I am the Overlord! Ahhhh-hahaha!!

 So out of all the game genres around one of my favourites has to be Role Playing Games (RPGs). There's something awesome and satisfaction of gaining levels, growing in power, and gaining sweet, sweet, loot. Specially the sweet, sweet loot!

 But out of all the RPGs, one of the funnest and randomest games I have played has to be the Disgaea Series. It started out on the Playstation 2, and I remember getting the game. It seemed a very different game to what I had ever played before. The graphic style is anime cartoonish world, lots of big, bold colours, but the best difference was  it being a tactical RPG. A Tactical RPG means that battles take place on a chessboard like grids (think of D&D game mats). Our hero wasn't a good guy either, he is/was a Demon Prince, and we was in a strange demonic world. There was humor injected straight into the start of the game (a sure fire win to keep me interested.) There was also plenty of endings to find, and lots of character creation going on (including Ninjas!) Plus the level cap! Oh my god! The level cap! Most of the time you'll get to level 100 or less, and then that was it....no more leveling. However Disgaea said "knock yourself out, and  keep on leveling till your level 9999." Yup, you power level.....it's over 9000!

But that wasn't all, you could then reincarnate yourself back to level 1...but with all your stats and skills pretty much there, and off you go to level to 9999 again, and be even stronger! So you have very powerful characters...but that not good enough for you....okay....lets look at that sword you have, we'll give it a level as well. Since it has a level you can now level it up sword, and add whatever stats you want to it, to make it even stronger and uber powerful. Yes, this game is that crazy! Even the basic sword at level 100 would be stronger than a level 1 expensive "strong" sword,  if you leveled it up right.

The lore of this game is very interesting too, so basically Disgaea means "Not Earth", the game says that there's hundreds and thousands of worlds are out there. Some are ruled by humans (who usually don't know that other world exist), some are demon ruled called Netherworlds, and some run by Angels.

 What was even more fantastic was that "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness" was pretty much a complete game, no loose ends to force a second game with, but that was the thing! As much as I loved Disgaea: HoD, I wanted more! I wanted a new story, new characters, new items, and the most marvelous thing happened! They said yes!

 Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories however was a bit of a weird game for me. It was very different to the first one, you were a good guy now, and it was set in a human world that had been taken over by an evil overlord, and the presence of the overlord had turned all humans into demons, except for the main character. It took me a long while to finish the game, it didn't catch my heart as much as the first one did. I hoped they would make a new one, and make a mends for this disgrace. (I have completed this game, and looking back after completing it, I guess it isn't as bad as I first thought. However it's still the worst one in my opinion.)

 Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice was the correct remedy. Back to the Demon world (well, another demon world), back to being the prince of this netherworld, back to being evil! And!, back to school...wait..what? Yup, Disgaea 3 took place in a netherworld, which was a Demon Training School. With the Overlord as Head Teacher, and high demons as teachers. While the plot was a bit....strange (again, their award winning humor is spot on.), however it was the hidden story, and the values it tries to install which made this a very marvelous game, and even I found myself very moved by certain events.

 Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten is sadly one I've still yet to completed. The maps were (or I thought) was really hard. Even with a lot of power-leveling, and making some really good equipment, I found my characters dying an awful lot. I don't think I've gotten past the 4th chapter (even in Crused Memories I got past Chapter 6 before restarting it.). I really don't see myself as getting it completed any time soon. However, there are more characters I like in this one, which I struggled to find in Cursed Memories. So that's something, I probably will attempt this again, but it'll be after I've completed a ton of other games.

 And then....something magical happened. "Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness" was announced, I thought it was gonna be a Japanese only game, but I was wrong. The famous three main character from the first Disgaea game was back (who were my favourite characters in the whole series), and they were making a completely new story for them (okay, it's kinda the same story from the first one, but still), lots of changes were going to be made to everything. I got it last friday, and it's been a glorious game so far. They kinda explain some of the story from the first game so you can hop into it (but of course I recommend getting the first game! It's a classic). They've revamped a lot of menu's to make it less cluttered, and they've redone all the character creation options (a big relief again, so much easier, and less confusing!) and it seems that the maps are less prone to killing you out right. (I've not powerleveled at all!) So far, it's looking to be just as great as the first, and third games.

If you like the top down tactical RPG's, with tons of humor, anime graphics, engaging story lines, memorable characters, penguins that explode, massive stats (and tons of damage), over 90 bazillion hours of possible playtime (seriously so much to do!), tons of hidden stuff to find, and possibly the most epic loot ever looted! Then this is the game for you.

So, until next time, Dood!