Plundering The Countryside

Ha, you're still not rid of me yet!

I've been making strides in Disgaea:  Hour of Darkness.  It's still pretty fun so far.  The most fun part so far is still very much the Item World.  I still get a kick out what really comes across as what happens when you stick Diablo-style random loot dungeon crawling into a grid-based SRPG.  What really pulls it over the top is that you take the goodies you earn in the item world and jump into their item world and get even more loot and jump into their item worlds.  Screw Candy Crush, this is the proper way to waste time!  It gets even better since you also level up the stats of the item you're working through, and hunt down "specialists" that act much like, say, Diablo III's gems.

All of this is a wonderful sideshow to some of the best SRPG goodness I've ever been exposed to.  The mechanics are pretty solid.  I'm honestly none-too-pleased with not getting an in-battle revival mechanic, but that is very much small potatoes to just being able to mass heal and rez your dudes after battle.  I'm something of a softie when it comes to my mooks, so throwing out permadeath is always a plus for me.  I also love how Disgaea is happy to throw big swarms of baddies at me.  Twenty-plus enemy groups?  The Harvest Cometh for thee!

Another plus is that in addition to the fun main characters, the generic units are also very characterful and enjoyable.  Thanks to the joys of random name generators, I wound up with a ninja named Konga, and promptly gave him an axe (as opposed to the recommended fist).  So has begun the grand saga of Konga The Axe Ninja!  When he's not part of my agri-combine of death, cleaving the unworthy in twain, he's in charge of turning trees into those logs that other, lesser, ninja use for those substitution-dodge stunts they like.  Another fun head-canon is the duo of Jaccard and Oscar, my thief and ranger that tear about filling the air with lead and plundering the place, while yelling like maniacs.  Now you see while I hate permadeath in video games?

In any case, you people will have the displeasure of hearing me natter on at length about this game again soon enough.  You will also hear me bewail the fact that someone was foolish enough to give me a PS3 for my birthday, and even more countrysides will learn what it is to meet The Harvest!