The unexpected success of the first Disgaea quickly shot developer Nippon Ichi into the limelight for PS2 RPG developers. With a few additional strategy RPG titles released in North America (Makai Kingdom, Phantom Brave) and a handful of RPGs published (Atelier Iris), Nippon Ichi and their North American branch, NIS America, have been quickly carving their niche in the SRPG and RPG markets. But, Nippon Ichi has not been one to ignore the cries of their fans - thus, a follow up to the popular Disgaea has finally reach North America.

The story begins as the main hero, Adell, and his family attempt to perform a summoning ritual to call forth the demon Overlord Zenon. Instead of summoning Zenon, though, they manage to summon Rozalin, Zenon's daughter. Because of the summoning ritual, she's technically bound to Adell, who is on an ambitious quest to defeat Zenon, who has cursed everyone in his land to become demonic monsters. By "technically", I mean that she spends an awful lot of time trying to screw Adell over. In true Nippon Ichi fashion, the over-arcing story is pretty solid, but given to the player in small portions between main story battles, peppered with a lot of great humor to keep things from getting too serious.

While the game does have a certain path to the gameplay, be certain that at the core is a solid turn-based affair where both sides get their own turn to play out actions. As with the previous title, you enter the battlefield through the Base Panel, selecting from your team of characters and issuing commands, ranging from move to standard attack to items. Each character can also use special attacks that are learned as the character gains levels. Through use, these specials, which can be anything from basic spells of different types, to super-violent melee attacks, gain level making them more powerful or have a wider range, depending on the type.

Between each story based level, you'll often be treated to an event that progresses the story or just sets up the next scenario. At the end of the battle, you can return to Holt Village to buy equipment, weapons or items, heal up your allies at the hospital or visit the Item World or Dark Assembly. At a certain point, you'll also be able to get a Subpoena from the Post Officer, which can be entered in the Item World (more on the Item World later). When you're ready to go back to the story, talk to the Dimension Guide.

As combat plays out, you'll move your team and choose attacks. When you want to let your characters attack, chose the Execute option from the menu. You could use this after setting up one character, but it's to your benefit to move multiple characters into combat, so you can ring up damage combos, or even initiate a move where multiple team members attack the same enemy. The more combos you pull off, the more points you earn in the stage, which will net you more rewards at the end. Once your team's turn is over, the enemies will get their own round to attack. Also available in combat is the option to lift nearby enemies or allies and toss them in any of the four cardinal directions. This can be a useful tool in getting to certain areas faster.

Though you start with a handful of basic classes available, you'll manage to unlock two tons of classes, ranging from different magic types, monsters and specialized melee classes. To create new characters, though, you will have to go to the Dark Assembly and spend Mana earned by killing enemies to create the new character. These characters are considered Students to the person who spent the Mana, bestowing bonuses when they are in battle together. First and foremost, the Student's Master can use the Student's spells and learn them if they use them enough. As you progress through the game, you'll find more than enough options open up at the Dark Assembly, a demonic congress that you have to do some "maneuvering" to get the most out of. If you are successful, you can raise the quality of items that can be purchased, or increase the level of your enemies. You can also reincarnate your characters, starting them over at level 1 in a new job, with much better stats and some of the skills they've learned already.

Returning from the first game is one of the more addicting elements, at least for me - the geopanels. On each stage are often colored squares, which gain properties from geopanels (colored crystal blocks), ranging from experience bonus to ally damage to invincibility. These panels can make a battle harder or vastly easier. But, if you destroy one of the geopanels, it will cause all the similar colored tiles to change to it's color, causing damage to anyone standing on them. It won't be too long before you'll be trying to find ways to destroy multiple geopanels in large combos to rack up serious points for end-of-level rewards.

Also returning is the Item World, a completely addicting time sink where the player enters and item or piece of equipment, where they're thrown into a series of random dungeons. Inside the dungeons are specialists that once defeated can be used to boost certain aspects of that item/weapon or can be transferred to another item. If you are successful in surviving a trip into the Item World, the object you were in gains levels and becomes exponentially more powerful.

Graphically, Disgaea 2 shares the wonderful style present in the previous game. The character designs are wonderful and show a unique sense of style. Levels exhibit a fine level of design, especially considering the necessarily blocky aspect of the grid-based gameplay. Probably one of the nicer aspects of the visual presentation are the extremely detailed and colorful texture maps present throughout the game. With the extensive layer of textures, you're not immediately drawn to the fact that the game is grid-based. The character sprites are noticeably higher detailed and have some good animation. Though, compared to the likes of Atelier Iris, the sprites are still a bit pixelated. This really isn't much of an issue, especially during combat where you're going to have more than enough on screen to keep your attention.

The audio package is likewise solid, featuring charming yet varied music, a nice range of sound effects and an English dub that delivers the well translated script excellently. There's a lot of humor and charm in the story and the voice cast does a fine job at nailing it. Yeah, there's the occasional line that feels a little off, but I have to think that it's intentional as a joke on the clichés of most RPGs.

Outside of a few minor nitpicky comments, there really isn't much that I could say that could be improved on this title. If anything can be held against Disgaea 2, it would that it's certainly not for the average gamer. Casual gamers will probably not get the same amount of time and joy out of this title that strategy RPG fans will. Will this title may convert some new fans, it won't be for everyone.

Disgaea 2 is certainly a game that stat whores will waste hours on. You can get to ridiculous levels and do attacks that would make Final Fantasy lose it's lunch. Is Disgaea 2 is must buy? Let's not kid ourselves - you probably already have a copy or are planning to own one. If you don't already have money set aside or may be considering taking a dip into the genre, this certainly is a great starting point. The gameplay is addicting and you may find you've invested a lot of time in the game before you realize that you have other unfinished games to play.

- - Kinderfeld