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Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness |OT|

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Summary
The Netherworld – a place where might makes right and today’s friends are tomorrow’s enemies. After a long journey with many ups and downs, Laharl finally finds himself as a full-fledged Overlord. However, the other denizens of the Netherworld do not see him as such, so he sets out on a journey with his loyal(!?) vassals to receive the respect he deserves. Along the way, Laharl will meet a girl who claims to be his sister, demons with bigger than usual chips on their shoulders, and find out that even his own body holds a few surprises for him...

Basic Info

Standard EU/US Retail:
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Contains
  • 2 Disc soundtrack in paper sleeve
  • Graphics print

Limited Edition
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Contains
  • Full-color hardcover art book
  • 2 disc OST with Jewel Case
  • Collector's Box
  • 2 Pet Figures (Etna and Flonne)
  • 5 Collectors Art Cards.

Limited Edition + Guide
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Contains:
  • Limited Edition
  • Hardcover Strategy Guide (Strategy Guide comes with free Raspberyl DLC)

Features
  • Turn-based SRPG with a grid for positioning
  • Many character classes (both human and monster) with unique passive abilities (evilities) and skills.
  • Many weapon types with skills for most weapon types.
  • Return of Master / Pupil System
  • Skills more like Disgaea 1 & 2 than 3 & 4
  • Geoblocks return (including the moving ones from Disgaea 2) replacin Geocubes.
  • Riding monsters replaces Magichange.
  • New Weapon Type: Book , like staff but has skills instead of boosting magic range.
  • General streamlining of many systems (e.g can upgrade a characters tier without resetting their level to 0 (but don't get stored levels), much easier to increase/decrease Enemy Strength , can upgrade an items Rarity by travelling through it, much less reliance on random chance for increasing Character and Item stats )
  • The usual over the top skills
  • Even more insane caps than before thanks to Rasetsu Mode

Characters
Being a Disgaea game there are far to many characters to list, so I'll direct you to the official character page.

Reviews

FAQ

  • Whats Up With The D2 in the Title ?
    The Disgaea series is like Final Fantasy or Tales, in that, each entry in the main series is a standalone story, the D2 indicates its a direct sequel to the story of Disgaea 1 (Hour of Darkness / Afternoon of Darkness / Disgaea DS).
  • Is it necessary to have played Disgaea to play this ?
    No, there are some references and callbacks but they are explained sufficiently in the game itself.
  • What about the cameo appearances events in other games ?
    This game takes place in an alternate dimension where those didn't happen (or may perhaps happen before them. I've heard different translations)
  • Any Preorder Bonuses ?
    Sort of. For the first month, costume DLC for Laharl, Etna and Flonne giving them their Disgaea 1 appearances will be free, after that it will become paid. The strategy guide also comes with a free DLC code for the Raspberyl character (and the usual short recruitment scenario), in all likelihood Raspberyl will also be available as part of the 2nd wave of Character DLC.
 
Dropbox image links aren't working, text seems nicely formatted though!

Any chance of the collector's edition with the guide included coming back in-stock? I have the regular special edition pre-ordered but it'd be nice to switch over.
 
Dropbox image links aren't working, text seems nicely formatted though!

Any chance of the collector's edition with the guide included coming back in-stock? I have the regular special edition pre-ordered but it'd be nice to switch over.

Working on the images now. Dropbox doesn't make image links particularly intuitive.

As for the Collector's Edition with Guide, probably not. NISA have actually had stock / shipping problems , orders for the Collector's Edition placed after the 9th of September won't ship until a week or so after release, and its NISA policy not to do second runs of collector's editions.
 
Love me some Disgaea. It is like FF Tactics on steroids, with pure over the top sense of humor and style.

D2 was my fav. so I'll def pick this up. But why no Vita D2??
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Working on the images now. Dropbox doesn't make image links particularly intuitive.

As for the Collector's Edition with Guide, probably not. NISA have actually had stock / shipping problems , orders for the Collector's Edition placed after the 9th of September won't ship until a week or so after release, and its NISA policy not to do second runs of collector's editions.

Should use imgur, it gives you a list of message board links immediately afterward.


Not really looking forward to this, but I'm sure it'll be good for D1 fans. I like that NIS makes new casts for each Disgaea instead of resting on D1's laurels.
(I do have to say bringing back the real geopanels is the best, though.)
 
