|
dkirschner's Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2)
|
| [June 16, 2015 08:26:35 PM]
|
Woohoo! I had to grind about 10 levels, but I beat it in the end. Luckily, I just found a good grinding spot in the first level of the Cave of Ordeals. You can move two +50%XP geopanels, so I was doing that and stacking the level 60 enemies, so killing level 120 enemies for double XP. Each kill was getting me 3-4 levels. I didn't attempt the second level of the Cave, but I'm pretty sure I could have handled it. I actually steamrolled the level I was stuck on yesterday before I grinded today. I think I was exasperated with the level gap yesterday and gave up after one try.
The final boss was tough. It's a giant level 90 with 20,000 HP and elemental resistance. He loses his elemental resistance once you get him to 10,000 HP. The map is basically four squares of a larger square connected by bridges. You have to spread your characters out and attack him from all sides, keeping healers, mages, and anyone weak far, far back. He uses massive AoE spells every turn and will easily get most of your characters if they are within like 5x7 of each other. Scary. Actually, when I beat him, it was really close! He managed to kill both my healers, so I had to be very careful and lure him to attacking characters who could withstand an AoE barrage or two. It took me two more turns after my healers were dead, and I managed well because he didn't kill anyone else! Though, one more turn and half my army would have dropped dead. Two more turns and I probably would have wiped.
The end of Disgaea 2 was fantastic, very sweet. There is a neat twist that makes sense if you remember the beginning of the game (or if you start a new game + and watch the intro again). Then it is revealed that Axel, the Dark Hero, staged the entire plot of Disgaea 2 for promotional material...Not sure if that's true or not. I think he made it up!
I do think the end happened too quickly though. There is just one relatively quick final boss battle and that's it. There's no wrapping up Fubuki's storyline, no scene about the village turning back to humans. I figured at least there would be a scene with Adell going back home and seeing his parents, but there is nothing! Just cut scene after the boss battle and some dialogue between Adell and Rozalin, then roll credits. Something like at the end of New Vegas would have been nice, saying what happened to all the main characters.
Anyway, I started a new game + to see what that was like, and you keep all your levels, equipment, everything pretty much...You can also unlock the "ultimate fighter", who has 110% to all stats (whoa). And you can petition the Senate to see the "real" ending, which I did. It's that one character from Disgaea 1, Mid-boss (forget his actual name), and he taunts you, you call him Mid-boss, he gets mad, you beat him, then he shows you the ending, which is just the credits with his face behind them and a different Japanese song playing. Silly.
Great game. I've got Disgaea 4 on my wishlist. I'll get that...at some point, when I need a strategy RPG fix.
add a comment 
|
| [June 15, 2015 11:03:47 PM]
|
So close! I think I have just a little bit of grinding to do as I approach the last levels. My highest is 58 and the enemies have pulled ahead again to 70. I'm on like stage 5 of episode 13. Today, I beat this one stage (stage 2 I think) that I was stuck on. Almost the whole map is enemy boost x3 and no lifting. I figured out that I have to lure enemies to the tiny area that isn't covered by those geopanels. Otherwise, the enemies are too strong and end up killing all my characters.
Once I died on stage 5, I unlocked all the stuff that was left in the Senate. First, I spent 200 mana to unlock a fight against the Prism Rangers. They were only level 50 and very easy. Adell is the Black Ranger now, according to them. I don't know if that actually does anything. Actually, I need to check and see if I can create prism rangers or something! Because as far as I know, nothing special happened for beating them. Next, I unlocked a "fight against another Overlord," which was Laharl and Flonne. They were level 500-600, so I had fun getting squashed. Last, I unlocked the Cave of Ordeals, which I guess is a long dungeon. I beat ordeal 1 (enemies were level 60-70), but ordeal 2 isn't happening now (enemies are level 80). Oh, and then Adell became a Senator. I can vote on things and bribe other Senators, haha. Too bad I already got most everything I want in the Senate! I should have become a Senator first.
Many levels ago, I could take enemies much, much stronger than me, but now the enemy types are harder, so I can't do it as well! Mostly it's the dragon types that are difficult. Some are resistant to physical attacks, or to fire, or to (my most feared) non-elemental special attacks.
