It’s been well over a decade since I played Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories on the Playstation 2. I adored the game and would often bring the 600 page strategy guide with me to read on the schoolbus. So, after reviewing Disgaea 1: Complete, I decided to boot up the absolutely vintage PSP port of Disgaea 2, Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days.

 

When the opening cutscene began, a huge wave of nostalgia washed over me. Sinful Rose is absolutely my number one Disgaea theme song--they just don't make 'em like that anymore. While the opening sequence played out, I found myself quickly caught up in the early 2000's shonen of it all. I was excited to experience this fun story all over again. Then, about 30 minutes into the first chapter, I realized this was the game that moved me to establish my rule of playing Disgaea games strictly for the gameplay.

 

Gameplay in Disgaea 2 is largely the same grid-based combat, with a few new tricks that would become important ingredients in the Disgaea recipe. Now, Disgaea 2 didn’t just introduce jumping and tower attacks to the series--it brought something else that was pretty huge: unique hub locations. There are multiple unique locations you operate from at various points in the story. This rocked.

 

Disgaea 2 immediately feels more challenging than subsequent games as you progress the main campaign. This is because there are no convenient ways to power level until the post-game. There are a few techniques you can use on specific stages, but leveling is still slow. The main exploit for early leveling in the original version was fixed for Dark Hero Days so I didn’t get to cheese the story mode much during my play through.

 

Like always, the Item World will play a huge part in your journey to level 9999. An important part of efficiently leveling characters in Disgaea 2 is getting subpoenaed to appear in the Dark Court, in the Item World, to rack up felonies. Subpoenas are items with innocents called Bailiffs that replace experience-boosting Staticians entirely. The Bailiff's level on the innocents list indicates which floor in the Item World your hearing will be on. This concept is super on brand and really stood out to me.

 

Unlocking Cave of Ordeals to get started with post-game leveling was especially a pain in the ass for me this time around, dood. Since nobody in my party was a good level to fight the senators, I had to spam Item World runs and pray that every Mystery Room portal I came across lead to the Black Market. When I did find the Black Market, I could only buy a handful of gold bars and angel cake at a time. Then, even with a full inventory of bribes, I still had to reset a hand full of times because my bill was getting hit with more Nays than a barnyard.

 

My final thoughts on Disgaea 2: Afternoon of Darkness all point towards “just having to be there”. That, and the music rocks. Sinful Rose and White Tiger are two of the coolest songs in the series. The original game did release to very positive reviews and did add a lot to the core gameplay introduced in Hour of Darkness. At the time, it rocked.

 

I wouldn’t call this entry a classic, but I will acknowledge it was for what it brought to the Disgaea recipe. With that being said, I don’t think I’ll be making it to Baal this time, chat. Disgaea 2 can stay in the vault; there are just far better Disgaeas to sink 100+ hours into now.