The Netherworld... A lawless world filled with vicious monsters. The number of Netherworlds has expanded with the rise of demons powerful enough to rule such worlds... the Overlords. Now, another world is about to fall prey to such darkness. —Opening Monologue
Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is the second game in the Turn-Based Strategy series Disgaea, and was released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. It was later ported to the PlayStation Portable as Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days.The game stars Adell, the only person unaffected by a devious curse that has transformed all of the human inhabitants of his home village into heartless demons. The source of the curse is Overlord Zenon, a enigmatic figure who became known as the God of All Overlords after he slew one hundred Overlords in a single battle. Adell's solution to the problem is simple: get his mother to magically summon Overlord Zenon to the village and then pound him into submission.Unfortunately the summoning ritual ends up conjuring Rozalin, Zenon's Spoiled Sweet daughter. Having accidentally kidnapped the only daughter of the most powerful Overlord in existence, it's a race for Adell to return Rozalin to Zenon before he tears the world apart looking for her. It's a shame that Rozalin is so sheltered that she has no idea where her father actually lives. Meanwhile, Etna has decided to strike out on her own and is gunning for the title of God of All Overlords that Zenon possesses.Joining Adell are his two younger siblings, Taro and Hanako; Tink, Rozalin's childhood friend who has been Baleful Polymorphed into a frog; and Yukimaru, a ninja girl who seeks revenge against Overlord Zenon for wiping out her clan, zam.
This game provides examples of:
Adorably Precocious Child: Taro. The Skulls have elements of this, but lack a clear-cut personality.
Another Side, Another Story: Much like Etna Mode in the handheld ports of the first Disgaea and the downloadable Raspberyl chapters in Disgaea 3, Axel gets his own story.
While Etna Mode was an Alternate Universe, Axel's Dark Hero Days actually tell of what he did just before the plot. (In the post-game, the people who joined him can join Adell)
Back from the Dead: Zenon found a way to resurrect himself by converting a population's humanity into his life force. Those affected became demonic, but he refused to call them demons. "Altered Humans."
In a more meta-example, the level 1900 Zenon reincarnating as a noncombative young girl, who is indeed level 1 and completely clueless about battle when the story starts.
Badass Normal: Adell. Subverted: he only thinks he's a human, which brings up the question of how much of his power stems from his heritage rather than his training.
An area-wide version of this forms the premise for the story. In the game, the Dark Sun in the Dark World sometimes has the ability to turn a character into a monster.
Tink is a victim of this, being turned into a demonic frog. In the good ending, he is eventually returned to normal as a bishonen butler.
Batman Gambit: Fake Zenon chose to sponsor a fake competition to erase all competitors for the throne. Rozalin attending the competition in Adell's escort caused it all to backfire to the point where he actually LOST to the intended target, Etna.
Spoofed; Etna shows up just in time to save your ass, which pisses her off because she hates this trope so much.
Played straight in the manga where Etna deflects an incoming beam from a monster followed up by Laharl and Flonne bursting into the scene with their signature attacks.
Real Zenon was once one, until she tired of the endless bloodshed.
Bonus Level Of Hell: The Land of Carnage, which gives the enemies a 2100+% boost in power. All of the enemy characters have a level boost of 2100% base plus two hundred, plus all their stats are doubled on top of that. Have fun.
Bonus Boss: Laharl, Etna, Flonne, and a bunch of other Nippon Ichi characters. The PSP remake adds more, for a total of twenty-six.
Brick Joke: In Axel Mode, one of his baby brothers, Axeleration, is a Genre Savvy little know-it-all who loves sharing his insights on the entertainment business. Axel is horrified that he doesn't "act like a proper child". In the last act, his other baby brother Axident, who's been cooing and crying all this time, abruptly complains that it's hard to act like a baby, and Axel praises him for staying in character for so long.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Adell is entirely capable of being intelligent, as he demonstrates with the Inevitable Tournament's ungodly complicated geopuzzle and his status as the group's Only Sane Man, but usually turns his brain off because solving everything by punching the crap out of it is generally easier — and more fun.
Tink, the lecherous frog. He even gets a subpoena from the Dark Court just for existing. Also note his ultimate attack-
"Goodbye Tink: Tink sacrifices himself, but nobody cares."