Maybe sometime this week I can finish off Disgaea. Actually I think that's my last PS2 game to play, except for replaying Silent Hill 2 and 3 with A.
add a comment
|
| [May 31, 2015 11:35:07 AM]
|
I am on the final episode, #13~! Yesterday, I started on episode 12. The first stage has two +50%XP geopanels, so I used that stage to level all my main characters up to between 40-50. Enemies were in the low 50s. Now, by the beginning of episode 13, enemies are in the high 50s, with usually a couple per stage at 60, and in the last stage, the two minibosses were level 70. Plus, one was immune to physical attacks, yikes! He relentlessly attacked my mage and killed him, and the only other magic attacker I had out was my rune knight. So I kept casting giga fire on the miniboss, who would nearly kill the rune knight every attack he got, and keeping my main healer behind him to heal him to full every turn. The miniboss eventually one-shotted my healer, but by that point I had switched out a physical attack character for my druid, who helped the rune knight to finish off the miniboss. It was pretty intense.
My main characters are currently all about level 45-55. I may want to go back to the beginning of episode 12 and grab a few more easy levels because I'm not sure how difficult the beginning of episode 13 will be. I'll try it and see, because 12 was easy after leveling.
But definitely before I start the final episode, I will go to the Senate and boost some characters' movement. The Senate has only about a 35% approval rating to give a character +1 movement, so I usually have to bribe them with almost a whole inventory's worth of items. I managed to successfully win them over to boost a few characters a while back, and the +1 movement is so incredibly useful that I want to get it on everyone. That reduces the need to equip shoes, and I can put something more defensive in their place...or keep the shoes and have even more movement. I haven't increased anyone's counterattack, mostly because enemies rarely counter me more than once anyway. The other cool Senate options that have popped up are to open the Cave of Ordeals (some extra dungeon?), a Prism Rangers storyline (which I really want to see), to battle an Overlord (is it Laharl?!), and to become a Senator (which surprisingly has about a 45% approval rating, and I assume lets you vote yes on bills). I will probably try to unlock all those things to see what they do. I sort of doubt I'll go through the Cave of Ordeals, because if I know Disgaea, it is like a 100-stage dungeon for powerleveling and getting ultimate weapons or something.
Anyway, I'm knocking on Zenon's castle door and just defeated his lieutenants (who have a secret for Adell). Onward to defeat (fake?) Zenon!
add a comment
|
| [May 8, 2015 08:36:59 PM]
|
I learned a couple things in the last couple days. Many tips are offered by the NPCs in Adell's home. It is wise to talk to NPCs in Disgaea!
1. If you throw enemies at one another, they merge and their levels stack. The last map I was on had "fusion" geo-panels that did this automatically when two enemies were nearby. This is really useful for leveling up. On the last map, I killed a level 120 enemy and the character who got the killing blow leveled up from like 30 to 37. Whoa.
2. If you throw prinnies, they explode. I remember this from the previous game, but had forgotten. Super useful on this chapter with a lot of prinny fights!
3. You cannot buy or acquire Mr. Gency Exits except a couple freebies early in the game and then from reaching every 10th level in the item world. I thought I would go in the item world and level up some, but I don't like it. 10 levels without saving? No thanks.
4. You boost the bonus gauge fast by queuing up many attacks against a single target. I had never realized this! Some NPC probably mentioned it early on and I forgot. Map bonuses are a great way to replace some cheap gear and to give weaker characters a little XP boost. If the map bonus has like +1000 XP, that can be a good couple levels for a weak character who just needs to be in play when you beat the map to get the bonus.
5. If you save up mana, lots of crazy options open up in the Senate. I've been hoarding it for two reasons: (1) to see what crazy options open up; (2) because it is seeming extremely pointless to keep spending mana on making every new character type available to me. I must have over 20 characters, but only 8 can be in the field at once. It is harder and harder to maintain them all at useful levels. I've more or less abandoned a few and will just bring them in for XP map bonus or if they can get some easy XP for a combo kill.
