Disgaea
 

I'm not going to do a huge detailed explanation on this game. It's out already, (in fact, leaked, but still out now) and it's worth it.

It's pretty much perfect minus the gigantic load time I'm getting when initializing the game. All rough edges of grids are basically gone, it's widescreen, and there's no load times during the actual game.

I've noticed a couple of things though. The select button toggles whether you want to have geo panel glowing on or off, which of course you'll want on. I'm also sure there's no "quickly bring the cursor back to base panel" command like the original.

The PSP version features the one thing which is going to make me play through it again, and that's the ability to skip battle animations. Thank god I won't be sitting through thousands of Winged Slayers any more. There's no option to speed up the geo panel chains like in Disgaea 2, though, but since you're not doing constant geo panel chaining it isn't a huge issue.

Etna and the Prinnies have changed voices, and I really have no idea why. It doesn't bother me since I'm playing through with the Japanese VA (English VA on my PS2 game) this time. Etna mode is an unlockable which you don't get until after you've completed the main story.

Main story is still a joke in terms of difficulty. I started out with using a female brawler instead of Laharl so I could transmigrate it post-game into something different and go from there, but even in it's teens it's still only doing about as equal damage as what Laharl, currently level 9, is doing.

Unlike FFT, there's no slowdown whatsoever.

Discuss.

You changed your name to katakana? What's the occasion?

He did this a while ago now, actually.

But I still think エリクシア— would sound better.

No occasion. Miles thinks it's hilarious though, and changed it. Personally I'd use エリクサー because it's mOrE KaWaIi. Or perhaps 大の complete with dinosaur avatar/signature for terrible fucking pun. (Daino means "huge", and Elixir is fat, see, plus it's pronounced as "dino", see, oh god)

I don't mind. I know kana and now it matches my DS. :eagletear:

Hilarious O'Clock.

Lix --
The JP track doesn't use the US voices for attacks anymore if that's what you mean. This port actually makes use of the JP voices when using special moves (unlike the PS2 version) =o I think that's what you're referring to, right?

I downloaded it and I am THOROUGHLY impressed. It's a perfectly running PS2 game on the PSP, and it's got extra goodies. I don't think the % completion fellow was in it in the real game, was he?... (opposite the assembly et al NPCs)

What. Etna and the prinnies have changed voices in the English version.

If the game makes use of the Japanese voice track for the battle sounds too, that would be a big selling point for me. I really didn't care for the English voice acting in Disgaea, and was kinda annoyed that it persisted in battle no matter what language I had it set to.

The only thing is that I'm not sure I want to play through the game again just to see Etna mode. The game was great as a novelty, but the brain-dead AI got old pretty fast.

I can confirm the game does indeed finally use Japanese voices all around when selected, and not just in cutscenes. It looks really nice even though the game looked a lot prettier on a regular TV. The widescreen adds absolutely nothing, but at least it's not stretched.

I'm thinking of maybe downloading a save file to get to Etna mode, but the presence of comprehensive game statistics are making me hesitant :(
It took me close to 88 hours to finish the game last time, and I'm not sure I'm up for starting all over.

Monkey King --
It does =o That's what I'm saying. Early on, Nippon Ichi only made the chosen voice track apply to storyline. In Makai Kingdom (or Disgaea 2. I forget), they changed it to where the chosen voice track affects the voices in battle. So whenever you hear/see attacks in battle, if you choose JP, the voices ARE JP. It was a wonderful little touch =O

Etna mode in itself is probably not too long at all. What is it, another chapter or two, maximum? I haven't read up on it much, but Disgaea is a pretty sizable game in itself, probably not giving much incentive to add a lot of material.

Actually, I thought Disgaea was the only game (in the series) that did that. La Pucelle and forward always used the selected language for battle sounds as well.

Etna Mode is supposed to be the entirety of Disgaea's normal story + an additional 5 chapters.

All in an alternate universe of course.

o snap. Interesting =O I'm even more impressed at how they compressed this down to a PSP game...

Q --
Was trying to recall off memory. I never tried Phantom Brave or La Pucelle, but those came out relatively close to Disgaea 1 if I recall right. I figured Makai Kingdom was the first to correct it. Guess not. O wul.

Yeah, it's amusing because Disgaea was the first game Atlus released in english, even though La Pucelle was the first in the series. But because La Pucelle was released in the US later, they probably got the technology to work and made the audio selection work like it should.

So if you wanted to play in a "logical" order, you'd start with La Pucelle, which was, release-wise, more advanced. Full jap for one game, then jap cutscenes + english battle shouts for another, then back to full jap from Phantom Brave and onward.


