One game mechanic I love is when designers reward the player for breaking the rules and the best genre that emphasizes this are strategy role playing games (SRPGS). My favorite company for SRPGS is NipponIchi (or NIS America in the US). If there is a system seller that is going to force me to buy a PS3 , it’s not going to be Metal Gear Solid 4 but Disgaea 3.
Disgaea is a very important game for SRPG fans, it’s the first game that put NipponIchi on the map in the US. Which also gave them the reason to open the US branch and bring more games over to the US. Second, it was the first game to have a guide created by DoubleJumpBooks, which make my favorite guides and put them on the map as well.
Before Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics was considered the best SRPG on the market, but it wasn’t until I played Disgaea that I fell in love with the genre, and with Nis’s game play style. What makes Disgaea work for a lot of fans is just how far you can delve into the game play systems. Yes Disgaea is a SRPG meaning alot of your time is spent in turn based battles between another group of enemies. Yet there are a lot of other systems in place which not only add complexity to the game, but really breaks it open for those willing to go the extra mile.
First we have the dark assembly, which are a group of demons which run the netherworld of the game. Any character in your army can go in front of them to pass a bill, from making the game easier or harder to unlocking bonus levels. Depending on the type of bill and the rank of the character, will determine the difficulty of getting it passed. Items can be used to bribe members who are against it or you can just try to beat up all the naysayers. Speaking about characters, you can transmigrate your character into either a higher version of their class or into a new class. They will keep the skills from the original class when they move and will get bonus stat points to be added in. Transmigrating them to a higher version may start them back at level 1, but the stat points and higher class really makes them as strong as someone a few levels above them. At one point I had characters at level 50 who were as strong as level 100 characters.
But what really starts your jump from casually playing to advanced is the item world. Every item in the game from recovery items to that bad ass sword has a randomized dungeon inside of it. The better the item, the tougher the enemies are going to be inside, and once you start your descent you can only leave either via an item or at the end of every tenth floor. The rewards for going into items are great, this is an excellent place to level your characters up and find rare items as rewards. Characters called specialist can be rescued and transferred to other items and give that item a benefit. For every floor completed the base stats of the item in question will be increased, turning that bad ass sword into an uber bad ass sword. Not only saving you money on buying new equipment but can greatly extend the life of that item.
The brilliance of this, is that the preceding systems are just optional for starting out to regular players, and the game can be beaten without using them (the item world is used for a few map requirements but that’s it.)For fans of Disgaea you know that I’m skipping the geo panel system, the reason is that while important to the game it is not really the subject of this entry. For players who want to get more out of Disagea and attempt some of the post game craziness (where enemies with levels in the thousands are) you’ll need to rely on the item world, and dark assembly to stand a chance.
Back to the subject of this entry, cheating in most games is when the player goes against the wishes of the designer and renders alot of the game experiences moot. In games like Disgaea however, the designers encouraged you to break the game by created over powered characters using the systems above and using that as the distinction between playing the game to see the end, and mastering the game. The earlier you use these systems the easier the game will be, further proof of the designers rewarding you for learning the game. For those who have read Double Jump Books guides for the various Nis SRPGs they each feature a section on how to create a character or item so powerful that it destroys any sense of difficulty once you’ve attained them. Doing so requires a huge amount of dedication and mastery of all the game systems, and a perfect challenge/graduation for the expert players.
Games like Disgaea are my favorite as they can be played at different levels of skill, yet still be engaging and fun regardless of your skill level. As an extra bonus Disgaea features undead penguins that explode when you throw them, that’s just awesome dood.
Josh