Axel gets it even worse.
Camp Gay: The Director, who calls Axel "Axel darling" and refers to him as "the man I fell in love with" in addition to an extremely gay-sounding voice.
Adell does things, or refuses to do things, based on whether they are or aren't "his style". Also, in case you didn't know yet, Rozalin is "Overlord Zenon's one and only daughter".
For the very short time we knew him/her, the real Overlord Zenon is a "being of solitude".
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: When you magichange in the remake, you only have 2 turns to wield the monster-weapon (3 if you pass the once-per-resurrection bill for the monster). If the computer magichanges enemy monsters, they keep them forever.
When the Prism Rangers appear in the 2nd game, they note that they can't let their guard down because of what happened last time (Etna shot 2/3 of them during their transformation sequence).
Etna also mentions at one point she knew of a demon lord that married a human Laharl's parents.
Flonne's final technique, Flonnezilla, is a reference to a gag in the first game.
"Main Hero B", the Angel that joins Axel is a guy. Proof? Any Dark Sun (or Rozalin) effect that affects males affects him. They do NOT affect Player Mook angels with the same sprite.
Cursed with Awesome: Zenon's curse. While the negative effects (global amnesia, lack of conscience, Zenon can cast Life Drain on you) are pretty bad, Hanako points out that the deal of getting to be a demon is pretty sweet for anyone born and raised under it. How sweet? Enough that she's a-ok with forgoing the chance to become human again for the opportunity to become the next Etna.
Dark World:...the...um....Dark World; as well as the Land of Carnage.
Defeat Equals Friendship: In several ways. Most of the story characters have to beaten, or at least, foiled first. Downloadble characters (save one) have to be roughed up, and other extra characters that you can get in the Updated Rerelease are initially Bonus Bosses. Further, you can capture monsters by tossing them into the Base Panel and whupping the tar out of them.
The game takes time to point out that Adell really isn't an Idiot Hero when he easily unravels the geo puzzle in the colosseum. The explanation given is that just because he prefers to rush in with his fists doesn't mean he's incapable of thinking it out when he needs to.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Aside from the traditional punching of ridiculously overpowered demons, Adell takes a page from Kyon's book and defeats the apeshit Dimension Lord/borderline Eldritch Abominationby frenching her. Granted, he nearly got a face full of lead for his effort, but it did work.
Dirty Coward/Fake Ultimate Hero: Axel runs away numerous times whenever he's getting his butt kicked. He also claims to be a famous "Dark Hero", but nobody really thinks of him as famous, except for the Director who's always following him around and probably has a homosexual crush on him.
It eventually gets revealed that the whole point of a Dark Hero is to be underhanded, sneaky, and repulsive: in other words, all the qualities that evil just loves. Though, judging from some of the other games, not toorepulsive.
Disc One Nuke: Pleinair. Being Level 100 and using her at Early game will solve till everyone catches up.
Disproportionate Retribution: The cause of the entire plot. Fake Zenon loses a fight to Real Zenon. As revenge, Fake Zenon initiates an incredibly complicated plan that involves tracking down and kidnapping the innocent reincarnation of Real Zenon, then raising her as an air-headed, pompous fool. It's so crazy that it actually works, at least until Adell starts pulling the thread.
Also, if you win the first fight against Laharl, he destroys the entire world.
You old men are all the same. No stamina. And now us girls have to find our own way to amuse ourselves.
Dumb Muscle: Subverted with Adell. Well, sometimes, anyway.
Duel Boss: Rozalin's super powered evil side vs Laharl, also serves as the Worf Effect as he is a base level of 1200.
Eldritch Abomination: The true Overlord Zenon was about to become this due to reaching the upper levels of demonic power. Then things got complicated...
Empty Promise: Adell's parents promised to come back from fighting the Big Bad. The result? Their dejected son will never break a promise because of it. Ever.
Exact Words: Rozalin is bound to Adell by the strict terms of a summoning ritual.
Also, the terms of the ritual was to summon Zenon. They thought it screwed up and summoned "his daughter" instead. Noooo....it did exactly what it was supposed to.
Fallen Princess: Rozalin. She goes from living in a huge mansion being attended to by hundreds of servants to essentially being stuck in the Netherworld version of a small Kansas town running around in the muck.
