Let's Play Disgaea because the Hydra can't.

^There is. Anything less than "skilled" sucks.

Laharl probably made a smart move keeping Etna as his vassal after everything that's happened. She may have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, but she's cunning as a fox. Even if she isn't trustworthy, she is at least effective at what she does.

Gah, sorry people for not updating. I've progressed a few chapters ahead in the meantime, so I'll try to catch you all up on what's happened.

We start off with a text scroll- it's a rather formal letter from Laharl to the rest of the netherworld, where he's apparently 'concerned about the Netherworld'. He proposes a formal challenge to decide the Overlord; he'll travel to the Heart of Darkness, holding the official Deed. If anyone manages to take it from them, they get to be Overlord; if he gets to his destination unimpeded, then he gets the title. He encourages all ambitious demons to participate.

We cut to the castle, where Laharl brags about his penmanship. Flonne agrees, but notes that the listed day of the tournament is the same day it was sent out by prinnies; today. Laharl assumes the demons looking for the position are already in ambush mode, and Etna innocuously asks if the offer's open to 'anyone'...

Laharl asks if she's an idiot, and reminds her that there is no such thing as an 'Official Deed'. He just got sick of everyone trying to kill him and get his title, and figured he may as well get them all in one spot for easy disposal; after he defeats them all, he'll the undisputed Overlord.

Episode 6 - Laharl's Challenge

Walking through the castle, notably, there are none of the regular vassals around. Everyone who provides a specific function is there, but the flavor NP Cs are all gone.

Laharl brings this up to the Portal Keeper, who tells him not to worry. They're just waiting to ambush him at Blair Forest, is all. Laharl curses their idiocy, and we head to the first part of this level, Calamity Woods.

Laharl gets Flonne's attention, and muses to her that he DID encourage everyone to participate, but... [1] this is a bit much- we've got a crowd of -damn, I'd call it 50?- enemies inhabiting most of the map, leaving about five squares of movement around for us. Flonne notes that the more the merrier, and Etna notes she's not great with sayings. Laharl retorts Etna's not good with them either, and there's barely room to walk what for enemies. Etna shrugs and says they'll have to take them on one by one, a prospect Laharl's notably exasperated by. He wonders what could possibly be next.

This stage was... interesting. Luckily we have a nice bottleneck to separate the main party from the mob, and I set Laharl there to stand against the flood. Using Wind Slash (which ignores the first two enemies in front of me and hits the next three), I weed out the middle while my troupe of casters do their thing. I'm sure there were some different enemies than usual in there, but I didn't get much of a chance to notice.

After most were dead, I moved in Amaterasu and Kord to clean up, then move on to the next one, the Ritual Site.

Here we meet a chick who resembles the female fighters. She talks in Olde Englishe, and intends to challenge Lord Laharl. Etna warns him that she looks more serious than the last batch, and Flonne says its exciting, as she's obviously not a usual swordswoman.

She identifies herself as Sardia the Demonslayer, whose blade has stricken down more than 2000 demons. Maybe. It'll also (possible) shatter the earth when she swings it. When Laharl demands she be decisive, she just asks him what he thinks, which frustrates him enough to threaten to hurt her until she "moans in pain"; Etna corrects him on his threat, and we move to the actual fight.

Here, she is our enemy... our ONLY enemy, as there's nothing else on screen. Of course, to make up for that, she's ridiculously overleveled at 24. Not much to this one, just surround her on all sides and wail away until she dies, though she uses Sword Specials enough to be annoying.

Next, the Witche's Den, where we find... Prinnies? Laharl demands to know what they're doing here. They shrug and figure they may as well give it a shot of their own; Etna goes berserk at this, claiming they're not allowed to pull off a Coup D'etat without her, since she's the only one allowed to kill him. Flonne notes that she probably shouldn't say that right in front of Laharl, but he doesn't seem to care.

Anyway, the prinny admits that a head-on attack would be suicide. Laharl figures that means they have a plan; they confirm this, and start to enact their plan; a line of prinnies snap to position on a diamond drawn in the ground, and...

...they challenge us to Baseball.

There's even a Play Ball sound effect.

Laharl is not amused.

In any case, describing how this actual battle went... uhm... prinnies died. Being made of explodium doesn't help, I presume; I even brought out my own prinnies (not having been used in a while) to add to the boomhappiness.

On to the Writhing Shadow. We start with a massive lizard appearing out of nowhere and asking if Laharl is Krichevskoy's son. Laharl demands to know his name; he's apparently the Overlord of an alternate Netherworld. Alternate universes? Hunh.

Anyway, he apparently tried to take over the Netherworld before, but was stopped by Krichevskoy. He intends to claim it, now that his father's gone, and it'll be one stepping stone on his way to being "Supreme Overlord". He claims that his massive shape is only a fraction of his true power, but Laharl quips that he could only see a fraction of him anyway. Etna adds in that he's too big, and the Overlord decides to reduce his size and crush them anyway...

...and suddenly, he's about ten of himself, small and fiery. He calls this the famous Doppelganger spell and taunts them. Laharl just kind of shrugs, but Flonne adds in that by splitting into 10, his Love is split across 10 as well, and they can't possibly lose to something like that. Etna notes that she's enjoying this a little too much, and she agrees.

