some new creatures to beat on, new items for use, new items to then ressurect characters into, etc.

anyone else here hooked on this or other nippon titles? i just love playing games that clearly are labours of love for the developers.

[tiktak]

I havent played Disgea because Makai Kingdom. Why? MK has some stupid leveling system that indicates suicides and stuff. This is not very funny to level up characters to 30lv and killing it just for sake making another with other class and onether base stats. I don't know is Disgea the same but I rather do not bother to check...

[sjewkestheloon]

yeah the death and reincarnation thing is weird but it kind of makes sense as the character at level 1 can be as powerful as the level 30 character wou made into within about half an hour of play and then has the potential to kick infinate arse.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I played Disgaea expecting Final Fantasy Tactics level of awesomeness but ended sorely disappointed. Since then, I wouldn't touch a Nippon Ichi game with a 50 meter pole. The reasons I think NI games are popular is because of the quirkiness and not much competition on consoles. I can't fathom why Square doesn't release a new Tactics game. That'd kick all sorts of ass, including NI's.

[ahnslaught]

The only NIS game I played was phantom brave, which I was addicted to for quite a while. It is quite obtuse and dense, though, so I just got tired of it because I just never wanted to learn all the aspects of the gameplay.

Lately, however, I've been itching for strategy games, so I've been wanting to jump back into phantom brave yet again. From what I played of it, it has a wonderful story which was its strong suit.

[Danny]

A very big YEY for me!

I own four of there games here in the UK. PAL versions are a lot easier to come by and yes I have played them all. Anyways I own Disgaea, Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave and La Pacelle Tactics.

I've enjoyed them all but I doubt I have but no were nears as much time as some of the people that I've come across over the internet lol.

And as for Square vs Nippon Inch SRPGS?... well I perfer NI games because at least they try and add some thing new to the formula and they also have much, much more depth to them to and sepcialy in the case of Disgaea and Makai Kingdom infinate replayablity pretty much. (Although that's not to say that FFT is not good, I loved it but I like Disgaea and Makai Kingdom more because of what they bring to the SRPG table so to speak)

[Blade]

Disgaea is probably NI's flagship series, so I'd stick with that. Disgaea 2 should be coming out soon.

[scrilla4rella]

Well, it's not a SRPG but I just picked up Altier Iris: Eternal Mana for $30 new. While I don't really have any time for any other games besides Under Defeat and Gun Frontier right now, it seems to be a bit rare around where I live so I picked it up. Have any of y'all played this Altier Iris game. It looks %100 2D, which is a good thing...

[sjewkestheloon]

i keep picking up and putting down atelier iris but it's out of my price range at the mo and i have too much to play. oh and dragon quest 8 is just out in pal land so i'll be playing that one next... i hate it when load of good games all come out in the space of a few months. that and i haven't invested in an rpg in about a year.

[Ganelon]

No, I don't like N1's stuff, although I have supported them by buying all their US games just for the sake of their promoting 2D games. They take way too much time, allow way too much leveling, are way too loli, and really aren't any challenge once you figure out what to exploit or level yourself as much as you feel like. And the games are imperfectable with a nearly infinite amount of boring optional dungeons to go through at your leisure. These games would be perfect if I was still in grade school without money and only received two games a year since they'd last a hell of a long time. But I play for an enjoyable experience now and don't find N1's Marl universe atmosphere to be serious enough for a serious response.

I'm also disappointed why SE hasn't had Quest make another Ogre game yet.

[Rob]

I played <new game> expecting <32-bit game> level of awesomeness but ended sorely disappointed.

Story of this gen.

I think I'll buy Disgaea 2 when it's out (I've seen June/July-ish release dates) to be disappointed for myself! Haven't played any of these yet.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

And the games are imperfectable with a nearly infinite amount of boring optional dungeons to go through at your leisure. These games would be perfect if I was still in grade school without money and only received two games a year since they'd last a hell of a long time. But I play for an enjoyable experience now and don't find N1's Marl universe atmosphere to be serious enough for a serious response.

Exactly my thoughts. Back in the day, I did dumb stuff like searching every tile in the dark dungeon of Final Fantasy Tactics to get items. It was a goddamned chore but there was nothing better to play.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I played <new game> expecting <32-bit game> level of awesomeness but ended sorely disappointed.

Story of this gen.

I think I'll buy Disgaea 2 when it's out (I've seen June/July-ish release dates) to be disappointed for myself! Haven't played any of these yet.

