Ave August

Well this one took most of my time. I started others at the end of the month, but I’m not done with them yet.

I heard you like grinding

Disgaea PC

7/10

58.5 hours

11 of 30 achievements

Lore / Story : You start up as the prince of the Netheworld (basically Hell). Your father died and you have to reclaim your throne. The story is decent (for a tactical) and I really liked the writing.
Game mechanics : You have a hub that allows you to access multiple battles. Battles are classic turn based stuff with a few difference:
- There is a notion of height, each character can only jump some height
- There are "geo panels" that are colored panel on the ground.
- There are "geo cube" of a certain color that provide effect on all the panels of the same color as the one they are located upon. That can be a various good/bad effects.
- You can lift and throw every character (opponent/allies/cubes) and you can even chain ally lift to throw someone very far away.
- When you kill cubes of one color on top of a panel of a different color, it'll change every panel from their color to that of the cube and damage everyone on those panels. You can even chain those reactions.
- There is no perma death. You can heal/rez in the hub.
- You only lose if the 10 members you bring out die.
- You win by killing everyone/reaching the exit.
Progression : Well I hope you like grinding.
Characters:
- For starter there are only a few unique characters for the story. You can create at will generic characters of the class you want / the monster type you want (after beating that monster once).
- Each character gain levels on kill. That XP can unlock skills. Certain thresholds also unlocks better versions of the class for generic classes
- Each non monster character also has proficiency in the different weapon types. Using the weapon make it progress and unlocks related skills (each class progress more or less quickly on each weapon).
- You can unlock new classes when certain conditions are met (level for other classes/weapon proficiency).
- You can transmigrate characters : Making them restart from lvl 0 in a different class (or an improved version of their current one) while keeping a part of their known skills/proficiency and with a stat boost.
Then Items
- Each class of item has item ranked from 1 to 40
- Each item has a rarity, following that rarity they have between 30 and 100 level of progression.
- To make them progress, you have to do randomly generated levels for *each* item.
- Inside each item are inhabitants. You can kill them in the randomly generated levels in order to unlock them.
- Each inhabitant give a bonus to one stat that is doubled when killed.
- Once beaten, you can move them around between your items and combine those that boost the same stat.
- Every 10 levels, there is a special boss that gives stats boosts depending upon the current inhabitants
- If you're curious, there are whole ass guides about item leveling: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/psp/935234-disgaea-afternoon-of-darkness/faqs/25989
You can also pass laws in the senate (bribes or fight might be required), they allow
- Better items at the shop
- Stat boost
- New kind of items in the shop
- Unlocking some area
Difficulty : The game isn't that hard. But you need to do some grinding (just to reach the end of the story)
Length : So I mostly did the main story and it took me around 50 hours. It ended with me around level 80. Some out of story bosses are level 6000+. Some unlock require you to have level 200 in some classes. Needless to say that if you want everything in the game it's going to take waaay longer.
Conclusion : It was a pretty good game. Still it showed some age (it's a port of a 2003 game) in the UX (some navigation was cumbersome) and finishing it 100% is way more grindy than the time I have for it.

HackyZack

2/10

0.2 hours

0 of 27 achievements

Had it in my library for a while. It's a hard platformer with wacky keyboard controls (can't rebind and movement / aim for the ball are the same keys). Definitely not my kind of game.