Demon penguins rule the day, dood! Or they would like to. “Prinnies” make their return in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, the zany sequel to the wildly popular Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.
In Disgaea 2, the player takes on the role of Adell, the only human left in a Netherworld, where the evil Overlord Zenon turned all other humans into demons to feed his power. Adell desires only one thing: to defeat Overlord Zenon and return his family and friends to normal.
His mother, a powerful summoner, attempts to call Zenon forth from hiding that he might be pummeled with prejudice, but somehow she fails, and instead summons his daughter, Rozalin. Rozalin grew up in a fabulous mansion, and had never seen the outside world – as a result, she lacks some demonic traits, like being overtly evil. Not that she’s incapable of it – being bonded to Adell through the summoning, she secretly plots his demise – but only out of love for her father.
There are a few blasts from the past, as well. Etna the self-proclaimed “Beauty Queen” has left Overlord Laharl’s (the main character of the first Disgaea) side, and intends to take Zenon’s head and title for herself. Laharl, unsurprisingly characteristic, doesn’t handle the betrayal well.
Disgaea 2 offers many of the features of the first, including the item world. In Disgaea, every item has its own “world”, up to 100 randomly generated levels that increase in difficulty the deeper Adell and company plunge. The item levels up with every floor level attained, becoming extremely powerful in the end.
Another returning feature to the game is the choice to turn character voices into either English or Japanese. This is useful for when the game’s dubbing gets a little annoying. It is too bad that some sounds can’t just be turned off, though. Whenever some characters make their attacks, their battle cry could quite possibly make some gamers’ ears bleed.
The game’s graphics aren’t a huge improvement from the first. Still, spell graphics have been brushed up, so some aren’t annoyingly long like in the first, and they have some more sparkly, shiny effects in general.
An interesting new addition to the game is the Dark Court. When characters commit felonies, they are summoned before the court, and awarded with a felony. (Hey, they’re demons. Being evil is good, in a way.) Felonies increase the experience characters earn, and increase their influence with the Dark Council, which passes laws such as allowing shops to sell more powerful items, new character creation, and special effects in battlegrounds.
Disgaea 2 features multiple endings, which encourages repeated play through. Characters can be copied over from an end game save file to begin a new one, just like in the original. All in all, Disgaea 2 lives up as a faithful sequel to the first. It still has the humor, the sarcasm, and the Prinnies, dood.