Yeah, this gen's RPGs have been one disappointment after another. Though, I still have hopes for Valkyrie Profile Silmeria.

[scrilla4rella]

I would dance in the street, necked, if SE did indees bring out a new chapter in the Ogre Battle series. Unfortunatly, the direction that SE is headed in seems to make the possibility of a new OB game even less likely than a sequel to Chrono Trigger w/ Yuji Hori. Toriyama, and Mistuda

[TalkingOctopus]

I really liked Disgaea. I thought the level design was good. I was able to complete each level without leveling up for the sake of leveling up until the last boss. I had to level up about 10 levels to around 90 to defeat him. Overall, I played for about 30 hours to finish the game. The story is rather rediculous and will probably be very painful to watch if you're not an anime fan. However, it made me laugh a few times.

I tried Phantom Brave, played it for a few hours and then never touched it again. I didn't like how your characters had a limited amount of time to fight. It made the game way too difficult.

[BryanM]

Hey thread, just tried this new and exciting game from the future called Zettai Hero Project.

A moment emblematic of NIS games in general:

Was in the first mastery dungeon, squishing everything I came into contact with in a single hit. (Sidenote: When you get to the point where you literally can't die, that's when it ceases to be a game.)

So I put in the kajillion hours of time tax to reach the final floor, floor 60. As nothing could damage me, I thought I could handle whatever they would put at the end of the dungeon. Just playing it honestly without using any of the various cheese exploits the game lets you do....

I go down to floor 60. Flonne appears in a cutscene. I begin to swear because my naive assumption that, if there was indeed a boss I had to kill, it would be around level 200... all that went up in smoke.

Level 500. 50,000 hp. Multiple minions, also with five digit stats. Single attack. Dungeon run ends.

Hours of gathering items, evaporates instantly. A dirty trick. Game lied to me.

NIS is absolute garbage when it comes to balance. The item world in Disgaea games is very similar - hours of insects you run past, then one boss with huge numbers at the end. Dafuq is the point of that? At least in Disgeaeae, you can exit or reload. But still.

Dragon Quest 1 puts these things to shame on the balance front. Shit, even the AI front.

Play these games to feel like you're an invincible vengeful shonen god or for the stories. Even for someone with crippling OCD, the side game stuff doesn't really deliver in the long run. Make numbers go up, make enemies go squish.

hours of insects you run past

They usually don't even have any EQUIPMENT!

Argh. What's the point.

Final Fantasy Tactics

God what an overall great game when it comes to fundamentals. Notice how you don't have a defense stat that can negate all incoming damage? (Please ignore Blade Grasp.) Arithmatic attack - defense = damage algorithms are typically bad.

One of the things I didn't like about FFT as a kid was how you had charge time on activating spells. In retrospect, this is an outstanding feature when you think about it - when you're dropping a freaking meteor on the field, and it's gonna be devastating when it lands, if you want a balanced game, yeah you need to give the enemy a chance to interrupt or mitigate the damage from your attack. FFT's time system is like a simpler, smoother version of Magic the Gathering's "stack". The fundamental idea is great.

Of course they flush it down the toilet completely with Sword Arts, Martial Arts, Items etc. But still!

For such a beloved cult game, it's like no one attempted to steal anything from it. 'tis weird.

I didn't like how your characters had a limited amount of time to fight. It made the game way too difficult.

Why, you were doing it wrong all along. In Phantom Brave, leveling up weapons is how you get stronger. You're supposed to disregard phantoms completely, and play just using Marona.

Honestly Phantom Brave is my favorite game of theirs from a mechanical viewpoint. There's a couple good ideas in there, and it's a bit different from their usual fare.

[Vexorg]

Disgaea seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it series for a lot of people. I easily have 500+ hours into the various Disgaea games (mostly the PSP versions of 1 and 2, but also quite a bit of time on 4, not so much with 3 which was pretty mediocre) and although I don't see myself going back to one anytime soon, they seem to work best on portable platforms. For the most part they're mindless grindfests, but sometimes that's exactly what you want. The main thing I liked about Disgaea compared to other SRPGs is that the pace is fast enough (especially if you turn off battle animations, which you'll want to do pretty quickly) that it makes Final Fantasy Tactics look positively glacial in comparison.

That said, I never could get into Phantom Brave for some reason, in spite of multiple attempts to do so, and haven't tried much else they put out.

