Nippon Ichi Titles

[Laharu]

Hello peoples in AnimeSuki land. I was just wondering what your opinions of Nippon Ichi's line of tactical RPGs that they have created over the past few years.

Personally, I can't seem to get enough of them. They are all pleasantly refreshing in their own way. But as for best and worst ranking of these ones specifically I'd say...

Worst: Phantom Brave
Best: Disgaea:Hour of Darkness

what are your opinions?

[wnkryo]

So far I only played one of them, disgaea, but it seems like this is the best one out of all of them. I'm about to play makai kingdom, but I still don't know what the worse nippon ichi tittle is. Anyways, do you have any recommendations for a second best nippon?

[ImperialPanda]

Out of the lot I only like disgaea really. But I like it a lot. =O

[Varion]

Originally Posted by wnkryo

So far I only played one of them, disgaea, but it seems like this is the best one out of all of them. I'm about to play makai kingdom, but I still don't know what the worse nippon ichi tittle is. Anyways, do you have any recommendations for a second best nippon?

Try any of them and hope? Most people I know would put Disgaea at the top of the list, but after that it relies a lot more on personal preference. La Pucelle's the only one I haven't played (played a few chapters of Disgaea 2, all of the main game of Phantom Brave and most of the postgame of Makai Kingdom) and I'd rank Phantom Brave second - I actually liked the confine system unlike most people. However if we're putting more importance on the postgame aspects I preferred Makai, because it's more 'normal' - I found confining difficult to work with when you're doing random dungeons. La Pucelle's pretty normal too. Basically, I'd say read up on the systems of each and shoot for one.

The other safe bet would be to wait for Disgaea 2 because, whether you see it as an advantage or a disadvantage, you've basically already played it when it comes to the battle system. Tthey've made some minor improvements, such as if you combo attack an enemy and a character doesn't get a turn you can choose another attack for them, but also left a few things the same that they'd improved in other games, like holding square and moving to get your attacks in line (you have to keep cancelling until you get it right). You get to hear a NES-style version of the Overlord's Castle theme though D:

Nippon Ichi's games are fun, but the one thing that bugs me about of them and is becoming less and less tolerable over time is the fact that half the game's battles are completely pointless and seem to be there for nothing other than slowing your progress to the end - the pattern of 3-5 maps of random monsters and a boss map at the end rarely seems to be broken, and innovative maps don't crop up enough (I think Disgaea had the most of these, like the maze in the last world). Most offensive one that sticks in my mind was in Makai Kingdom where it had a bunch of monsters at various levels (you were about L30, and some of them were level FOUR?) and you had to kill them to progress. No relation to the plot, no point, barely any experience at all...

[celcius]

Phantom Brave for story, and cool weapon customization.
Makai Kingdom for Zetta, Pram and humor, and more Disgaea-ish weapon system but free movement.
Disgaea for characters and humor, as well as "Oh shite, why did my damage go to 4-digit again???"

Disgaea is tops, while La Pucelle is bottom.

[Js2756]

Probably in the minority here, but for me, Phantom Brave tops the list of NIS games. I really liked the radial movement versus the grid based systems of La Pucelle and Disgaea. While it did have some tweaking that needed to be done to make the game better, overall the battle system was a very unique and enjoyable experience.

After that, in order, Disgaea, La Pucelle, then Makai Kingdom. Makai Kingdom bugged me because a lot of it was just kill things until you finish the map and also because the sprites are friggin' tiny! It was incredibly hard and frustrating to get the targetting just right to maximize a spell or skill's impact because of how precise you had to be. At least in Phantom Brave the sprites are large enough that this is much less of an issue. Zooming capabilities would have gone a long way to improve Makai Kingdom.

[Lolicon_Perv]

Ar Tonelico!! wew.. i like it very much that i drew one of the char there..
take a look..

http://www.geocities.com/riezka_xeno...of_ayatane.jpg

[Zappster]

It's a nice drawing and all but I was under the impression that this thread was for Nippon Ichi developed titles. AFAIK the american branch published it in the US but that's as far as they were involved (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Also you might want to post that in the fan creations forum.

