Legendary RPG series: Disgaea

Nippon CHI software never belonged to the world-famous players. Unlike Nintendo, Square Enix or Naughty Dog, the Japanese live more from a faithful fan base, which they can hold above all thanks to the extraordinary Disease series. The career of the company began like so many others: with shallow puzzle games and cheesy JPGs. For example, the player in Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (1998) took control of an innocent 16-year-old girl who spoke to dolls while in La Lucille: Tactics (2002) under the guise of the church hunt for demons.

Disease: Hour of Darkness seemed exactly a year later, more precisely in January 2003. It came first exclusively for the PlayStation 2 and turned La Lucille literally on his head. Because this time, the demons of Netherworld managed and had to fight back the throne of his father together with protagonist Lahore, who died during his two-year-old (!) Sleep. Now you should not introduce yourself through and through won a bad guest ant who caused fearsome occurrence for fear and terror. Basically, the characters in Disease were just as cute and cute as those in La Lucille. They had only some other moral ideas, for example, the murder did not look anyway as something fundamental wrong. That already showed the satirical introduction, in which Lahore looked into the eyes of the servant of Etna after his wake-up and layers around them all sorts of heavy weapons such as a saber or a heavy machine gun. Which she just wanted to wake him... Just the first scene in the Ur-Disgaea made it clear that the residents of Netherworld have their very own ideas of morality and decency. Source: Nippon CHI Software / Mortgages / Media Agency Plasma

Square, tactical, smart

Pure playfully, Nippon CHI software laid a lot of value from the beginning to a sophisticated tactical combat system, which is why Disease was more related to Fire Emblem (from 1990) or Shining Force (from 1992) instead of role-games such as Dragon Quest (1986). Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics (1997), the makers of Disease put on an isometric perspective, whose underground was completely modeled in 3D and were but glued on the figures in the form of 2D bitmaps. One distributed his stretching at the beginning of each struggle on the battlefield, which in turn was divided into small boxes. Subsequently, the player and his opponent were alternately to the train to move their respective teams and start an attack on the other.

Genre connoisseurs presented here at the latest some interesting differences in ordinary and already established tactical role-playing games: An attack command was not executed immediately, but only after triggering another command or then, if one ended his round prematurely. The advantage: So it was possible to perform multiple attacks immediately sequentially and Ideally prevent the counter from the opponent. The disadvantage: Died an opposing rogue prematurely, then all other attacks on him mapped in nothing. Also, stupid. So your Disease plays today Although Disease is through and through a console child, PC users enjoy an advantage: thanks to Steam, you can digit a large part of the main parts digitally — except the offshoot six, three and d2. For the two latter needs you either need an old PlayStation 3 with original game or you subscribed to Sony's streaming service PlayStation Now. On the PlayStation 4 you can buy the first, the fourth and fifth part, while switch users should also be able to access the sixth as in the main text. With the spin-offs, switch-fans have the nose in the front: the pinny titles are digitally individually or together on a cartridge, on request even in a pretty collector box. At the beginning of September 2021, a small collection with Phantom Brave and Soul Nomad & The World Eaters will also be published. Both games can be purchased individually on Steam, where Phantom Brave has been available there for five years. Last remark: The later implementations of Disease 1, 2 and 4 are all based on the extended versions for PlayStation Portable or Vita.

Throw game

Also interesting: the lift feature, with which one took a colleague and threw in any direction — for example, to make it targeted to a far away enemy. One could even stack several stretches or pack an opponent to throw it on his base and take over after another successful fight. Even more useful were the luminous stones — especially if you sent them sent to one of the colorful floor fields. Then all fields of the same color were under the influence of the stone, for example, to reduce the defense of all units on them. Already in the first Disease, several figures were stacked on top of each other, whereupon they could throw them together from a corner to the next. Source: Nippon CHI Software / Mortgages / Media Agency Plasma More: For example, destroyed a blue stone on a red field, then all red areas were colored blue and all local figures — no matter, friend or enemy! — Collected a hit. In addition, one could destroy further stones in this way and trigger a chain reaction with some skill, which the army of the opponent influence great damage. Even with such a more trivial as the objects, Nippon CHI Software had something unusual: both in weapons, armor and consumption objects such as Heilkewummi (!) Stuck a randomly-generated mini-dungeon. Who handed over this, improved the efficiency of the subject.

In order to meet the strategic claim of the game, one was allowed to create its own fighters to the central story characters. For this one used the MANA of an existing figure that she had earned in her battles. New units were automatically bound to their masters through whose MANA they were born. Say: rose one of the self-created figures a level on, then the master got a bonus.

From Sleeper Hit to the long-standing series

Although Disease from the US website IGN the price for the best game nobody has played, the sales figures were apparently satisfactory. Otherwise, Nippon CHI software would hardly have translated the already mentioned La Lucille subsequently and also published in the USA and Europe. Furthermore, the successor Disease 2: Cursed Memories already appeared in 2006 and this time only with a few months delay both in America and Europe. The developer hardly put on experiments, instead refurbished the complex rules of the predecessor and improved the graphics engine.

Among the greatest innovations included the directions that were obtained by committing a crime. This was mindfully a bit positive: even if you diligently killed his own troop members, there was a reward objects, money or anything MANA. At the end of the same year, Japanese role players with a transposition of the first for Sony's Handheld PlayStation Portable was taken to which the rest of the world had to wait a little longer. Already the new subtitle Afternoon of Darkness indicated that the fans were allowed to look forward to significant changes. First, there was the so-called ETNA mode in which Lahore was accidentally killed by the revenue attempts of his servant and told an alternative history in the form of four new chapters. The developer also thought of a small multiplayer part, in which one could spend a battle against a friend — albeit only in ad hoc mode and not via the Internet. Disease 2 also came to fame in 2009, was converted under the subtitle Dark Hero Days for the PSP and extended to similar bonus features.

On the next page, it goes with the games from 2005 — including jump to the 3D graphics for your heroes, uh rogue!

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