Guided Fate Paradox... Give me a chance to play D2 please...

[Klyde Chroma]

http://store.nisamerica.com/The-Guided-Fate-Paradox-Limited-Edition

This is not cool. How do they expect anyone to dip their toes in all of Disgaea:D2's post game content with this landing but one short month later!!

Given the next gen releases this fall/winter I can't expect this is game is going to foster much attention. Being a die-hard for NIS LE's I'm pretty excited none-the-less but seriously... with the release schedule for games as it I probably won't get to this until this time next year.

[TiamatNM]

I've been looking forward to this more than D2 but I don't really understand why NISA is releasing them so close together. 

[ZeronHitaro]

Probably trying to dump out all the titles before the PS4 hits. This isn't going to be like the PS2 gen. I have doubts the PS3 will live on for years past its prime.

[Yggdrasil]

^This gen has been long enough that there's not much of a need for that really, but I think that the PS3 will still have a healthy life for a year or two as far as I've seen things going. Who knows.

[Kevadu]

I certainly have no intention to stop playing PS3 games anytime soon.  There are still quite a few on the horizon

[Eusis]

Probably trying to dump out all the titles before the PS4 hits. This isn't going to be like the PS2 gen. I have doubts the PS3 will live on for years past its prime.

Maybe not AS long, but I wouldn't underestimate it. I'm sure if anyone told you just before the PS3 we'd get Sakura Wars in 2010 or even Persona 4 in 2008 you would've been laughed off for claiming a just released game in a niche series would take that long if it ever came out, or that a long dormant series would get TWO sequels within the next 2-3 years, yet that's exactly what happened.

Still, the PS4 is debuting cheaper and is supposed to be MUCH easier to develop for. Those factors together seem to be the most likely to doom the PS3 whereas the PS2 and even PS1 hung around as long as they did not only due to relative ease and cost of development, but because they had insane numbers of units on the market.

[Lard]

So has anyone played this?

I'm interested but not sure.

I've read impressions that it's like a dungeon crawler crossed with a visual novel....?

[ZeronHitaro]

*very rough, opinionated first impressions*

I only got in like an hour or so last night. Just enough to get past the first half of the first story dungeon. Impressions are...eh. So far Z.H.P was better. The plot's really hokey and only one of the characters has any sort of hook on me (Kuroriel I think her name is). Mechanically the game seems solid enough but dang if the character's aren't a level of cliche beyond cliche. Not even spoilers really but I'm going to code it anyway.

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I half-jokingly said to my wife, upon seeing how Red Angel behaved, "She's a demon!"

...guess what?

Main Character comes off as a super doormat; in the bad-writing sort of way. Not really anything endearing about him to make me give a crap about his story. Sure Z.H.P's MC was a pushover too at first but at least we didn't have to endure 10 minutes of him whining about it...following by "insert obligatory boob staring joke here".

I dunno; the whole thing just kinda reeks of the Japanese version of "Michael Bay-ism". It's going to hit every low hanging fruit on the way down trying to appeal to as much of the 'general audience fanbase' as possible.

And I've discovered a new pet peeve. Hearing someone say "Lord!" 5 times a minute, in cutscene dialog, is piss-ant annoying.

Plot aside; the game feels a LOT easier compared to its predecessor. Not even a single risk of death at all yet. Equipment is plentiful, skills are strong, having two characters makes battles easier, and because of the "Burst" system I see farming for chips is going to be a lot simpler. But then again it's only chapter one. I'll give it until 3/4 to drop the other shoe and actually become challenging.

[ZeronHitaro]

Played a tiny bit further in last night. Cleared 1-2 and 2-1.

...eh.

I really hope this doesn't set the standards for the machine-side stories because wow...I haven't seen a side plot spend so much time chasing it's own tail to go absolutely no where. Thankfully for the game's sake the 'cloak and dagger' plot line at least has me curious. But at this point I'm tempering my expectations for any sort of pay off.

As anticipated; this game is silly shades of easy so far. First boss came and went without putting up anything resembling a fight. 'Nearly' died on the last floor of 2-1 but that's only because I gimped myself and pretty much ignored any sort of leveling in order to fight a level 6 monster at level 4.

Red Hair is still a major point of detraction for this game. ~_~ Every time she opens her mouth and I hear the dialog someone wrote for her I find myself ticking another box in the "Reasons this game sucks" region. Seriously; she's like a literal, walking stereotype of everything negative people associate with Compile Heart characters...only without an ounce of any charm or adorableness to even begin countering the scales.

And there's an ominous looking character named

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Satanael

Really? That's the best you could come up with? Wanna give it a pitchfork and horns while you're at it? Maybe have his footsteps catch flame too. Nah...too subtle. Speaking of which...

*rant time*

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So basically you're using the Celestia/Netherworld references of the Disgaea games...but slathering on the annoying
'we're going to use Christian symbolism without having a clue how to use it' problem that detracted from D4's end-plot...only
amplify that problem ten times over instead of just using the elements of the setting you're already entrenched in...h'oy.

This is about as mind-numbingly bad as if I wrote a fictional plot about a place called 'Budaramia' where if you didn't bow
and quickly chant a prayer to every 300+ pound man you see on the street a 6-armed post-op tranny will come down and sit on
your face while you sleep; causing you to vomit Maneki Nekos the next morning.

Yeah...it's about that distractingly off-base and nonsensical.

Also; the ratio of gameplay to cutscenes is absurdly out of whack so far. It's literally spending 1-2 minutes clearing a floor only to have to sit through 3-4+ minutes of dialog...EVERY, SINGLE, FLOOR! ;_;

[insertnamehere]

a second opinion

[ZeronHitaro]

a second opinion

Thanks for the spoiler warning. :-\ (Consider this the "This video will spoil reveals if you watch it" label. Not sure how many as I stopped it dead after the first spoiler.)

[Kevadu]

a second opinion

Thanks for the spoiler warning. :-\ (Consider this the "This video will spoil reveals if you watch it" label. Not sure how many as I stopped it dead after the first spoiler.)

Er...there were spoilers in that video?  Not being sarcastic here.  I watched it and didn't notice any...

[Cyril]

I'm not done with Chapter 1, so I can't really judge the game in the long run, but I like it quite a bit.  I do, however, think this style worked a bit better on handhelds than on consoles.

The learning curve seems very nice for people new to the genre, or even NIS games.

[Kevadu]

I do, however, think this style worked a bit better on handhelds than on consoles.

Wonder if this game will end up getting a Vita port like all the Disgaea games seem to...

[ZeronHitaro]

a second opinion

Thanks for the spoiler warning. :-\ (Consider this the "This video will spoil reveals if you watch it" label. Not sure how many as I stopped it dead after the first spoiler.)

Er...there were spoilers in that video?  Not being sarcastic here.  I watched it and didn't notice any...

The one I saw that I quit at was

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it clearly revealed who Neliel is/what they look like.

It's not like "OMG The Titanic sinks!?!" in terms of relevance to the whole plot (as far as I know) but I found it a pretty
decent enough spoiler. Since they felt the need to not show what the character looked like right out the gate it could've
been 'anything'; especially considering the whole "Oh you used to be a demon" and general 'cloak n dagger' stuff I mentioned earlier.

Might've been an overlord, might've been a monster, might've been a big computer thingy. Who knows? (Well...obviously I
do now but still...)

Still spoilery enough to merit a warning if you want the game to surprise you as much as possible. (Also factor in said character is apparently supposed to be disguised enough that they were never revealed via released promotional artwork.)