Disgaea Hour of Darkness

[Juria]

Can people stop releasing great games please?

Your wish is Nintendo's command!

[Sabreman]

Your wish is Nintendo's command!

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[SteveH]

Comboing works by having each character attack the same enemy in sequence. Team attacks (I hope I've got combo and team the right way around here) are when you have a set of up to four characters standing adjacent to each other with one attacking. When you select the attacking character you should see some percentages in the top left hand corner. These are the chances of each adjacent character joining in the attack. This is dependent on things such as having the same weapon or one character being the pupil of another. This percentage goes up the longer the characters stay in the same place too.

Team attacks combined with move cancelling make up a big part of the tactics as you only need one character to initate the attack. Move other characters up adjacent before executing the attack but don't have them do anything, do the team attack, then you can cancel the movement of the adjacent characters and move them again. This isn't making much sense. Maybe I should lay off the beer.

On the contrary, it makes sense to me - and I'm sober!!

Anyway, I get it now and it's bloody obvious really, now I've had it explained. Cheers.

[Rowan Morrison]

Don't go near the "item world" until you have a leveled up team.

Heh, seconded. I thought I was doing really well brawling around inside a Double Slap, and then all of a sudden from the fourth floor it became a lot more serious. I somehow finished that and the remaining floors just became a crazy dash for the level exit. Run, you morons! Run! I made it to level six through sheer cowardice and then got thoroughly murdered.

The promotion exams are a good way to a) build characters and B) check out their specials. They're also quite good at training you how to attack with a lone character, it's just a shame you'll hopefully never be doing that on the proper maps.

I think it's lush. It is a clunky mess with poor usability and it does seem to have been hobbled somewhat for UK release, but the gameplay conquers all. If you put the soul of Disgaea in the body of Vandal Hearts, you'd have an unstoppable monster that would probably hunt you down and batter you, and afterwards you would shake its hand.

Downside is that the manual is too brief and the game as a whole (the UK version, at any rate) feels so spartan and early-PS1 that £40 seems to be taking the piss at times. So a hearty thanks to Game's half-term madness and to Shaun Palmer, whose affordable GBA snowboarding antics helped me realise my dream.

I swear some of the tutorials sound as though they should be accompanied by a video of a battle (especially some of the Geo ones). Is this the case? Have they been stripped for the UK CD release?

[Guest nomenclature]

Quick tip about the promotion stuff: keep one character who can actually kill things (therefore having plenty of mana) at the minimum Assembley level for raising and lowering enemy difficulty. The level of people you meet inside the Assembley depends on the initiating characters promotion level. Lower level = easier enemies for when it comes to beating them down.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

I'm up to the level with the Pig Boss.

I still don't think this game stacks up to Vandal Hearts. There is zero variety in the level objectives and level interactivity is limited to the confusing Geo-Mods (which don't 'mod' any 'geo' bar changing a highlight colour which has some special affect).

Vandal Hearts had all sorts of stuff like objects you could push, switches to press, pressure pads etc. Also the levels all made sense as part of the story. So far Disgea levels are just levels with little significance other than the occasional presence of a Boss.

The combat system is ace. I love the combo and team attacks. It's very satisfying to get 3 or 4 characters attacking at once.

Another issue is balance, my main bloke is level 12 or 13 but none of the rest are beyond about 6. I think they are getting more separated as I play too. I keep trying to include the weaker characters in team attacks to help them level up.

The Item World is nice feature but the clearly random levels could have been done better. At one point I found myself totally stuck with a character sat on an 'invicibilty' geo (yellow bit) and no way to access the geo mod which would switch that off.

[Sidewaysbob]

arrrrh i noticed the unbalanced nature of the leveling up. It's to do with teachers and pupils. If you create a character, then when that new character get's some experiance or a kill the teaching character gets some of the experiance as well.

So lahla (sp) gets loads of experiance really early because he's got 4 or 5 pupils under him.

I guess the answer is to only have on epupil per charater and as soon as you have enough mana create a new charater.

But i've started to wounder what the point of all the extra charaters, you can create, is. You get to a point with 10 or 12 charaters where you can kill and heal at will so theres little incentive to create all these low level charaters who get killed with one hit in later levels. You end up having to replay earlier levels over and over again to build them up.

or am i missing something ?

