Disgaea 2 - Cursed Memories
Koei
PS2


The role-playing game is an odd concept, one that most people steer well clear of since it usually entails tiresome strategic elements and the boring shuffling of characters, items and weapons. The PS2 has a huge library of RPG's that has accumulated over the console's life and for any new RPG title to stand out it really needs to incorporate new ideas or concepts of gameplay. Either that or copious amounts of incredibly bizarre Japanese humour which 'Disgaea 2 -Cursed Memories' possesses by the shitload.

'Disgaea 2' uses the obligatory isometric display of the play world, divided into a series of tiles much like a chessboard. Essentially, the whole concept is really like chess on speed, with the player having a nominated turn in which they can utilise a strategy that involves moving a series of characters within their party around the play area and assign them attack tasks or other tasks that assist in winning any singular battle (moving objects, stealing items, casting spells). A series of tutorials is more than enough to get the RPG virgin up to speed and you have the ability to save your game quite regularly should things go pear shaped. The battle mechanics themselves are quite intuitive and you will realise that 'Disgaea 2' differs from other RPGs in that you can combine the qualities of your characters with more ease and do spectacular combo attacks, throw your other characters around the playfield and make intelligent use of other elements in the field of play.

You will power up all your characters (and their associated items and weapons), generate new characters with accumulated 'Mana' and generally deal with other housekeeping like matters in between the battles throughout the game, with the incentive of increasing the maximum damage impact your party can achieve from one fight to the next.

I will not bore you here with details of the plot, as the game is essentially battle based, with 2D cinematic cutaways progressing proceedings in between biffo. Graphically and sonically there is really nothing to speak of other than that cosmetically the game is perfectly functional, with a simple yet effective menu system. As with most well known RPG franchises, the humour and general dialogue between characters is nothing short of something really, really insane, then wrapped up in a layer of total and utter absurdity. It is this charming yet sometimes alarming Japanese sense of humour that keeps things interesting and if you are a true RPG fan then 'Disgaea 2 - Cursed Memories' will provide a lot of enjoyment and even for the uninitiated it is a novel and appropriate introduction to the genre.

Tim Koch