Should use imgur, it gives you a list of message board links immediately afterward.


Not really looking forward to this, but I'm sure it'll be good for D1 fans. I like that NIS makes new casts for each Disgaea instead of resting on D1's laurels.
(I do have to say bringing back the real geopanels is the best, though.)

Ooh, yes I should mention that in the features considering how important geo-effects are.
 

Tizoc

Member
Good and tidy OP~

I don't think I could ever spend a lot of time playing Disgaea due to all the grinding grinding grinding...
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Ooh, yes I should mention that in the features considering how important geo-effects are.

Yep, I loathed geocubes. Never got to the second stacking aspect of them.


Also, I wouldn't mind doing a character section if you want. Not too many to include. I love D1, but I thought they wrapped up it in a neat little bow and didn't really call for a sequel. (D2's my favorite. Blasphemy, I know.)
 
Yep, I loathed geocubes. Never got to the second stacking aspect of them.


Also, I wouldn't mind doing a character section if you want. Not too many to include. I love D1, but I thought they wrapped up it in a neat little bow and didn't really call for a sequel. (D2's my favorite. Blasphemy, I know.)

If you want to do a character section , that would be great. It was on my original to do list but I sort of run out of time since it released today in Europe.
 

Kouriozan

Member
Already 15 hours in, I'm glad weapons mastery is back.
Ennemies are starting to be so strong despite spending hours in the item world, I like it!
 

fek

Member
While I do have my preferences about story, characters and music, when it comes to gameplay, new systems and postgame content, even though I do love the series mechanics since the first one, I always think that every new Disgaea game is a lot better than the previous one, so I'm very excited for this.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
D2 was my fav. so I'll def pick this up. But why no Vita D2??

That's how the series has been. It'll be a year or two before we see it
if ever at the rate sales for the system are going
Just like D1-4's ports happened.
 
Good and tidy OP~

I don't think I could ever spend a lot of time playing Disgaea due to all the grinding grinding grinding...

You can pretty much always complete the main story without grinding. Although after Disgaea 2 the difference between Main Story and Post Game content has shrunk to almost nothing, since it usually has a storyline of its own that continues on from the end game. They've also generally made the grinding less annoying with each game, by making it easier to grind or removing some of the arbitrary randomness, though they have had occasional missteps (like D2 & D4s Pirate Hunting for LoC access).

This game in particular has a lot of refinements and streamlining that make grinding more intuitive and less impossible to do for people who don't feel like resetting 6000 times and memorizing ridiculous formulas. It seems like one of the design goals was to make things easier to get into.
 

zroid

Banned
i keep forgetting this exists, lol

think i'm going to wait for the inevitable vita port anyway. these games are too bloody long and grindy to spend tied down to a TV. ideal handheld game for me. sorry if this constitutes a port beg, but come on, it's going to happen.
 
i keep forgetting this exists, lol

think i'm going to wait for the inevitable vita port anyway. these games are too bloody long and grindy to spend tied down to a TV. ideal handheld game for me. sorry if this constitutes a port beg, but come on, it's going to happen.

Yeah, I'd expect a handheld port sometime in 2016 that includes all the DLC, and adds another side story mode. Even if the Vita dies it'd probably be safe to bet on a 3DS or mobile port.
 

Kouriozan

Member
i keep forgetting this exists, lol

think i'm going to wait for the inevitable vita port anyway. these games are too bloody long and grindy to spend tied down to a TV. ideal handheld game for me. sorry if this constitutes a port beg, but come on, it's going to happen.

Yep, even if I got this one I can't wait for an eventual Vita version.
But Disgaea 4 Return first <3
 

Terra_Ex

Member
Was the limited edition exclusive to the US, haven't seen it available here in the UK, not that I'll have time to play it atm regardless.
 

DSveno

Banned
I had a bad habit of not finish Disgaea's main story because I always got distracted by the leveling/item collecting/whatever it is. The only exception is Disgaea 2.

And the insane amount of DLC for D2....
 
Was the limited edition exclusive to the US, haven't seen it available here in the UK, not that I'll have time to play it atm regardless.

Seems to have been a NIS Store exclusive (and thus US or Import only). The NIS Store does ship to most places but they only sell US versions so you need to setup a US PSN account to get DLC and such.

I vaguely remember hearing about one of the gaming chain stores getting a version but a Google search turned up nothing.
 
