[General Discussion] Nippon Ichi SRPG's: The Best?

Simple as that...Which one do you think is the best? I expect Disgaea to win by a landslide, but there HAVE to be at least a few La Pucelle/Phantom supporters out there.

Me, I've really only played La Pucelle (finished it) and Disgaea 1 (about halfway through) and I really like La Pucelle more. It seems to have fewer customization options, but I think the gameplay is tighter and I prefer the light trails to the geo panels overall. I just remember being enthralled with the gameplay and storyline enough to want to play straight through, whereas Disgaea, I'm playing it much more casually when I get some spare downtime...I seem to get bored with it if I play too long.

DISCUSS...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I like Phantom Brave a lot with it's difficulty. So far I find it to be the hardest and therefore the most rewarding SRPG out there.

Disgaea I love for it's vastness. There's so much to do, and it all has a purpose for taking the time to do it too.

Makai Kingdom has some of the most commical dialogue. All NIS games are funny, I just liked MK's script a tinny bit more. It's just too bad that it was so short.

If I had to pick one though, yeah... I'd have to go with Disgaea. Hate to be a follower, but it's so darn good.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I've only played Disgaea and Phantom Brave. Between the two, I enjoyed Phantom Brave more. The free movement approach is more unique than the isometric grid and the limited turns mean that you actually have to strategize a bit to do well, rather than just power level as in Disgaea. Plus I liked the whole business of using objects in the environment as weapons and I like the soundtrack more.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I've only played Disgaea 1 and 2. While I like both games a lot, Disgaea 1 was definitely more fun because it was 75% less frustrating. Part two was pretty cumbersome, in a way that just turned me off from putting in as many hours of gameplay as I did with part one. Two forced you to go through the Item Worlds accomplish the really good stuff, which I have yet to do because I frankly hate Item World. Then theres the class system in which you have to level each individual class to the required level to unlock the next. And the Dark Congress get on my nerves with their bribe system [from the senate PoV]. Part two was more strategic, but at least one didn't have all that complicated mumbo, which made it all the more fun for me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The was a video game somewhere within Rhapsody?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Megavolt

The free movement approach is more unique than the isometric grid and the limited turns mean that you actually have to strategize a bit to do well, rather than just power level as in Disgaea. Plus I liked the whole business of using objects in the environment as weapons and I like the soundtrack more.

I like how Megavolt summed up every reason Phantom Brave is my favorite Nippon Ichi SRPG.

Great minds think alike.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You can power level just as well in Phantom Brave using the title system on dungeons. Make a really high level dungeon with a "Crappy" title (seriously) and the monsters are high level and super weak = easy levelling

FELIPE NO

Rhapsody is my favorite out of those, though I wouldn't call it an SRPG. I just liked what it was attempting to do. Would've been better to have some difficulty (even on hard mode that was one of the easiest games I've ever played), but I found that unimportant in the long run.

Out of the rest, Phantom Brave is my favorite, easily. Better plot, better music, and fusion > whatever those other games had.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Disgaea 2 took the cake for me after playing 1 and getting familiar with the idea. I respect one more for being the most overkill fun I've had since Valkyrie Profile, but 2 makes me smile more now because of all the features crammed in. I do like the story of 1 better though and all the fruitiness of midboss.

Phantom Brave was overkill for me. I loved it, but I didn't play it all the way through because I would want so badly to master every skill on a bush or the Snakish, etc. and although I knew better confining items would come throughout the game, I wanted to get everything. Perfectionist's terror.

I have to play Makai Kingdom but the insane mana costs are making me reluctant, as well as all the mention of no clear-cut story. Rhapsody as well I want to try out, if only to see how Musical references are incorporated. I keep hearing bad news about it for some reason though.

La Pucelle was also fun, but I was slightly disappointed when Miracles weren't as graphically fantastic as I thought, and how all my monsters quickly got outdated, especially trying to collect one of each kind. The bears were cute.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Summonmaster

La Pucelle was also fun, but I was slightly disappointed when Miracles weren't as graphically fantastic as I thought, and how all my monsters quickly got outdated, especially trying to collect one of each kind. The bears were cute.