[Tatsumiko]

Originally Posted by Laharu

Hello peoples in AnimeSuki land. I was just wondering what your opinions of Nippon Ichi's line of tactical RPGs that they have created over the past few years.

Personally, I can't seem to get enough of them. They are all pleasantly refreshing in their own way. But as for best and worst ranking of these ones specifically I'd say...

Worst: Phantom Brave
Best: Disgaea:Hour of Darkness

what are your opinions?

hmmmm...I only saw all the offcial sites of them...But what do you think thats wrong with Digaea 2 ? 0.0

Love your sig X3..

[Kisuke06]

Well, I have only player Disgaea 1 and 2. They are both very good, but I prefer Disgaea 1.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Lolicon_Perv

Ar Tonelico!! wew.. i like it very much that i drew one of the char there..
take a look..

http://www.geocities.com/riezka_xeno...of_ayatane.jpg

Technically Ar Tonelico is not a Nippon Ichi game, but is licensed out to Nippon Ichi USA. Ar Tonelico is actually made by a company called Gust and is something of a spirtual succesor to the Atelier Iris games. It might be far more fun if it weren't so easy, but the battles are practically like events where your goal is to protect your cute little singer girl (Reyvital) until she can charge up enough energy to unleash a song to slaughter the enemy (actually it seems a lot more like she is just bitching at the enemy until it breaks under the pressure of being told off by a loli). It's totally a rental and not a purchase if you plan on checking it out, because its way overpriced for what you are getting, which is a simple cute RPG/Dating Sim.

Once Youtube is back up I'll post a link that will explain why not to screw with a singing loli girl, lest you get horribly owned. Okay then here is when I would be on the floor begging for mercy and for her to just shut up. Terrifying isn't it. Anyway my friend has this irrational hatred of the game when frankly I could think of a number of things that could be a whole lot worse for the gaming industry than a harmless little 2D-RPG that harkens back to 8-Bit era of RPG Gameplay. I'd also say the Story is on about Yggdra Loli level, not spectacular like Final Fantasy 12, but not as horribly written as say Shining Tears or Legend of Heroes and always with room for character development and a little bit of plot expostion here and there. Simply put its quaint and the characters have a certain charm to them. If I had to rate everything overall it would probably go something like this

Graphics: 9/10 (I think its the same guy who did Shining Tears and its pretty pleasing to the eye, only here we have the added bonus of a fairly better game in all other categories)
Gameplay: 5/10 (Partially as a result of being too easy and a bit on the simple side)
Characters 7/10 (They are a bit cliche but have a certain charm that makes up for it well enough)
Music 7.5 (It does it's job)
Story 6/10 (There are some twists and turns, but really it could have been a little bit deeper. I'm not expecting political intrigue like FF-12, because that's not what this game is meant to do, but maybe a few more layers to the story proper wouldn't hurt)
Innovation 6/10 (Well there's an item creation system and a pseudo dating sim system for the purposes of character development. I wish they had linked them a bit more together though. At least they tried though.)
Overall 6.75/10 (So caught somewhere between above average and good. I'd say a rental is at least worth a shot.)

[Jazzrat]

I agree with Kaoshin pretty much on Ar Tonelico. If you like previous games by Gust such as Atelier Iris, then it's ok.

Overall, this game is way too easy. That's even without lvling or twinking yourself which really detracts from the gameplay. The fun part for me was diving into the Revytail.

As for NIS tactical RPG, i only played Disgaea series so i cant really comment but i personally, i think it's the most popular one from NIS. If you got a PSP, you might wanna check out Spectral Soul (http://nisamerica.com/games/ss/).

[Tatsumiko]

Originally Posted by Itachi-chan

Well, I have only player Disgaea 1 and 2. They are both very good, but I prefer Disgaea 1.

Ok now I'm really curious! 0.0...What makes Disgaea 1 better than 2?...alot of people have been saying around the net that they prefer 1...but why?..shouldn't Disgaea 2 be an improvement as well as a sequel to Disgaea 1 ?

[Js2756]

Originally Posted by Tatsumiko

Ok now I'm really curious! 0.0...What makes Disgaea 1 better than 2?...alot of people have been saying around the net that they prefer 1...but why?..shouldn't Disgaea 2 be an improvement as well as a sequel to Disgaea 1 ?