Fanservice: The Nekomatas and Succubus are back and the Magic Knight got a breast size boost. Then we have the new human classes Kunoichi and Beast Tamer. If you want to go there, Flora Beasts as well.
Fantastic Racism: Most "true" demons refer to Veldime inhabitants as "Altered Humans."
Fetish: When summoning Saphire as DLC in the PSP release, it's noted that since Adell summoned two princesses, he must have a thing for them.
The Dog Bites Back: For treating them like crap, killing them whenever she's bored or angry, and for being a bitch in general, the prinnies waste no time in betraying Etna once a botched summoning turned her into level 1. Everyone else is surprised at how hard the prinnies are working just so they don't have to work for Etna again.
Foreshadowing: When you first meet the Prism Rangers, Prism Red says that his demon detector says that Adell is a demon. Everyone says that it must be broken. It isn't.
A subtler one is the fact that Adell's ears are covered by his hair, making it impossible for the player to tell if he's human or demon. It did make it easy for the player to initially believe that Adell was the only human left on Veldime.
Although, Word Of God states that he has rounded ears due to a genetic deformity.
There's another one halfway through the game where Rozalin says "...do you suppose he (The real Zenon) may have been tricked by the faker and is imprisoned somewhere...?"
At one point, Hanako asks Rozalin if she could one day become as strong as Etna. Rozalin tells her she could become even stronger. Cue Dark Hero Days, which features Demon Lord Hanako, widely considered to be the best unit in the game.
Of course, as mentioned under Exact Words: Mom cast a spell to summon Overlord Zenon. They got Rozalin.
Forgot I Could Fly: Subverted. Rozalin can fly, but not for long enough to help when she falls off a cliff.
Freak Magnet: Adell, who lampshades it. Several times.
Funny Background Event: While Rozalin discusses whether or not to let Adell die in Chapter 3, Adell is busy having a fight on-screen.
Also, your crimes and penalties actually ties into the ending you get into the game. It makes sense, given that the worse ending implies that the player played Adell as committing crimes and killing allies left and right. Whereas the Good End actually reflects on how the player cared about your allies.
Rozalin and Adell start out hating each other, and this is reflected by the fact that as the game begins they only have a 1% chance of engaging in a Team Attack together. As the story progresses and they grow closer, this slowly climbs to 99%. If you get DLC Almaz and Sapphire for Dark Hero Days, they too have a 99% chance of team attacking, due to them being married by the end of Disgaea 3.
Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Adell does this to Rozalin after she totally wigs out in a battle against Laharl and starts to attack her teammates. This is better when you realize that she reverted back to Overlord Zenon, meaning that Adell just Bright Slapped the God of all Overlords. And it worked.
Got Me Doing It: "Why is everyone speaking like her now, zam?"
"Beauty Qu- er...Demon Lord Etna?! From Zenon, of all people.
Gratuitous English: In the Prism Rangers bonus battle, Prism Orange parodies this concept by speaking entirely in Engrish. In the original Japanese version, he spoke like a stereotypical foreign Japanophile.
As well as in White Tiger, Axel's theme.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Adell is proficient in hand-to-hand combat, while Rozalin is skilled with guns.
Heel Face Turn: Etna, though she didn't have much of a choice.
He-Man Woman Hater: Adell really doesn't like girls, though he eventually makes an exception for Rozalin.
Heroes Prefer Swords: Mostly averted by Adell, who fights with his fists because to do otherwise is "just not his style". You can hand him a sword anyways. Barring slower weapon rank growth, he does fine with them.
Honor Before Reason: Adell will protect anyone and everyone he makes a promise to, no matter what it takes. His shameless sense of honor also works as an in-game combat bonus: his attacks get stronger against enemies at a higher level than him.
Yukimaru frequently attempts seppuku whenever she thinks she failed her mission. She gets over it.
Partially subverted by the New Game Plus system and ability to Level Grind — you can win these fights, if you spend weeks preparing for them, and doing so in Disgaea 2 gets you a Non-Standard Game Over.
Hostile Show Takeover: After playing through the game a bit, various secondary characters will send proposals to the Dark Assembly to become the Main Character. If the proposal is passed — and there's usually a very good chance of it happening — a Non-Standard Game Over is triggered (You get a cool item if you defeat it).
