Review: Disgaea 4

Disgaea returns with a new bunch of demons on a quest to save the reputation of the lowly Prinnies...? Dood what? So we enter another parallel Neverworld this time inhabiting Valvatorez the great. Or so we're told. Loyal fans to the series will see this as the 4th available on PS3 and PS Vita. We are greeted with a new set of classes, options and cast of demons.

The story gripped me at once, a hero who respects Prinnies? What's going on here, is he soft in the head. Apparently Valvatorez or Lord Val as most call him is banished to be a Pruinny Instructor. A totaly underdog of the demon world but with a past of once greatness. This greatness has been long forgotten since he stopped drinking blood due to a promise. A promise made to a human which in fact drained him of most of his powers. He is now stuck in a shrimpy body and obsessed with sardines which he feasts on instead of blood.

Alongside the law abiding Lord Val we have his loyal servent Fenrich who is pretty mean and bad ass, did I mention he was a werewolf too? Twilight resonances are appearing to me but nope there is no glitter just relentless trolling and beats. Whilst the Prinnies are slandered to be the cause of the receding death rates to Celestia and the Netherworld, the pair go on a journey and come across a great rag tag bunch. One of my least favorite recurring characters holds a lead role in this game, Emiziel. The president of the Netherworld's son, a right 'rascal' and pain in the butt. After much leveling you realise he has the second best magic in the game. The best magic is owned by Desco a big boss who gets whooped by the team and strives to over throw the couruptment to become the ultimate big boss. Also tentacles.

The game cleverly adds hints into the conversations on how to improve your characters like 'chara world' this was an interesting touch but I very quickly lost interest. For you see instead of the 'item world' concept where you clear out all the enemies, in char world you are surrounded by geo cubes that you must destroy to obtain the level ups and character bonuses. This takes a VERY LONG time to do. I found it was really worth while to do for the mages to unlock great spells and evilities. Otherwise it's a very tedious procedure for every character.

Within the stats demon, you can see what you have achieved ie. what percentage of rare items you collected, enemies killed, levels reincarnated (for Lord Val) which is handy for unlocking all the ending and through that you do get the indication of a hidden ending. *Squuueee* sorry ignore my inner fan girl. You can also re watch scenes and art from the game which is for the hardcore fans.

They also bring up the option of opening the 'Cave of Ordeals' early in the game for you to hideously fail at but aspire to play maybe in your third or fourth gameplay (no really it's pretty hard).

Basically you need to play this game becuase of tentacles. Nah just kidding, as much as I love the odd mix of characters, there is so much more to offer from the game. A great addition of extra levels so you can do endless grinding in different settings. Also there are a lot of cameos from a favourite past characters from the series including everyone's favourite fallen angel Flonne. If you like the Prinnies, you get a lot of interaction and conversations and well what can I say the characters like to ship each other which makes all otaku's happy. Fenich and Lord Val FTW. A JRPG fan's must play game.

For more news on anime, cosplay, games and Japanese culture follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Aisha Anime ^_^

Guided Fate Paradox Review

Being such a big Disgaea fan I had to try out their jrpg title Guided Fate Paradox playing on historical events retold and having to fix them.

Using thr lottery to pick someone to inherit the power of God to rectify the event blips, the unlikely hero is given a group of angels to guide and aid him on his quest.

Podcast went Visual

Alex, myself and Orun

The podcast I've been hosting since April has now reached 33 episodes and to mark this 33rd one we went visual. Yeah we're blank voices no more we're loud and proud at the Playnation Games studio ^_^ Well it's the games room but we turn it into a makeshift studio !

Weirdly enough for podcasts the sell by date is by episode 15, we've doubled it and changed platforms, I don't know if that's good or bad. One of my friends said he listens as a podcast is convenient for him to download to his ipod and then listen to on his journey to work so he may stop listening when we go video
-_-

What does one do? We'll we recorded a mini teaser video taster and hopefully the listeners approve? Check it out for yourselves, please feel free to send suggestions on how to improve it!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAnimeUkShow?ref=hl
Twiiter: @animeukshow
Latest ep on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbBcHW6KWo&feature=youtu.be

Review: Disgaea D2

Disgaea is celebrating it's 10th anniversary and company Nippon Ichi Software's 20th anniversary this year with the release of it's new game Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness. Following the story of much loved Demon overlord Laharl from the first game. He carries on forcing his supremacy on all the demons of the underworld who frankly don't take him seriously.

Based several years after the first set of games, the demon crew have grown older and outfits are skimpier, but Laharl remains power hungry. Little does he know he will not win the favour of his subjects with brute force only. He is determined not to live in the shadow of his father's legacy. We begin with Flonne ranting as Laharl and Etna crash in her flowerbed, a celestial Yuie flower blooms despite not supposing to in the netherworld. The main plot revolves around this flower.

Now the rebellion gets involved, Grosso pointing the finger at Laharl for having relations with Celestia after the flowers op up at an alarming rate around the netherworld. We have new villains and with that a new demon type; Sea Angel - cute but deadly at the same time. Of course you have to fulfil certain requirements to obtain certain classes which is part of the fun.

