Linka

This is Super Mario Galaxy 2's week, most definitely. I'm getting my copy delivered tomorrow.

Kinda into the new Artstyle game though. But I spent the last of my points on RUNNER.

@Giant_Gamer: ... You do realize that the game is both the first game and the second game on one UMD, thus warranting the increased cost, right? The downloadable version does not include both games in one file.

@ CaramelZappa ... No sales tax on the PSN? Then what's with that tax that I keep getting hit with when I buy stuff off of there directly?

There is room for improvement. However, it is ignorant to consider that they have not improved since even La Pucelle Tactics. The greatest obvious graphical jump was, yes, from Disgaea 1 to Disgaea 2-- if you only focus on the Disgaea series. They had multiple games in-between that helped them to improve their sprite artwork, as well.

Currently, I'm playing Soul Nomad and the World Eaters, which is the game that came out before Disgaea 3-- the sprite artwork is very good in there, and their 3D backrounds were more detailed than the maps in Disgaea 2, at the very least. It's something that I've noticed added to the Disgaea 3 maps-- they were a lot more detailed, had more animations to them, and were definitely a lot larger.

I do agree that, yes, Last Rebellion and how it turned out, shows that NIS is just not made for 3D games. It's something that should be expected, though-- most of their in-house games were 2D on 3D maps, after all. It would be more expected that there would be more detail in the 2D sprites as a result, though. I can understand that people expect more detail from the sprites, however, it is still a lot to try to claim that it is the only fault of the company, and that improving the graphics would gain back their profits. Artwork, sprite creation-- it takes a lot of money to do, too. I'd rather they focus on making an enjoyable game than trying to make the sprites look amazing and high-quality. But I can not understand how people would consider the Disgaea 3 graphics to be bad, especially with the amount of details, the clearer animations, and the sharp graphics.

Having played through Disgaea 3 from start to finish, I am going to have to disagree that it wasn't a PS3-quality game.

The games aren't that "hardcore", it's very easy to get through the main storyline with little grinding. The post game is an addition and an extension, not a "hardcore experience". And with the EXP glitch, leveling is a lot easier in Disgaea 3 than I found in, say, Disgaea 1 and 2.

Two, no, the series does not need a "graphic upgrade". The sprites are much more detailed than Disgaea 2 had, despite any claims otherwise-- this is counting in idle sprites, colors, attack animations, and making sure that they work with every single weapon. I have been very charmed by the Disgaea 3 sprites, especially for the monsters.

Secondly, if you have played Disgaea 3, then you know how large some of the maps can be in the game-- maps like those would never have worked on the Playstation 2, causing stutter and lag to astronomical levels. You ever do Cave of Ordeals 3 in Disgaea 3? If you think that could have been done easily on the PS2, you'd be very mistaken. Not to mention a lot of the processing power from the PS3 will also go to the points and statistics calculations. You might consider the high stats and attack power that goes into the Disgaea series to be a "hardcore" thing, but it is also a NIS standard.

3, what do you think Magichange in Disgaea 3 was? Or the fact that it had an actual post-game session? Or the new modes you can get through DLC, or even Class World, which let you increase statistics themselves? Or do you not know that multiplayer was already done in the PSP ports of Disgaea 1 and 2? Chances are, yes, Disgaea 4 will have a new addition to the gameplay mechanics, but if you haven't noticed the new additions over the series, then you might be looking for something completely different than the series would really offer.

Still totally sad that their profits are way down-- I don't expect that they'll go under, as even 2.5% still means that they're making a profit, albet a very small one.

I completely intend on getting Badman 2, though. Not too sure on Sakura Wars, but if they bring over Classic Dungeon and Absolute Hero Modding Project, they're both going to be immediate buys.

Also, Disgaea Infinite, but that's just a given.

Though something I've heard at least is that part of this loss came from Last Rebellion-- their attempt at PS3 3D wasn't all that hot, from what I could tell, and the game itself lacked NIS's individual flair and style that tends to set it apart visually from other games (the person I heard about this from noted the game looked very generic). But... I guess that isn't all that surprising. Something tells me that NIS isn't all that good at 3D modeling. After so much time working with sprites and keeping 3D to backrounds and maps, you can't expect them to be able to capture their feeling with 3D character models, huh?

Something tells me though that I might still end up getting the game, especially with this news.

I may need to get a PSN card and obtain Braid.

Totally love the fact that they finally (re)released the Disgaea 2 DLC! And Plenair being free too, like it was originally in Japan!

I did notice a couple things though. While nothing is glitchy of the three DLC I got (Sapphire, Plenair, and Almaz), there is absolutely no voice work for any of them. A bit sad, but they work. :(

Also noticed that Zetta, a character you can unlock in the game that's great for Magichanging Grinding, had his first iteration of Zetta Beam altered. I used to be able to hit all monsters in Cave of Ordeals 4 (a 2x8 row of them), but now it's smaller, so one monster in a corner gets away scot free.

The longer secondary Zetta Beam works as it did, though. Maybe they balanced some skills as a patch?

Cool updates, might get MGS so I can actually try the series for once.

I'm kinda sad though that the fixed Disgaea 2 DLC still isn't out. It's been three weeks NIS-- it can't be that hard, can it?

Something to note about this week's update as well is that they've removed the Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days DLC that was released last week due to bugs and errors.

Wonder when they'll rerelease them.