Hot Blooded: Quite a few characters, but Adell especially. He can even set enemies on fire through sheer hot-bloodedness.
Axel deserves specific mention, as well. Manages to roast his director with an explosion caused by his hotbloodedness, plus he's voiced by one of most hotblooded JP VAs around.
Hot Mom: Adell's mom. Just try to ignore that little third-eye thing.
If you include some sketches from Harada and the manga Rozalin's Mom and Serion, Adell's real mom, in her true form qualify.
Idol Singer: Axel has his own rock band — and film crew!
Immortality Begins at Twenty: Unlike the rest of the worlds in the series, demons native to Veldime mature like humans.
The Immune: Adell is the only human in the world who isn't affected by Zenon's curse because his parents are demons, and so is he; you obviously can't turn somebody into a demon when they already are one.
Insult Backfire: Any derogatory statement about Mom's lack of conscience will invariably be met with, "Damn straight, I don't — Zenon took it. Now either go kick his ass or shut your trap."
Interface Screw: The map during battle against fake!Zenon is oriented at a forty-five degree angle, compared to the rest of the game's maps (likely for the visual aesthetic), and your directional controls are altered to match.
Internet Backlash: The NA DLC release. Not only did it suffer from bugs, but NISA also decided to cut out Gig, Dark Eclair, and Miabelle due to technical issues. This did not sit well with most fans.
Knight Templar Big Brother: Don't mess with Adell's little brother Taro or little sister Hanako or he will kick your ass.
Same for Axel and his little bro. He will willingly give up fame and fortune to tear your ass apart if you threaten him.
Large Ham: Overlord Zenon in the dub. Both real and fake.
In the Japanese version as well, being voiced by Norio Wakamoto and all... The fake one, anyway.
Loads and Loads of Characters: The PSP version of Disgaea 2 is looking to beat Disgaea 3 in this aspect. Alongside the returning playable characters, the optional bosses that were originally not playable in the original in the PS2 version are now playable, many of whom became DLC in Disgaea 3. Additional bosses have been added including Mao, Raspberyl, and Mr. Champloo from Disgaea 3 as well as the Disgaea 3 version of Asagi, all of them playable. And if that wasn't enough, Disgaea 2 is also getting Downloadable Content.
Lost in Translation: The bill to fight Zetta is "Meet The Strongest Overlord." Zetta's self-declared title in Japanese pretty much means that, so it ended up summoning him.
No Fourth Wall: Rozalin asks Adell where his confidence comes from; is he descended from heroes? is he level 100,000,000?
Noble Demon: Axel might arguably be considered one, as a major motivation behind his actions is his sick mother and siblings.
Rozalin is just a snob at times; she honestly cares about Adell's family. As for Adell, well, as Etna puts it; they have one of those kinds of relationships.
For all her display, Etna does let Adell go when she beats him and it's a Non Standard Game Over if he beats her only because it drives the plot Off the Rails. If you're paying attention, you'll also notice that she takes the hit from Zenon's super blast in the ending in order to protect Hanako.
Now Buy The Merchandise: In Dark Hero Days, Aramis, Badman, and Mao all shill the Dark Council for Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! (And its sequel), and Disgaea 3 respectively. Amusingly, their petitions that you watch their commercials always have 100% approval and will pass even if you cheat to make the Council vote no. It's a great way to get items, though.
Obvious Beta: Dark Hero Days's DLC was released with so many crippling bugs and glitches that they had to take it down from PSN so they could fix them.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The story-relevant fight of Level 1000 Etna vs. Overlord Zenon happens completely offscreen.
Referenced a couple of times in the manga adaptation. In the second volume, upon hearing that Hanako is unable to cook any meat due to her family's income, Rozalin forces Tink to lend her money. In the fourth volume, Rozalin confesses to fake Zenon that the birthday cake he sent her for her birthday when she was six was too sweet and hasn't been fond of sweets ever since, which may have led to her preferring meat instead.
