Having shelved Sacred for a while, I still had a bit of an RPG itch, so I finally got back to starting Disgaea in earnest. I bought it over a year ago, but set it aside almost right away since its complexity seemed to demand more dedication than I could spare at the time.

And complicated it is. Other SRPGs like FFTA or Band of Bugs are downright simple compared to Disgaea, which has all sorts of things like ‘item worlds’, which are essentially dungeons within your own inventory items that you can beat in order to level up the item. Or capture specialists of different types and strengths within the item to improve its stats. Or the Dark Assembly, where you can try to pass resolutions that affect the game, often through bribery or brute force. Or the combat mechanic that has you picking up other party members or enemies and throwing them around the map, for various reasons. Or the ‘geo panels’ and how they alter the battle rules in certain areas of the map and how you can alter them by destroying them or throwing them around. Or how you can ‘transmigrate’ characters to increase their power at the cost of resetting their level. Or…ow, my head hurts.

I also started it since Disgaea 3 is coming out for the PS3 this year, and I figure I should have at least sampled the first two games before starting that one. You can spend a lot of time in Disgaea, grinding your characters up to level 9999, beating all of the ultra-advanced maps, and so on, but I’ll probably only bother with a basic run-through before moving on.

So far I’ve made it through the first world, where Laharl rechristened another demon competing for the throne as “Mid-Boss” (the game has a rather quirky, self-aware sense of humour) and I got him up to level 8. I’ve created one each of each possible combination of gender and classes, since unlocking better classes depends on certain specific combinations (e.g., getting a female warrior and female brawler up to level 10).

The main problem is keeping them all levelled up, since most of your xp comes from killing monsters. If Laharl is there, then he gets a lot of the xp since he’s so strong, so really you have to redo early battles over again a few times without him. Support classes like clerics are also tougher to level, since they don’t directly engage in combat well, but you can try to get them some xp by having them participate in combos (though it’s still a pain).

And the story isn’t anything special so far — demon prince slumbers a bit too long, wakes up to a war in the underworld for control of the throne, starts kicking butts… The characters are full of, well, character though, like Flonne, the dim-but-friendly angel who doesn’t make a particularly good assassin.