[CStarFlare]

Phantom Brave was NIS's best as of Disgaea 2 (stopped playing after that). It bins NIS's tedious sense of humor, has great music, and it's got NIS's trademark mechanic exploitation and stat skyrocketing without being the same level of grind that their other games are. If you know what you're doing you can go from start to finishing the original game's hardest superboss in less than 24 hours. This is partially due to how exploitable the weapons, titles, item world, fusion and confinement systems are (especially in combination!), and partially because the pace of the gameplay is just much faster.

Its movement system is great, and confinement is a unique mechanic that becomes crucial in the postgame for reasons that are not really important during the main game. The focus on items over characters is interesting, and because of it transmitigation can literally be ignored (unlike the Disgaeas where you can expect to repeatedly send characters back to level 1 to build up a huge pool of starting stats from your accumulated levels).

God, I want to play Phantom Brave again. Pringer XXX was actually a challenge, and there's plenty of unique item world items I never picked up because my silly weapon rendered them pitiful.

[Xyga]

^ I regret selling my NTSC/U copy many years ago, the one that came with an OST disc.

[MR_Soren]

I've played Disgaea DS for about 200 hours and then played through La Pucelle Tactics for PS2. I enjoyed both of them overall, but I haven't been itching to play more NIS games. The story, characters, and game rules were all fun and interesting, but they weren't tickling the tactical part of my brain since the games made it too easy to power level or abuse map gimmicks. Seemed more like grinding and puzzle solving a lot of times.

For tactical gameplay, I thought Devil Survivor and Gungnir were very good. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is another solid TRPG, but Fire Emblem games don't tend to deviate from the TRPG formula and add many fresh ideas since they are the formula.

[evil_ash_xero]

I liked them OK. I really enjoyed Disgaea, when it came out. I enjoyed the sequel, but couldn't really get into their other titles at the time (Phantom Brave, etc.).
Their games were too samey. Soul Nomad was interesting, but they sorta left that one behind.
Disgaea 3 underwhelmed me, severely. But I thought 4 was the best one, since the first one.

A lot of the original folks have left the company. I think what they put out in that batch of years, is their legacy.

They were kind of the "it" Japanese niche game developer for a while there. I think Vanillaware has improved, and have shown more variety.

[soprano1]

The PSP Prinny games are great. Agree on Phantom Brave, loved playing the PSP version. They released a PC version in July, don't know if it's a port of the PS2 or PSP version.

[evil_ash_xero]

The PSP Prinny games are great. Agree on Phantom Brave, loved playing the PSP version. They released a PC version in July, don't know if it's a port of the PS2 or PSP version.

I liked Prinny OK. The button mashing took it's toll.

[Mero]

I did about 220 hours on The Guided Fate Paradox, which is probably my longest playtime for any game ever. The sequel Awakened Fate Ultimatum was not in the same league, sadly.

Wouldn't mind trying out the Disgaea games but haven't got round to it yet.

[soprano1]

The PSP Prinny games are great. Agree on Phantom Brave, loved playing the PSP version. They released a PC version in July, don't know if it's a port of the PS2 or PSP version.

I liked Prinny OK. The button mashing took it's toll.

Yeah, i can understand that.

[cj iwakura]

Prinny 1 is amazing. 2... not so much.

Prinny 1 is the first game I ever bought DLC for, and it was worth it.

[evil_ash_xero]

Prinny 1 is amazing. 2... not so much.

Prinny 1 is the first game I ever bought DLC for, and it was worth it.

I thought it was neat, but I got rid of it due to the button mashing. I have some kind of weird problem with not being able to mash that fast (I also have arthritis in my hands, which causes some problems too), and I just got too pissed off at the game. Maybe someone could make a "rapid fire" patch, for it?

[CStarFlare]

Pretty sure PPSSPP has a rapid fire setting.

[cj iwakura]

Prinny 1 is amazing. 2... not so much.

Prinny 1 is the first game I ever bought DLC for, and it was worth it.

I thought it was neat, but I got rid of it due to the button mashing. I have some kind of weird problem with not being able to mash that fast (I also have arthritis in my hands, which causes some problems too), and I just got too pissed off at the game. Maybe someone could make a "rapid fire" patch, for it?

It's kind of amazing how much they were able to make that matter. Not sure any game ever has rewarded button mashing like that.

Also, that VA was so good.

[professor ganson]

Disgaea 4 is an excellent challenge tactics-wise if you avoid grinding.

The item world in Disgaea 2 is another true highlight of the series. I loved the challenge and reward of squeaking through stage after stage with Tink doing most of the work.

I completely agree with Vexorg about the series, especially the point about how it shines on handheld systems. Only Fire Emblem is closer to my heart.