Redemption Demotion: When Etna first shows up, she is an extremely powerful boss-type character that's impossible to defeat on most first playthroughs. She reappears later on in the game, but is reduced to level 1 and given crappy equipment, and she forces herself into Adell's party to gain her levels back. Their initial exchange upon her return is rife with Lampshade Hanging. This can also be subverted using the New Game Plus feature which allows for your previous party members to rejoin at the level they were during your last playthrough, how does this affect your series well, if your Etna was at level 9999 and had all the best weapons and armor then she'll rejoin your group in that chapter at this level.
Fridge Brilliance: One female version of Overlord is "Dark Emperess".
Save the Princess: Subverted. Axel makes the assumption that Princess = Must Be Saved, even if said princess is with her "captor" willingly (Rozalin). The situation ended in comical pain.
Seppuku: Yukimaru is a little too eager to commit suicide after 1) your group defeats her and 2) the odds against surviving an encounter with the fake Overlord Zenon don't look good. Adell has to talk her out of it both times.
Serial Escalation: The original Disgaea 2 has a way of constantly making each challenge worse than the last. Starting from the first fight with Axel culminating in the Bonus Boss Baal, but every time each battle not only gets consistently harder, geo effects are played with, enemy equipment is pushed to its limits, and eventually stats are just ridiculously allocated on the enemies. It finally gets Up to Eleven when Pringer X is introduced on the port "Disgaea 2 Dark Hero Days" as a boss who is just overall ridiculously difficult, but even after winning the player is forced to refight 8 of him with maxed out stats in every category or the battle doesn't count in the dark record.
Stay with the Aliens: It's stated in the Good End that Hanako remained a demon so she could apprentice under Etna.
Sound Only Death: The Worst Ending has a post credits sound only epilogue where you can hear Hanako trying to reason with the now possessed Adell. It gets worse from there when in the Japanese audio you can hear Adell kill both Hanako and Taro, then eat them complete with the gory sound of there flesh being torn apart.
Stealth Insult: Axel Mode's Evil Pink specializes in this.
Step Into The Blinding Fight: The ultimate skill of the Succubus class is called 'Nightmare', and it involves surrounding the enemy with darkness and launch an unseen beatdown. Can be seen here.
The Big Damn Kiss: After 13 chapters of UST, Adell embraces Rozalin in the good ending to calm her "True Overlord Zenon" form. She turns back to normal from Adell's Cooldown Hug, and the following dialogue occurs:
Rozalin: *sob* Sh- Shut up... you're an enemy! I can't trust anyone...
Too Kinky to Torture: The angel who joins Axel in Axel Mode, who's only purpose for showing in the first place is to get hurt.
Because I loooove being hurt. <3
It seems he named himself "Main Hero B" just so that the demons would have an excuse to hurt him.
Tsundere: Adell's mom. One minute, she speaks cheerfully to her little children, and the next minute she's chewing out her husband for things said by the giant monstrous mole on his chest.
Rozalin although she skirts the line between major Tsundere and mild Yandere and just plain Spoiled Brat. The later games seem to make her the poster child for Tsundere in the Disgaea series (Or in Nippon Ichi games in general) with Hanako and Raspberyl both calling her out on it and even a database entry on the term in Disgaea Infinite that uses her as an example.
Underrated And Overleveled: Adell's younger siblings Taro and Hanako. Especially since they were visibly level 1 NPCs beforehand and their levels suddenly shot up when they join.
It makes more sense in Japanese. What she does is add "de gozaru" at the end of every sentence, which is an archaic way of speaking and often crops up with jidaigeki involving ninjas.
What Could Have Been: Disgaea 2 was originally going to star Laharl, Etna, and Flonne again, but according to Word Of God, they had felt that they had done everything that wanted to do with them and decided to create a whole new world with new characters and everything in order to bring in new people to the series.
Worth It: Axel says this in not so many words after attracting the vengeance of almost every overlord ever for the "Fake Zenon" stunt he pulled in the last chapter. One of the last images the game gives us is Axel riding off with dozens of fangirls and an expression that just screams, "So fricking worth it!"
Wrong Genre Savvy: Adell assumes that he'll be able to beat Zenon despite his low level because he's the only human in Veldime who hasn't been affected by Zenon's curse, and thus he must be the main hero character who triumphs against all odds. He's wrong in regards to why he's immune to the curse, but the confidence he gains from his Determinator attitude certainly contributes a lot to his eventual victory.
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