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[Prospero]

Time spent on both games so far for me:

Disgaea: 45 hours and counting
D2X: oh, who the hell knows--it's got to be 250+ hours by now

Well, let's see. D2X has a pretty simple way to run on the treadmill--click, click, click, slide mouse, click, click, click, click, level up. Whereas Disgaea's treadmill is more sophisticated: X, X, X, X, triangle, X, X, triangle, level up. Sometimes you press the square button to check your stats, or the circle button whenever you want to exploit the game's mechanic. That's nice.

So Disgaea has a veneer of intellectual complexity to cover up its brutally addictive qualities (comparatively, D2X has almost no real "game mechanic"), and since the game is supposedly rare, I get to feel hardcore when I play it. On the other hand, D2X, though simplistic, is just so perfect and pure. It's as pure as a wide-eyed orphan girl raised in a nunnery, one who goes on in adult life to make a career out of selling the purest crack cocaine.

So even though I'll probably spend ten hours with Disgaea this weekend, I've got to give the nod to D2X on this one.

 

[Slo]

Next compare Disgaea to NBA LIVE 1994.

 

[LittleTokyo]

It's as pure an wide-eyed orphan girl raised in a nunnery, one who goes on in adult life to make a career out of selling the purest crack cocaine.

I enjoyed reading this sentence.

 

[Prospero]

Next compare Disgaea to NBA LIVE 1994.

Does NBA Live 1994 have an element of endless and addictive levelling-up that I don't know about? That would be ace!

I enjoyed reading this sentence.

Thanks--it's now even better without its grammatical error.

 

[Ashitaka]

Diablo 2 has the added bonus of carpal tunnel setting in after about 2 hours of play for me. I just couldn't sustain a game of Diablo like I can of Disgaea. So while both are certainly treadmill-like, I'm going to vote Disgaea, cause it doesn't hurt me to play it.

 

[emerge]

Look no further than googleads for the best and cheapest treadmills. That said, my vote goes to D2X if only for the fact that I've probably spent more than 1,5k hrs on that game. Good value for money I might add.

 

[Brandon F]

Play Fire Emblem!!

 

[WasabiKing]

Disgaea's not that rare, anyway. They're going to reprint the game, and I found a ton of them at Fry's.

 

[Prospero]

Play Fire Emblem!!

Does Fire Emblem GBA have addictive levelling? Because an XP treadmill that I could carry around in my pocket would ruin my life.

 

[DDayton]

Pfft.... those are -amateur- XP leveling games.

You want to level up like the pros.... then you play Progress Quest.

 

[Brandon F]

Not really...I mean not at all in the same sense as Disgaea or DIIX. You level your personal army up, but the focus isn't on keeping that hamster rolling. It's pretty unique though, a strategy RPG that almost forces you to de-condition yourself from cradling your heroes as if they were your own offspring. They die, this is war...let it slide. Took me a LONG while to let that concept sit and breath in my skull. I do think it's an even better game for this though.

FFTA may be up your alley for portable grinding. It's not a very intense SRPG, but the sheer amount of customization and upgrade options is pretty swank. I put in over 70 hours of near pure leveling. Addictive it was.

 

[Ristamar]

Next compare Disgaea to NBA LIVE 1994.

I'd love to see this, as well, considering '95 was the first year of the franchise.

 

[Prospero]

FFTA may be up your alley for portable grinding.

FFTA didn't do it for me--I put in 20 hours and then stopped. I think it's because those hundreds of hours of D2X helped me build up a tolerance.

I do believe I'll try this Fire Emblem--I'm on a real SRPG kick lately.

 

[Fifty]

Disgaea's not that rare, anyway. They're going to reprint the game, and I found a ton of them at Fry's.

They just did the last reprint of it. You're right that it's not that rare, but, from what Atlus says, this is the last of Disgaea.

 

[Slo]

I'd love to see this, as well, considering '95 was the first year of the franchise.

Eh, so I got it wrong. It must have been 95 that I spent most of the summer playing Live on my SNES. :\

 

[adrockthekid]

Yessss, Fire Emblem is the way to go for portable SRPGs. It's awesome, especially when you get your Lord upgrades.

As for the treadmill question, I'd have to give it to D2X. Disgaea, while fucking brilliant, doesn't have the A) replay, B) multiplayer, or C) continual new powers that D2X has. I just couldn't bring myself to keep going after I beat Disgaea at level 50 or so (after one transmigration). Although the end boss was a total assknocker at the power level I was at.

 

[Ristamar]

Eh, so I got it wrong. It must have been 95 that I spent most of the summer playing Live on my SNES. :\

Just razzin' ya. To be fair, it did come out in November 1994. Great game. Snagged it for Christmas along with Final Fantasy III and Super Return of the Jedi.

 

[Prospero]

I just couldn't bring myself to keep going after I beat Disgaea at level 50 or so (after one transmigration). Although the end boss was a total assknocker at the power level I was at.

I just beat the game yesterday and I'm inclined to agree. (Though I didn't have any trouble with the boss--I quickly caught on to how to exploit the AI, and my Laharl was so overleveled that he was doing 3,000-4,000 damage with each attack). It doesn't look like the gameplay changes in any significant way once you get to insanely high levels, other than the amount of damage you do. I can see going back to play the game again with the New Game + option, but not trying to beat the side stories or anything--fifty hours of Disgaea is quite enough.

 

[chespace]

been playing disgaea myself, although i've only just started (episode 2, around level 11 or so). i'm finally starting to understand the geo-panels system and have discovered the wonderful world of ITEMS. anyway, what are all these game "exploits" you guys have been talking about?

 

[MetatronM]

been playing disgaea myself, although i've only just started (episode 2, around level 11 or so). i'm finally starting to understand the geo-panels system and have discovered the wonderful world of ITEMS. anyway, what are all these game "exploits" you guys have been talking about?

Let's put it this way. The level cap is 9999. Use your imagination, and learn to use the game's systems to your advantage (transmigration is your friend).

 

[Prospero]

anyway, what are all these game "exploits" you guys have been talking about?

Disgaea has a really loose ruleset compared to most other SRPGs, and a savvy player will find ways to exploit the game, or abuse its rules in order to gain levels quickly. There are some stages where the layout of the enemies practically invites you to abuse the game to level up characters, but you can also take back moves in certain situations, and you can easily take advantage of the weak AI once you figure out how it thinks. Some people argue that the designers of the game intentionally made it exploitable--I don't believe that's always the case (again, the weak AI is too easy to take advantage of), but there are some levels where the object is not just to clear the stage, but to find a way to clear the stage in thirty seconds so that you can start power-levelling.

 

[Korranator]

Just a hint on "exploits". Statisticians are your best friends.

 

[chespace]

i'm basically way too early in the game, having only played for about 4.5 hours. don't know what transmigration is, don't know what "specialists" do in items or why i'm subduing them... haven't even really gotten any AI patterns yet. i haven't even officially started mission 2. i've just been getting the feel of things in the item worlds.

 

[Prospero]

You are probably too early in the game to worry about the item world yet--if I remember correctly, episode 3 requires a mandatory trip to the item world, but after that you could conceivably beat the game without entering the item world once (though it wouldn't be easy). On the other hand, any work you do in the item world will make the main game easier.

Short version of what specialists are--they power up items, and (most importantly) they can be transferred from one item to another or combined together. Different specialists power up different stats, or add status effects to the item. There's a tutorial in the game's Item World that explains everything, in a half-assed way. GameFAQs has a good FAQ on it as well.