Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2) Review

Posted by Shawn Struck on 09.27.2006

Does this sequel to a sleeper hit keep going strong or suffer from the dreaded "sequel slump?" Find out inside.

When Disgaea was released 3 years ago, it was a tactical strategy game out of left field, with a unique magic system, engaging story, sharp translation, and zany, over-the-top humor. It became a breakout sleeper hit, but does it stack up to its predecessor?

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories centers on Adell, the last human on the world of Veldime, whose other inhabitants have been turned into demons. For some reason, Adell has escaped this curse from Overlord Zenon. This curse has slowly been stripping the Veldime inhabitants of their memories and consciences, so to save his family and friends, Adell decides to defeat Zenon and force him to remove the spell. However, a spell cast by Adell's mother to summon the Overlord goes horribly wrong, and instead actually summons Zenon's daughter, Rozalin, ritually binding her to Adell. Along the way, you'll wind up acquiring a number of additional party members such as: a flying toad that was once Rozalin's best friend and butler, and Adell's younger siblings. You'll even wind up meeting other characters from the previous Disgaea game.

Graphics
Disgaea 2 looks sharper and crisper than the first game, but in some ways, that's not really saying much, considering that the game always had a bit of a retro feel in its visuals for the character models. Some of the animations for the newer attacks are dazzling, and help contribute to the often over the top nature of the battles that Nippon Ichi games are known for. While the 2-D appearance of the game still meshes wonderfully with the type of strategy that the game presents, the camera still falls short when you need to get a sense of who’s attacking you behind some objects, or what levels you may need to navigate for an attack, and way too often you'll have to watch the enemy fire off an attack with the background blocking the view of the intended target.

Gameplay
Disgaea 2 marks the return of a number of systems that veterans of the series will easily recognize. The Hub System returns: Adell will always return to Veldime, and the merchants in the game will always increase their inventory based upon the customer rating that you've achieved from buying from them for a long time.

The Dark Assembly makes a return as well, although there are a number of tweaks that have been made in the final version. For example, the proposals you can try to get passed on the floor are now affected by the amount of Mana that you have at any point in time. Some of these proposals include boosting the number of counter attacks that a character has per round, the level of items that can be purchased in shops, and even how tough opponents will be in the next round. The Dark Assembly also lets you fill out the ranks of your squad, making warriors, ranged fighters or support characters, amongst others. You can even create monsters that you have defeated, allowing you to field parties of many different abilities and skill levels.

One new wrinkle to gameplay is known as the Dark Court, which tracks everything that you happen to do in the game. Every now and then at the Post Office, a party member may receive a summons to appear before the court for various reasons, such as defeating enemies too quickly or having too high a level. You can choose to accept or refuse a summons at any point, although if you actually want to appear before the court, you'll need to enter the subpoena's item world and battle your way down to the specific level that the court resides on. Now, in the demon world, being guilty of a felony is GOOD- you get a reward, as well as a stamp over your character profile with your felony count. If you're declared innocent, however, you can be punished with a variety of effects, including being confined in the body of a prinnie (a demonic looking penguin) for a period of time.

A frustrating new wrinkle in Disgaea 2 are the roving bands of Item Pirates that land on a level that you happen to be fighting on. Unfortunately, you really won't have a chance to defeat them at all -- they're designed to be able to kill any member of your party with one strike of their weapon during an attack. The only way to escape is to run for a stage exit and hope that you can get there before your entire party is eliminated. True, they are Ninja Pirates, but this is easily one of the cheapest and frustrating bits of gameplay I encountered.

Sound
Fortunately, the sound is still spot on thanks to the excellently delivered (and hilariously written) voice acting that delivers lots of humorous lines. You will also find a number of recycled music bits from other locations, though, which can detract from your soundtrack enjoyment.

Lasting Appeal
Disgaea 2 has an incredible level of depth and strategy with at least 8 endings, hundreds of characters to create or discover, a new court system and an additional Shadow World on top of the Item World. Yeah, clear off your calendar, 'cause if you want to beat it ALL, you'll be playing for a LONG time.

Fun Factor
This game doesn't totally reinvent the wheel, but it doesn't really need to-- it keeps a lot that's fun about Disgaea like the over the top spells, the wacky humor, and the engaging presentation. It's pretty much a checklist of any strategy game fan's dreams. Adding to the fun factor are all the hidden sidequests and unlockables, which leads us to...

The 411
In some ways, Disgaea 2 is almost exactly like the first title in the series-- it suffers at times from a lack of explanation of various terms or features. Many of the new additions are tweaks to the gameplay of the original title; the Dark Court and subpoena routines are really extensions of the item world, for example, and the game still hasn't fixed the occasionally annoying camera issues. That said, Disgaea 2 is an incredibly fun game with lots of replay vale, tons of depth, an oddball sense of humor and excellent voice acting, and isn't to be missed by strategy RPG fans.

Graphics	8.0	The 2-D character art is crisp and clear and the environments are richly detail. But, ooo, that clunky camera...
Gameplay	8.0	The Dark Court, new monsters, and other tweaks to the game system are quite fun, but it can feel like a bit of a retread. And, oooo, those pirates...
Sound	8.5	The voice acting is excellent, with snappy dialogue done well. But, oooo, those all-too-familiar music bits...
Lasting Appeal	9.0	Multiple endings, item worlds, shadow worlds, hidden characters and stages and replayable levels mean LOTS of replay value.
Fun Factor	8.0	Clunky camera and cheap pirates aside, any strategy RPG fan will have a lot of fun.
Overall	8.5   [ Very Good ]