Gameplay in Disgaea D2 remains loyal to the original Disgaea mechanics. There is however a new Monster Mounting feature that replaces Magichange from Disgaea 3 and 4. This allows humanoid characters to ride on top of a Monster allowing the humanoid character to attack on top of the monster while the monster takes damage from opponents, acting like a shield. Characters can also build relationships with each other and their compatibility is determined by a heart scale of one to five. It also affects the strength of collaboration attacks used when Monster Mounting depending of the relationship established between a humanoid character and a monster character.

The graphics are still 2D animation but you can change the camera angle now in the newly renovated Overlord castle. Instead of being confined to three rooms you have a labyrinth of place you can explore and talk to the amusing demon vassels under Laharl's command. The soundtrack is fresh but with original tracks following the original characters bringing nostalgia.

Cameo in the game include past favourites Asagi, returning from previous games. The game's trophy list also revealed that most of the Disgaea 4 cast (Valvatorez, Fenrich, Emizel and 'Vulcanus') will return, along with Axel and Petta (who actually uses Zetta from Makai Kingdom in his Book form as a weapon).

You are also given a new weapon type - a book which seems to act as a second magic based weapon and allows users to summon spirits to damage their targets. The game also features a new Demon Dojo that allows players to train the individual stats of their characters; this is great if you want to train your healer as she fights with a book, which makes her attack better.

Disgaea D2 is a beautiful sequel to the original Disgaea series with lots of great dialogues, cameos and improved graphics. Essentially the same dynamics but with new game mechanics, seamless blending of character movement on the map not just animated sprites. A great addition to the Disgaea series - it would make any JRPG fan or demon happy.

Interesting facts

• This is the first Disgaea game to be a direct sequel in terms of plot.


• You can change the colour of the main characters.


• It is the second game that does not use the series' signature logo.


• It is also the first Disgaea game without an "Ultimate Class" for reasons unknown


• It is also the first game in the series where it solely uses HD sprites so the graphics have developed but kept to the original style


• The same skull and chair have switches behind and open a hidden door.


• American’s got DLC when pre ordering ie. Fuka, Desco: Two main characters from Disgaea 4, Overlord Zetta: The main protagonist of Makai Kingdom, Adell: The main male protagonist from Disgaea 2 and many more.

For more adventures into anime, cosplay, gaming and events follow me on Facebook and twitter. 

^_^ Aisha Anime

Bring on the Gaming: Eurogamer 2012 - Thursday

 The opening day of Eurogamer arrived and upon entering the press queue I saw a sic Mario entourage in front of me. Maria, Wario, Luigi and Yoshi but Bowser was nowhere to be seen or perhaps he was already inside, waiting to pounce?

Straight away I was drawn to good old Sega’s booth and took the chance to play their new game ‘Hell Yeah’. The Sega rep described it as the ‘Bunny version of Sonic’ which had me sold, with the beautiful anime graphics and story resembling Koei’s Disgaea. Expect this game to be reviewed on Anime Picks soon! You’re a demon bunny papp’ed in an er...compromising position with a rubber ducky and demons don’t take humiliation very well so he goes to destroy everyone who had seen the photo.

To the right of Sega was Formula 1, which had a great set up with arcade style gaming chairs. I’m not brilliant at car games, but I wouldn't mind losing to strangers in style and those chairs really added to the game experience.

DOA 5 probably had the most game consoles, which was a good call as there were so many guys lining up to play with the ladies, in combat of course. It was very refreshing to see some female gamers showing guys they could play just as well too.

The developers of the Merlin game - literally based on the series - decided instead of taking the real gritty looking CGI approach they’d make it more anime’esque to make it more appealing to all the fans. See the interview with one of the developers here:

Eurogamer had all sorts of hidden gems for us to find, in the form of the Virgin booth, where you sit on couches to try out some hand held consoles. I started playing the game Super-Fluid. This game actually won the ‘Virgin Media 100 Day Game Project’. Super-Fluid has been developed to work across Android and Apple devices and will launch in October 2012. The puzzle-based platform game uses tilt-based controls for navigation through the levels as the character changes into three different states - solid, liquid and gas. Very cute and clever basically it’s kawaii science! Find out more information here: http://www.virgin.com/media-and-mobile/news/100-day-game-project-heads-to-eurogamer

If your waning from walking around the vast space in Olympia, it’s time to take a break at the Mountain Dew pit stop – refuel and carry on! If you were attentive enough, when wondering around in the over 18’s area you could watch professional makeup artists kitting out the ‘Resident Evil’ Zombie team! It was amazing seeing their faces being put together and if you were lucky enough you’d spot the ones giving out goodies, including branded t shirts and a super cool Resi wristband watch.

Other cool promotional gimmicks were from the ‘Hitman Asolution’ stall, luring figurine fans into their area, play the game and get a free hit man figure and these were super cute and hey, if you wondered around outside the over 18’s area you could have a free Hitman photo souvenir complete with red tie and rubber duck via photo booth boutique. They also uploaded the images to the website gallery: photoboothboutique.co.uk (select the appropriate date).

This is just a day one of our Eurogamer adventure, more to come in Friday’s diary update.