But some of the new Senate options include permanent buffs to your characters! I think it was 300 mana gets you +1 counterattack and 500 mana gets you +1 movement, which is huge. 700 mana opens up some special dungeon. There were a couple others too.
6. I learned what cell phones do, which will be useful for #5 above. If you use it, it calls whatever group or person is in its description. One I used called Hoggmeister, who stole some of my money, which was lame. The others have called up political parties in the Senate. You lie and tell them that the next bill will be about whatever they think is really important, and that party automatically will lean yes on the next bill you propose. I called a couple Senate parties and I notice that the % to get some of the bills approved has increased by about 20%. Pretty sweet!
I think that's about it. There was another silly summoning mishap. Adell & Co. didn't get the most powerful demon in the world. Can you guess who they got? Hint: After you summon this character, you have to hunt down rogue prinnies and defeat their big brother (whom I am currently tracking).
add a comment
|
| [May 5, 2015 09:15:35 PM]
|
I wish I had posted something about Disgaea 2 when I was playing it a few months ago. I had a long break and just sunk a lot of hours into it today because (gasp!) I had some free time. I'm about 25 hours deep total, on Episode 9. No idea how many episodes there are, but I feel like I might be 2/3 or so through the story.
I have *extremely* bizarre/fond memories of the first Disgaea. I was playing it while living in Athens after graduating from undergrad. I was working third shift at Target stocking health and beauty supplies. The stockroom was mine and I'd bring my ipod speakers in there and blast metal music all night long. I'd leave work usually around 6am, use a 2-for-1 waffle coupon at Waffle House, try my best to eat both waffles (I never managed), come home, sleep til the afternoon, get up and play Disaea until work. On my days off, I played Disgaea all night. I was really into the game. One of my former roommates from back then reminded me about it the other day because he's been talking up the last XCOM reboot and said "You used to play strategy games all the time. Remember Disgaea? You disappeared for like a month!" Ha. While the game is still awesome this time around, I'm not getting as deep into it.
I bet that last time, I had double the play time by Episode 9. This time, I've just been going through the story. I might have gone in the item world two or three times to poke around or level up a little bit, but I seem to be doing just fine. The game has a pretty natural leveling boost. For example, I've been getting far behind enemies in level. The last level I played, my characters were about 10 levels below the enemy on average (my 20 to their 30), which seems like a massive difference. But I still managed to win. When I get a good leveling match in, my characters boost a lot. Now I have several at 25, and the average is probably 22/23. I have this perceived need to level up between story missions, but it doesn't seem necessary...yet.
This series is so quirky. I love the characters. I do miss Laharl from the first game, but this game's protagonist is good too. Etna is back, her prinnies are back, and tonight I fought the Prism Rangers. They were in the last game too and are a spoof of the Power Rangers, except there are only 5 of them (not enough to complete the visible spectrum, as the joke goes, because they don't have enough friends). Other characters in this game include Axel, the Dark Hero, who is a washed up reality TV personality/musician. He and his film crew are out trying to shoot footage of him being a Dark Hero (winning fights), but something always goes wrong. Recently, he sort of joined my party, then ditched me in a tight spot. There is Overlord Zenon's daughter, who is the second protagonist, and her little toad butler friend, who reminds me of Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, French accent and all.
The premise of this game is that the Adell's (the protagonist) village has all been turned into demons, except him for some reason. They tried to summon Overlord Zenon for some reason, got cursed, and in trying to fix it, summoned his daughter instead. She is trying to get to him because she's never met him and Adell wants to get rid of the demon curse on his village and family. His family, including two siblings who join the party, is cute. Sooo, you go off on a wacky adventure. Tonight I did the Coliseum episodes, fought my way through the arena battles, confronted (fake?) Zenon, and fought my way out of the Coliseum back to my village.
The party decides the Zenon was a fake because Etna defeated him and the curse is still on the village. So I guess they're going to go find Etna and try to summon Zenon again. Next time!
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
dkirschner's Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2)
|
|
Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 28 January, 2015
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 16 June, 2015 |
|