I had a bad habit of not finish Disgaea's main story because I always got distracted by the leveling/item collecting/whatever it is. The only exception is Disgaea 2.

And the insane amount of DLC for D2....

D:D2* doesn't seem to have that much DLC (~18 characters). D3 was the peak in the series for DLC, D4 had less, and D:D2 seems to have less than D4 (the final/6th wave of announced stuff came out in Japan and nothing more has been announced, whereas D4 had 2 side story modes, and a bunch of "online play", as well as a bunch of DLC characters ).

*Using this so as not to confuse it with Disgaea 2
 

Kouriozan

Member
Anyone know every generic classes there is in this one, I currently have :
Warrior/Valkyrie
Magician/Witch
Priest/Healer
Martial Artist/Fight Mistress
Thief
Onmyo Monk
Archer
Gunner
Lady Samurai
Armor Knigh
Ninja
Magic Knight
Beast Master
Shaman
Masked Hero

Do I have every one of them, except the
Angels
?


Edit : found a youtube video showing the classes, got my answer :p
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Hell yeah, forgot this was coming out this soon.

I've read a lot of the changes, it seems this one will be a lot easier to get the grind started.

Getting rid of having to match item rarity numbers, being able to go through the new item sea to change common items to rare to legendary, being able to promote to new tiers without having to go back to level 1, no more class world for aptitude gains....

All of this gets offset by the Shura/LoC changes and the stat stealing that gets ridiculous, but still.

D2 was my fav. so I'll def pick this up. But why no Vita D2??

Uh, Disgaea 2 is available through the Vita store. It was a PSP game.

Do I have every one of them, except the
Angels
?

Depending on how you look at it, one of the classes is different.
the armor knight is female this time around/
. All the generics are listed here, including monsters.
 

B.K.

Member
I think I'll wait for the inevitable Vita version. I hope D2 is better than Disgaea 2 and 3. So far, none of the sequels have stood up to the first game, to me.
 

Midou

Member
I loved Disgaea 1, something about the main character really clicked with me, and I played a good 200 or so hours of it for post-game stuff. For some reason I've basically disliked every entry since then. I beat 2, put about 20 hours into 3 and about 5 hours into 4, and I just didn't like 2 and could not really get into 3 or 4 without forcing myself. I kind of hope because this is a sequel I might be able to get into it again, but I've basically not liked anything NIS has done post D1.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Also, here's hoping for the strategy guide being more like 1-3. Bradygames attempt was atrocious compared to the Doublejump ones.

Don't remember ever really having a Prima guide, so here's hoping for it to not be shitty. Sucks that Doublejump is dead. :/
 

panda-zebra

Member
Sure, if you manage to finish the story and not get sidetracked. (Good luck!)


I've finished 1, 2, 3, and PSP. D4 sidetracked me pretty hard.

The stories are fun (especially the first due to the comedy in there being particularly well judged, which is why I'm relishing D2 and also realise I'm probably setting myself up to be disappointed.), but they're barely the beginning of the game really and as someone else said, they're easy to forget about and breeze through later due to the draw of levelling, item world etc. (I only recently went back to 4 to see where I left it and despite 100s of hours of play, I'd ignored the whole last chapter).

I don't go as far as reading up on every little thing to get every last boost/item/trophy/whatever but for me Disgaeas are all about levelling to 9999 and reincarnation to get more powerful, going deep into legendary items, maybe seeing some different endings, searching for the pirates, that sort of stuff - anything you can do without having to read pages of text and following dozens of steps. All that grindy item collection, character creation and 20 nested conditions to make such and such a thing happen business doesn't really appeal in these ps+ days of huge game backlogs and limited gaming time.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Also, here's hoping for the strategy guide being more like 1-3. Bradygames attempt was atrocious compared to the Doublejump ones.

Don't remember ever really having a Prima guide, so here's hoping for it to not be shitty. Sucks that Doublejump is dead. :/

It's going to be worthless, don't bother. The new DJ are Future Press, IMO.
 
I really forgot this was even coming out.

Not sure if I have time to even start this soon so I guess I'll at least look forward to getting the LE.
 

Kouriozan

Member
First Disgaea game to tell you what each innocent does, I'm glad I don't have to check internet everytime now :)
Making towers and waiting ennemies to come is the best leveling method early (I'm at episode 6 atm), really helpful to level up those healers.
 
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