There must be something that keeps me coming back to the Disgaea series, game after game. I've finished five of them now, and I must confess to a very real sense of weariness with the format, even as I gear up to start Disgaea 5. I think there is this core of quite addictive gameplay central to the series, but the focus on grinding and utterly tasteless and boring humor tends to detract from the experience. Of course, that is not to say that these elements are always bad. It's sometimes fun to level up your characters and unlock new skills and classes--and sometimes certain pieces of dialogue or descriptive text will make me laugh--but it can be difficult to remain invested in a game that is essentially a retread of previous titles. Disgaea D2 is fun, but it contains very few features that differentiate it from the first two games of the series.
Every class and every monster available in Disgaea D2 is a repeat of classes available in previous games, save for one or two. (Comparatively, Disgaea 5 evidently has about 12 more.) Similarly, many of the game's special skills are copied directly from the previous games in the series. Leveling up weapons and unlocking their unique skills is a large part of what makes the series interesting to me, but it's not so much fun when everything is so familiar. On top of all that, there are only three or four playable "hero" characters, principal of which are the returning characters from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness--Laharl, Etna, and Flonne. No mention is even made of Captain Gordon--the Defender of Earth--and his companions Jennifer and Thursday from the first game.
Disgaea has never been a series of games with a lot of focus on plot, but main series titles have frequently flown by on charm and a cutting sense of humor. D2's plot focuses primarily on Laharl proving himself as the Netherworld's Overlord while dealing with a criminally uninteresting estranged little sister named Sicily. Much of the early game consists of demonstrations of Laharl's leadership to unconvinced underlings until it is revealed that the game's primary conflict is that the Netherworld is being overrun by flowers from the angelic city of Celestia. Of course, the demons loyal to the previous Overlord (Laharl's father) jump to blame Laharl for these flowers, as they believe it to be retaliation from the angels due to the events in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.
I found myself supremely uninvested in the game's plot--but that's okay because the Disgaea series is mostly about gameplay. It is a solid entry in the series in that respect, but it introduces very little in the way of new content. Even as a direct sequel, I would expect more new gameplay elements, but it does nothing but introduce the disappointing Mounting mechanic. Riding Disgaea D2's various monsters around was a lot of fun--until I found out how it actually worked. In previous Disgaea titles, it is possible to transform monsters into weapons using the hilarious and fun Magichange mechanic. A flying moth might turn into a bow or a zombie into a bizarre, fleshy sword. Each of these transformations had unique skills associated with it. In this respect, mounting is very similar. However, no transformation takes place while mounting and only one skill is ever associated with the mechanic. I was hoping the monsters would eventually learn more, but unfortunately that is not the case.
Magichange combines the stats of both the monster and the humanoid character. For this reason, it's more worth it to have two characters on the field. In the case of mounting, the monster is treated more as a shield for the humanoid character. The monster takes the hits on the field but is incapable of attacking. The humanoid can attack and his or her stats are considered when doing so. In fact, the monster's stats don't matter at all. A level 1 zombie's special attack would be just as effective as a level 100 zombie's attack assuming he's being mounted by the same humanoid character. The only purpose the monster's stats serve in this case is to insure that it survives. For this reason, most monster characters I used over the course of Disgaea D2 had nothing but defensive items equipped. I very rarely felt the need to attack with them in an unmounted state.
Honestly, Disgaea D2 is a game in the series I could have comfortably skipped--and I only completed it out of sheer stubbornness. It's not a bad game by any means, but lacks the depth and progression of main series titles. It also brought back the honestly pretty dire Weapon Mastery mechanic, which requires you to grind endlessly to unlock new weapon skills--which, as mentioned previously, mostly consisted of skills with which I was already familiar. I very much preferred the systems adopted in Disgaea 3 and 4, which both enabled the purchase of new skills with mana. This meant that I could complete missions in whatever way I pleased, so long as I was defeating enemies (and therefore acquiring mana.) In the case of Disgaea D2, I frequently felt pigeonholed into attacking physically to even hope to unlock somewhat powerful skills. It was not a good system in the first two Disgaea games, so I'm not sure why they revisited it.
As bad of an idea as I know it is, I'll probably move on and play Disgaea 5 right away, so expect me to complain about it in about a month's time.
