A moment that makes me wonder if all the HD graphics in the world would really be worth it.
The setting and storyline are pretty basic for the J-RPG standard. Luckily, it's what least matters about this game. The first Disgaea game was well known for pretty much being Final Fantasy Tactics on steriods! Every single aspect about it was exaggerated over the top: Characters and NPCs could have levels over 999, skills and abilites had over-the-top animations and hundreds of hours could be spent leveling up ANYTHING in the game that happened to have stats, be it a legendary sword or a stick of chewing gum.
What I truly enjoyed about Disgaea was its comedy. It was very random, very sarcastic, but unfortunately suffered from having some really lame voice acting. Disgaea 2 may seem like more of the same, but in fact, it's a much better game (that rhymed!).
It's important to point out that this game is long...very long. I spent a little over 60 hours playing the main storyline and I wasn't even going for most of the extra stuff (the game promises to last well over 250+ hours). The reason the game is long, aside from the fact that it's a 2D J-RPG in the 21st Century, is that the game has a rough difficulty curve. Anyone who tries this game will either be fully possessed by it, or be repulsed immediately. It's the nature of the game. It seems to have been designed in that fashion for a selective audience. Not hard to believe coming from Nippon Ichi Software, who have released other familiar games, like Phantom Brave.
In gameplay, you move Adell around his small town. The town works as sort of your HQ. Here you can visit stores where randomly generated items, with randomly generated attributes are sold for random generated prices. Most things in this game work like that: Randomly Generated. It's about as attractive as it is intimidating. For a game that is so visually simple, it's ironic how every other element of it is hugely expanded. Your item bag fits 24 items, but your warehouse can be filled with random objects you come across in your travels, and EVERYTHING you pick up is stuffed in there.
There is a gatekeeper in town who takes you to different places. This is where you go when you want to continue the main game's storyline. Game events are divided into chapters. Chapters open up with cutscenes, where cutouts of the characters and text are accompanied by some entertaining dialogue. The voiceovers are definitely a step up from the first installment. When a new place opens up, selecting that place with show you the stages available. Everytime a stage is completed a story event takes place and a new stage is unlocked. Every chapter has around 5 stages. You can probably get the idea of why this game is so long now.
When you begin a stage, you start off by a blue panel. Selecting the panel shows a list of all of your characters. The objective for a stage, no matter what the circumstance, is ALWAYS: Destroy the Enemy. Leave nothing. This is accomplish by moving your characters across the grid-like playing field and engaging in combat with the enemy. During the Player Turn, you can move characters individually with a cursor and select your attacks for each character. Every class has their own unique abilities and there are even certain abilities only exclusive to certain weapons. The possibilities feel entirely endless. When a stage ends, you're given the end results. Mattering on how you played through the stage, if you combined attacks well, etc. You're rewarded with bonus items and weapons.
Also in town, you can heal your team, visit the assembly like in the first game (there you can propose decisions before a senate who vote on whether or not to approve.) for creating new characters with a huge assortment of classes to choose from; Visit the Item World guide. You'll have to eventually as part of the story. It's this place where you choose an item (out of the virtually infinite amount of items in the game) and then GO INTO that item. Every item has a world within it (Item World, duh), and since every item in the game has it's own stats, every item has the ability to have their stats changed however you like. Your only enemy here is time and perseverence. An item world is composed of 30-100+ stages, all randomly generated UP TO THE LAST BLOCK OF THE STAGE. No stage encountered in Item Worlds are EVER the same. Even if you replay those Worlds. Luckily this becomes very optional during most of the game. You're only forced once into it and it's when the game implements a new element, the Dark Court.
Everytime a character, that is, any character on your existing team is charged with a crime (Existing, Having a High HP, Using Excessive Force, etc.), you can pick up their Subpoena in town (from the Subpoena Officer, duh). You can go into the Item World of that Subpoena and appear before the Dark Court, who then issue you your felony. Felonies are considered a Demon's medal of honor. Having a high felony will give your character more influence in the Senate, making more options available later on in the game. Everytime you're given your felonies, you're also given a ridiculous reward to go with it. Most of the time, I was given large sums of money, or accesories with high stats. All of these strange gameplay components are for the most part, completely optional and very time consuming due to it's randomly generated elements. That means, that if you're not interested in spending 10 hours adding 15+ strength to a portion of flan (you can do that), you don't have to. But if you DO want to, this game will virtually last you forever.
This is the kind of game with a selective audience. An audience with a death wish. A audience with an incredible amount of free time on their hands, regardless of how deep into the game they go. It's scary and at the same time, very admirable. I enjoyed Disgaea 2 very much and didn't have to go so far as the ending credits. Once you finish the game, the game cycle ends, your file is saved and you can play through it again, just in case you felt like going to the Cave of Ordeal to fight againt Level 9999 enemies. I totally recommend this game to fans of the first Disgaea, fans of Final Fantasy Tactics and anyone looking to not be found outside their house for a year or so. As for me, I'm looking forward to Disgaea 3 & 4 on the PS3. They look quite promising.