From a European point of view, I think Makai Kingdom was the first game in the series where Koei got their act together and stopped removing the jap audio (which they'd till then done with Disgaea, La Pucelle and Phantom Brave). I even wrote them about this back when La Pucelle was coming out in Europe and they gave me some bullshit explanation about it being Sony's decision on not supporting Japanese audio for Europe. While at the same they were releasing games like King of Fighters Maximum Impact with optional jap audio :tpg:

I was glad to see them stop the idiocy.

That command does indeed exist. You will notice that the default for the shoulder buttons is for them to perform the same functions as R1 and L1 originally did on the PS2 controller. If you hold the Square button, they will perform the same functions as the R2 and L2 buttons originally did on the PS2 controller.

Etna's American voice changed because Amanda Winn-Lee is retired from voice acting now, and can't provide additional lines of dialogue for Etna, as would be required by Etna Mode. I've heard that this new voice is by Michelle Ruff. The Prinnies are a different story though. I hear that they were originally done by Atlus staff members rather than professional voice actors. Naturally NIS America can't get the appropriate Atlus staff members to provide them additional Prinny lines for Etna mode, so they had to change too.

I wonder if Mid-Boss changed. He has additional lines in Etna Mode, so maybe... who knows?

Additional Spam:
I've played it myself, on the Japanese version of the game. It's not as long as the main game. I don't remember exactly how many chapters, but I'd guess that it might be five, because that would sort of fit in with what you've heard. I remember the last chapter is pretty long though. I also remember the difficulty level being somewhat higher than the main story. I used the code to unlock Etna Mode for my first playthrough, and it was quite hard.

So it is. Although I don't have a single idea why they wouldn't use this command in place of select. I don't find people switching the ability to have geo panels on or off to be used over something like auto base panel return.


I love how this is so easy to pick up. Turn your PSP on, start levelling, save and turn it off. Repeat whenever you want.

Hmm. I've perused some faqs but none give a straight answer; how do you access Etna's Diaries every chapter?

I've hit the switch on the skull at the shop counter, and I *thought* you were supposed to search behind the Prinny on the room with Longinus, etc in it. I didn't think about it and was in ch 3 by the time I remembered :O Is it not possible if you miss the switch in Ch 1?

If so, oh well. I don't wanna start from the beginning >_> Grinding out took me a little while. Thankfully there's a type-in button code to unlock Etna mode (see Gamefags).

It's the room right after Laharl's room, the one with the stair steps all around. You go down to the bottom floor area and check the corner at the top. When you search the right spot, Etna says she has to go to the bathroom and you can go read her diary.

Do they make you read it every chapter, or can you show up close to the end and read the works all at once?

I started reading the diaries about three chapters in when playing the PS2 version, so I dout it. There's a switch behind the throne btw, but I don't remember if that was relevant to the diaries.

Q --
Probably is. I checked the spot Monkey King recommended already =( I remember her saying "hafta go to the bathroom brb~" and stuff, but I knew I was missing something.

That's what I did. After reading the first chapter, I didn't read another one until the penultimate chapter. I got the prize just the same.

I'm grinding in Terrible Cold before I move on. My brawler's 70ish now. Going to level weapon mastery up a bit before I continue.

Must prepare for CoO3, you know how it is.

Six chapters into Etna mode, and I finally managed to find a place to grind it out.

Which prepared me for something awesome.

Which allowed me to get this.



Of course now it makes me want to see if there's anything else hidden about. Some people have apparently had it end after 2 chapters...

EDIT: Forgot to mention. CoO3 sucks for shit now that the 33 new maps are about. It's all about Demonhall Mirror 7. It looks and feels exactly like CoO3 except all the monsters start at Lv 350 (1750 if you max the stronger enemies), and are in XP + 100% grids.

You will have to work hard to get DM 7 (it is the only DM stage you will be allowed to replay and it must be unlocked) but it is so worth it.

Where is this? I unlocked a Demonhall which came after CoO5, but it had recovery panels. I went back to CoO3 since it was faster.

I've been getting teachers and reincarnating so far. I have a melee cleric, who can take out CoO3 in a single hit (Big Bang) with about 240 fist mastery. It was a female brawler, but I figured this would be a better way of going through item world to get more specialists since I can heal myself with omega heal.

Yes, that would be the place.

You have to go through all the stages. After the sixth stage, seven will unlock and you can grind until you pass out or something. It'll appear right after CoO5.