It's more that people were expecting a lot out of Disgaea 2, but it was barely an improvement at all over Disgaea 1, it was just more of the same. But if you want to get into the nitty gritty, here are a list of things that If found to be more of an annoyance in 2:

-on average, unit movement is lower in 2 than in 1
-you have to transmigrate to get higher classes, which finally gives a reason to get intermediate classes, but stretches out the length of time to get the final classes
-there are walking geo symbols now, can be a huge annoyance, but more often than not can be ignored
-pirates are way too high level sometimes, so if they appear early in the game, prepare for a quick exit out of that floor
-I prefered statisticians to the new felony system, especially since both cap at 300 but you could see when you had 300 statisticians on a character, the felony display caps at 99 (but the counter keeps rising)
-in terms of short range weapons, swords are still too good
-random map generation seems to be worse in 2 (way more height variances), and they are really ugly compared to those in 1. To be honest, I'm not sure about the map generation, it's just a feeling I get.
-the green gates more often than not just make dungeon crawling longer, as half the time there isn't anything good in them
-still way too much level grinding
-story is less interesting in 2, and the characters are less interesting (matter of personal preference really)

Good things in 2:
-guns and bows are now balanced out (guns can only hit line of sight, bows are still radial)
-mages are still really good early game (early game snipers)
-healers gain exp when healing (really needed this)
-reverse damage tiles finally let your healers kill things

When you look at that list of changes, most of them are just very minor tweaks, and a lot of why people don't prefer 2 is because of the "been there, done that" feeling.

[Tatsumiko]

Originally Posted by Js2756

It's more that people were expecting a lot out of Disgaea 2, but it was barely an improvement at all over Disgaea 1, it was just more of the same. But if you want to get into the nitty gritty, here are a list of things that If found to be more of an annoyance in 2:

-on average, unit movement is lower in 2 than in 1
-you have to transmigrate to get higher classes, which finally gives a reason to get intermediate classes, but stretches out the length of time to get the final classes
-there are walking geo symbols now, can be a huge annoyance, but more often than not can be ignored
-pirates are way too high level sometimes, so if they appear early in the game, prepare for a quick exit out of that floor
-I prefered statisticians to the new felony system, especially since both cap at 300 but you could see when you had 300 statisticians on a character, the felony display caps at 99 (but the counter keeps rising)
-in terms of short range weapons, swords are still too good
-random map generation seems to be worse in 2 (way more height variances), and they are really ugly compared to those in 1. To be honest, I'm not sure about the map generation, it's just a feeling I get.
-the green gates more often than not just make dungeon crawling longer, as half the time there isn't anything good in them
-still way too much level grinding
-story is less interesting in 2, and the characters are less interesting (matter of personal preference really)

Good things in 2:
-guns and bows are now balanced out (guns can only hit line of sight, bows are still radial)
-mages are still really good early game (early game snipers)
-healers gain exp when healing (really needed this)
-reverse damage tiles finally let your healers kill things

When you look at that list of changes, most of them are just very minor tweaks, and a lot of why people don't prefer 2 is because of the "been there, done that" feeling.

Now thats an anwser ^^...thank you...I just really like Laharl X3..but I saw he was just a guest character in 2...so that made me a little upset..but thats also a matter of personal preference ^-^

[Village Idiot]

Remember people, Atelier Iris 3~Grand Fantasm is coming out in May.

Another prequel of AI1, and takes place after AI2.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Village Idiot

Remember people, Atelier Iris 3~Grand Fantasm is coming out in May.

Another prequel of AI1, and takes place after AI2.

Another one? Is it any more difficult than the last batch (and by that I mean a slight challenge)? Hell even some battles in Ar Tonelico made Atelier Iris look easy by comparison. I deleted all my saves from the first game when I got bored with it to make room for other stuff.

[Js2756]

Has there been any word about a North American release for Soul Cradle yet?

[Js2756]

Originally Posted by Js2756

Has there been any word about a North American release for Soul Cradle yet?

Woo! Get to answer my own question. Soul Cradle is tentatively set for NA release June 15, under the name "Soul Nomad and the World Eaters".

[hamiko_san]

10 things more, you never know.