Yeah, I remember being all psyched about capturing one of the bears early on and then by the next chapter, he was basically a forth-string fighter and I had to level him up a good bit before he was useful. The Pumpkin Heads were definitely the way to go though. I think I had the bear, a pumpkin and a Will O Wisp for the final battle to go with everyone else and they were all holding their own. Still, I had forgotten how "normal" my levels were for this game...My old save had everyone around 40-45 before the final encounter.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I've played more of Nippon strategy game,I like Disgaea, because the game was the mix the clasical SRPG with funny part was so cool.

The story line and the music was nice also, the designer of the character I liked it too. I can't forget angel Flonne and Etna, but those penny may me laught.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hey, didn't you leave out Generation of Chaos and Spectral Souls from your list?

Because those two sucked blue balls.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Phantom Brave has been mentioned a few times already and to add to what other have said about the game, I'd say there was a lot more strategy in Phantom Brave than in the other NIS games that I've played (keeping in mind that I've also played through La Pucelle and Disgaea).

The fact that there was some sort of turn order added to the strategy in combats. Unlike Disgaea, PB wasn't about moving your entire squad in one go and ending your turn and watching the opposition move. Rather, the combat system was based on each individual character and their speed value, which created a turn order for every character out on the battlefield. That way, you could sort of plan out which enemy to target and which ones you could leave for later because they were so far down the initiative order that they hardly mattered. The options to fuse and confine only added to the fun of experimenting around.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Phantom Brave was the only Nippon Ichi SRPG I've completed to the end. I liked it most because of the battle system and characters in the game. Mixing a ton of stuff together was fun, and Ash's weapon basically turned him into a god. I liked the hilarious storyline in Disgaea but despised the battle system itself.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's tough, but overall Disgaea 2 is in my opinion the best game of the lot. It has more to offer, it has so many tweaks and fixes to the gameplay, it has an insane amount of extras and unlike Disgaea 1, I actually really liked using all of the story characters in battle. Music was top-notch and the presentation was definately the best. It's addictively fun.
Yukimaru and Hanako <3

However, Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave and La Pucelle do deserve love and respect.
Makai Kingdom is the funnest game to play, and has a hilarious story. On the negative side, the graphics are a mess and the enemies look dull.
Phantom Brave is also very fun and it has the best story out of all these games. It also stars Marona who's probably one of the strongest female characters in gaming imo, and she gets a lot of respect from me because of that.
Gameplay-wise, it's good during the regular game--- but it's very messy and buggy. That's why I can't make it my favorite. The post-game stuff is also very difficult to pull off compared to Disgaea... or at least I have absolutely no idea how to properly powerlevel enough to beat Baal.
The music and graphics in PB are the very best too. I love idling in Phantom Isle. x)

La Pucelle has awesome characters, great and sometimes poignant music, some pretty shocking moments in the story and the fun map purification system + original summon technique.
Problems: gameplay was a little slow, it lacked character creation and the post game stuff is also hard to abuse so it requires too much repetitive power leveling.

It's kind of mind boggling to think that both La Pucelle and Phantom Brave lacked a New Game + feature when they were released (I'd have loved to be able to go through the games' stories without recreating characters nor starting from scratch).

Disgaea was a blast, I love it and it's one of my favorite RPGs and all, but it doesn't really outdo the others for me. That said, all of these games have a lot to offer.

Looking forward to Soul Cradle.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by SouthJag

Hey, didn't you leave out Generation of Chaos and Spectral Souls from your list?

Because those two sucked blue balls.

They're not on the list because they were not developed by Nippon Ichi.


What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Oh that's right -- NIS only published them. Whoops.

They still sucked blue nuts.

Anywho, I've actually seen a copy of La Pucelle Tactics at work (for really cheap compare dto Disgaea, actually) so I think I might check it out to see what all this hype over SRPGs is about.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Both Disgaea and Disgaea2 are my favorite rpgs games...

because the battle system and game artwork are cool...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Disgaea 2 is an incredible game, in a lot of ways. However, it is let down by the fact that the story is poor compared with the first, and the various minor bugs. The huge quantity of typos in the localization don't help either.

Disgaea 1 is almost perfect. Very few bugs, excellent story, great localization, and great mechanics.

Makai Kingdom I enjoyed a lot, but the fundamental gameplay has flaws. The story is fun, and so is the system, but it's not a 300+ hour game for me.

Phantom Brave is one huge flaw.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.