[Rowan Morrison]

But i've started to wounder what the point of all the extra charaters, you can create, is. You get to a point with 10 or 12 charaters where you can kill and heal at will so theres little incentive to create all these low level charaters who get killed with one hit in later levels. You end up having to replay earlier levels over and over again to build them up.

or am i missing something ?

I haven't got to the point of trying it yet, but you can create experienced characters, can't you? Up to the 'genuis' level, though I don't know how much difference that makes. The first level characters you have to take five points off, the next level you get to put one point on, and after that... well, I need to play more. But maybe that feature helps you keep pace later on.

Also, isn't there an option to retrain an existing character in a new profession? Again, haven't tried it yet, but that might also have a bearing.

[Sidewaysbob]

i think you just give them new weapons ... i think but you get ne classes as your charaters level up, i don't know if a brawler can turn into a pugalist though.

You need at least 5 characters to go through a level, 2 distance attacks, 2 big hitters and a healer. or else you don't get and combos. so you need to be creating characters fairly early on. the prinnys are okay, but they don't have a very high atk power and they level up really slowly.

[Guest nomenclature]

Genius etc. relates to their stats over time. A genius will have higher stat gains per level than an incompetent. This probably doesn't really make much difference until your seriously into powerlevelling. As far as I've seen you can compensate for most weaknesses through good equipment.

Transmigrating is when you change classes, although I've never really done it. I believe it becomes useful for upgrading the stats of your character through powerlevelling and repeated transmigration to the same class at around the level 1000 mark. Pah, all I really need at the moment are my Ronin and my Ninja

You'll probably only really want to stick to a good core set of characters for a while. A nice variety of weapon types can help too (a Brawler with Triple Strike is really good for shifting enemies off invincibility squares).

[Guest nomenclature]

Oh yeah, if you have trouble keeping a Cleric levelled, you'll want to give them some kind of mage pupil. Have the Cleric stand in the square next to the pupil and they can cast any of their pupils magic. Do this a few times until they've got the skill at level one and off you go.

[weeksjh]

Mr. Gencys Exit.

A classic bit of mis-translation. It's supposed to be 'Emergency Exit'.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

I never even spotted this pupil business. Don't tell me I have to read the manual!

I've only created one character. I'm not sure why I want a load of characters.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

A classic bit of mis-translation. It's supposed to be 'Emergency Exit'.

Are sure that's not a deliberate joke?

[waddie]

You can capture monsters by throwing them into your home tile. Everyone still in the 'base' gets smacked with a certain amount of damage based on the monster's remaining SP, then they take it in turns to fight the monster one on one until it's 'subdued' at HP0. The more characters you have in the base, the less the initial SP explosion hurts and the more you have available to beat up the monster. Presumably it's easier to get some of the rarer monsters on your side this way than by killing enough of them to bring the Mana cost down.

The spares also help out in the Item World if you don't have an exit. Sending a couple of fodder characters out on each level can help keep your main team safe until the next 10 level mark.

Finally, your main team can learn their pupils' more useful skills. Making everyone a healer, for example, might be handy.

[Juria]

Another issue is balance, my main bloke is level 12 or 13 but none of the rest are beyond about 6. I think they are getting more separated as I play too. I keep trying to include the weaker characters in team attacks to help them level up.

On La Pucelle, Alouette is at level 21, Prier is at level 17 and everyone else is at about level 10, it pisses me off, but everyone is catching up slowly by being included in attacks..

[Jolly]

Well I went for it anyway, I'm having to swap PS2's with a mate whilst I play this.

So far, I'm finding it a bit tricky to get into. I'm playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance at the moment too and fell for that straight away. Still, I'm more than willing to give it more time.

[mrsambarlow]

Levelling up & the related balancing are such a pain, in pretty much any game. Admittedly, Nippon Ichi seem to make it worse by creating so many avenues for levelling up that it's hard for the player to see what the "racing line" might be. I imagine that the designers have no idea either. It's not as bad as say, the original FFT where you had to do *lots* of levelling up in order to beat some baddies (there's some _evil_ sticking points in that game). Disgaea seems far more relaxed, but there's so many ways to level up that (a) it's hard to know when to stop and (b) you can easily get characters out of whack.

