I have officially been filtered like hundreds of my GameFAQs brethren; I cannot beat CHEFBOT-9000.
In all seriousness, I feel like every avenue I've tried to get into the Disgaea pipeline has failed catastrophically. I love the characters, I love the world design, and I especially love the completely non-serious writing, Playing the games though? I am always put off completely by the grind, which is an enormous part of this franchise. So here I am, playing the 2D platformer spinoff in the hopes of finally scratching that desire for Disgaea.
I've heard many a warning about this game being hardcore difficult, but the standard 2D platforming mechanics get nothing but praise from me. The controls are quirky, but more importantly, they're consistent. Jumping left or right locks you into a specific arc, and jumping from a standstill prevents you from moving left or right. These same mechanics apply to your double jump, allowing you to bounce back in the other direction or get extra height. The final piece of the puzzle is the ground pound, which sends you straight down no matter what direction you're headed in. It all comes together to make a very deliberate platformer.
I also need to give props to this game's open-ended structure. You'll need to beat a stage from each of the six areas to finish the game. You can choose to play them in any order, but the stages ramp up in difficulty as you keep playing. This means there's six different stages for each area, and the differences aren't just limited to level design. You also get different story cutscenes and items, and the boss you fight at the end of the stage will often end up different too. The 1000 Prinnys counter (your lives) is also a really neat twist on the typical execution of that mechanic.
Now we get to talk about the square button, the bane of this whole game.
Enemies are scattered inconveniently throughout all the levels. You can ground pound any of them to stun them and gain some extra air time, but to defeat them, you're gonna have to hammer that square button. Bosses require being ground pounded before taking substantial damage. Your ability to defeat bosses in a timely manner (hopefully before they beat you instead) is dictated by your willingness to achieve early symptoms of arthritis. You can actually deal more damage in less time if you just mash until your hand is ruined. I don't want my hands to be as useless as a Prinny's flippers, dood! All of this boils to a tipping point with CHEFBOT-9000. A boss where its weak point is so small that it's needlessly difficult to break its guard in the first place, you can't deal effective damage whie it's stunned without mashing, and its long-winded attacks make running out of time a very real possibility. Apparently the final boss is like this but somehow worse, so yeah. I kinda hate a major component of this game, dood!
If anyone knows a way to bruteforce myself into enjoying Disgaea, let me know. I'm reaching the end of my rope, dood.
In all seriousness, I feel like every avenue I've tried to get into the Disgaea pipeline has failed catastrophically. I love the characters, I love the world design, and I especially love the completely non-serious writing, Playing the games though? I am always put off completely by the grind, which is an enormous part of this franchise. So here I am, playing the 2D platformer spinoff in the hopes of finally scratching that desire for Disgaea.
I've heard many a warning about this game being hardcore difficult, but the standard 2D platforming mechanics get nothing but praise from me. The controls are quirky, but more importantly, they're consistent. Jumping left or right locks you into a specific arc, and jumping from a standstill prevents you from moving left or right. These same mechanics apply to your double jump, allowing you to bounce back in the other direction or get extra height. The final piece of the puzzle is the ground pound, which sends you straight down no matter what direction you're headed in. It all comes together to make a very deliberate platformer.
I also need to give props to this game's open-ended structure. You'll need to beat a stage from each of the six areas to finish the game. You can choose to play them in any order, but the stages ramp up in difficulty as you keep playing. This means there's six different stages for each area, and the differences aren't just limited to level design. You also get different story cutscenes and items, and the boss you fight at the end of the stage will often end up different too. The 1000 Prinnys counter (your lives) is also a really neat twist on the typical execution of that mechanic.
Now we get to talk about the square button, the bane of this whole game.
Enemies are scattered inconveniently throughout all the levels. You can ground pound any of them to stun them and gain some extra air time, but to defeat them, you're gonna have to hammer that square button. Bosses require being ground pounded before taking substantial damage. Your ability to defeat bosses in a timely manner (hopefully before they beat you instead) is dictated by your willingness to achieve early symptoms of arthritis. You can actually deal more damage in less time if you just mash until your hand is ruined. I don't want my hands to be as useless as a Prinny's flippers, dood! All of this boils to a tipping point with CHEFBOT-9000. A boss where its weak point is so small that it's needlessly difficult to break its guard in the first place, you can't deal effective damage whie it's stunned without mashing, and its long-winded attacks make running out of time a very real possibility. Apparently the final boss is like this but somehow worse, so yeah. I kinda hate a major component of this game, dood!
If anyone knows a way to bruteforce myself into enjoying Disgaea, let me know. I'm reaching the end of my rope, dood.