Happens in the most well balanced of games though. My collegue at work is near the end of Fire Emblem, but his Eliwood and Hector are so weak he has to permanently have them carried around the maps. I'm not sure he'll make it through the final level where he will *have* to use them.

[Rowan Morrison]

I never even spotted this pupil business. Don't tell me I have to read the manual!

I've only created one character. I'm not sure why I want a load of characters.

I don't know how much the manual will help, but Gamefaqs is overflowing with details, even if they occasionally hurt to read.

Pupils are good because they have a higher chance of joining in team attacks - I have a few that have a 90% chance at the moment, and that's very useful. And as menitoned above, there's a kind of osmosis effect where a teacher can use and learn a pupil's skills.

I can't be arsed to keep my team that level, though, so I have three big hitters (inc. a rock hard Prinny ) and since they get most of the action, they tend to have the mana to create new characters. Still, early days and it's all good fun.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

Can anyone help with this?

I'm in the item world bit. I'm on a level where there is only one enemy left. The enemy is standing on the exit and that square also has invincibility (red).

The only GEOMOD left is yellow and that is also on a red invincibility square.

I can't figure out what to do. I can't attack anything - I can't go through the exit.

Am I stuck?

There are definitely no other GEOMOD thingys on the level.

[Rowan Morrison]

Am I stuck?

Gamefaqs has this to say about invincibility:

"Any unit affected is invulnerable to anything other than damage from Damage 20% and Ally Damage 20%, below, color change damage, and damage from holding a unit past the end of a turn."

Any of those any use? I don't suppose you can pick the enemy up?

[Guest nomenclature]

You also might be able to pick up the geo symbol and throw it onto the enemy (can't remember if you can do that though), or throw it onto a blank square. Or you can do a special attack on the enemy that will move them (Triple Strike for instance).

If you really want to destroy an invincibility symbol your best bet is to throw it onto another symbol.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

Gamefaqs has this to say about invincibility:

"Any unit affected is invulnerable to anything other than damage from Damage 20% and Ally Damage 20%, below, color change damage, and damage from holding a unit past the end of a turn."

Any of those any use? I don't suppose you can pick the enemy up?

I don't know what any of that means.

No I can't pick either the baddy or the geomod up.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

If you really want to destroy an invincibility symbol your best bet is to throw it onto another symbol.

I just want to complete the level. I'm totally stuck.

[Guest nomenclature]

If you can't pick it up then there must be a No Lifting symbol about. I can't off the top of my head think of why you can't...

Hmmm...

[waddie]

Can anyone help with this?

You can pick the geo mods up and throw them onto a blank square. Unless you've run into a bug, the yellow geo mod must be generating the invincibility, so pick it up and toss it onto a non-red square and you should be okay.

If you can't get to it to pick it up, you could pick up the monster and throw him onto an empty square.

If you can't do that either, or there are no empty squares to throw to, then yes, you're probably stuck.

EDIT: If you highlight the geo mod, it should tell you which effects it's generating. If it's generating both invincibility and no lifting, you're definitely stuck.

FURTHER EDIT: Actually, although you can't damage anything, some of the special attacks do a push back, which might still happen even if there's no damage. There's the Brawler/Pugilist Triple Strike and Etna has something similar. You could use that to thwack the monster backwards and leg it down the exit.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

Doh. I COULD Lift it. I must have tried with a spazzy penguin with no arms.

[SteveH]

I have to ask - do the levels improve graphically? I think it's all a little bland at the moment.

I miss levels like the waterfall ones in Final Fantasy Tactics. It seems a shame that a PSone game should look so much better than this.

It's kind of like JP was saying. A bunch of levels thrown together with no thought as to how they fit into the story - and so they thought they didn'd need to look very nice either.

[Guest nomenclature]

Nope, it pretty much always looks like a PS 1.5 game. Plot, graphics and sound seem to be kind of beside the point in Disgaea.

Anyway, I personally never really expected for Disgaea to appeal to as many people as it seems to. The proper backlash has to start sometime...get with the plan people!

[Graham S]

Without wanting to spoil the thread with a scores debate, IIRC this was an Edge 9 and I try to pick those up even if the genre doesn't particularly appeal, as they are usually pretty special. Is Disagea so good everyone should have a crack at it?