We enter the battle and -hoshithoshitfartoostrongfartoostrong- ...uh yeah, he wins.

Laharl yells at Flonne, and she fines this curious since heroes are always supposed to win. Etna chimes in that that's probably because they're demons, not heroes, and Alternate-Universe Overlord there claims that no matter how many of them there were, they'd still win. He assumed Laharl, as Krichevskoy's son, would be stronger, but he doesn't really care and is about to release the coup de gras when...

All of the random Vassals from the castle show up to save your hide. They're actually doing something?! In any case, they deliver a pretty awesome "you shall not pass" speech (in honor of the Late King), and tell Laharl to take it easy because they'll handle this one. They claim that they were waiting to help him out, but Etna calls them out on it- they deny it, though even Flonne recognizes that they're lying.

Laharl complains he has all the bad luck with vassals, though they complain that they're there for him in his time of need, aren't they? The Alternate Overlord complains about being ignored, and decides to destroy them all- the vassals tell him not to underestimate them, and dedicate their victory to Krichevskoy.

In the actual battle, I send out Laharl but keep to the back, as told. The vassals, hugely overleveled as they are, proceed to WRECK the Overlord.

After the battle, they say that they'll head back to the castle now, and to take care. Etna points out the obvious in that they're really quite strong, and Flonne compares it to a falcon hiding their talons. Laharl just wishes they would start showing their talons when working for him.

Onto Nightcrawlers, now. We start with... the Power Rangers?!

Uh... yeah... well, the Red Ranger comes out of nowhere and claims to have been waiting for them. The Blue Ranger and Yellow Ranger also appear, and they introduce themselves as the Prism Rangers. Laharl begs the universe to let him fight someone NORMAL, but Flonne is smitten. She wants the three of them to do their own poses, but first wants to know why the Prism Rangers are made up of only three colors.

The reason? They don't have any friends. Apparently because heroes are a Lonely Existence, though Etna figures there's another reason. Laharl wonders why they want the title of Overlord, and they explain it's because an Overlord would have a ton of friends- then they'd have a full set of rangers.

They start to transform, but Etna guns down Yellow and Blue in the middle of the sequence. Red yells at them, calling them Demons, which they confirm that yes, they are. Apparently Red forgot about that, and Laharl wonders why they didn't first transform then come out. Flonne argues it's because Heroes of Justice ALWAYS transform in front of the villain- Etna wonders which side she's on.

Red swears to defeat them, using the demons he contracted. Laharl points out that making a deal with demons isn't exactly heroic, but Red hastily justifies it before claiming that Blue and Yellow's deaths have awakened a passion in his soul... despite Etna admitting she didn't aim for a fatal shot, so they should be okay.

This stage in particular? ANNOYING AS ALL HELL. The entire area is covered in a Warp geo effect, which randomizes everyone's positions each turn. The Hobbit enemies have an ability that inflicts the Sleep status effect, making that character entirely useless unless you cure them. Since all my characters are randomized each turn and I can't make a plan, this gets very old, very fast. Especially since all the characters able to heal status are fragile and were quickly killed.

Aside from that, the enemies aren't very special- Even the Red Prism Ranger barely put up a fight, just a regular enemy with a bit more HP. Still, between the status and the warping, most of my team was killed and I won only by a hair's breadth.

Finally at the Heart of Darkness, the destination noted on the announcement. Flonne notices that nobody's here, which means Laharl is- Oh wait, Mid Boss is here.

He calls Laharl out on thinking he could be the Overlord without settling things with him, though Laharl complains that he DID- twice! Mid Boss claims he wasn't serious previously, and now he can show off his true power attained by training while wearing impossibly heavy boxers.

The stage starts, and we begin surrounded by the obnoxious Hobbits that have an ability that can put us to sleep. At the other end of the stage is Mid Boss, and two gargoyle-type enemies. I wipe out the imps as quickly as I can, with Lute and Etna using Espoir as much as they can; I manage to wipe them out reasonably quickly using my mages and Laharl.

The Gargoyles have suprisingly little HP, and they die fairly fast. Mid Boss himself has changed little from his last incarnation, and his attacks barely scratch my melee users. He goes down without much of a fight when I gang up on him.

He blames stomach cramps for his defeat, and runs off to use a bathroom, yelling that he spared his opponents. Etna notes that his excuses are getting more and more pathetic, and Flonne notes that that seems to be that.

Laharl is ecstatic and starts chanting 'Overlord!' loudly. Etna seems unable to believe Laharl is the leader of the Netherworld now, while Flonne seems to be a bit happy too; she says that while Laharl might pretend to be evil, he can be cute now and then too. Etna says it's because he's just a kid, and points out that she just, as an Angel, helped a demon become Overlord- not something very angelic.

We cut to Celestia where Vol-I-am-not-a-villain-canus calls for Lamington. The Seraph complains he makes a commotion every time he comes to visit, and asks what he wants- Volcanus comes to deliver the news that Laharl has been crowned Overlord, and trainee Flonne helped. Lamington seems unsurprised, but Volcanus hammers on to say this is treason. The Seraph agrees, and Volcanus demands to know what he plans to do, and he responds that he needs to think about it. The archangel says that they don't have time to think on it, and he'll handle the situation himself, rushing out before the Seraph can say anything. Lamington just sighs.

Meanwhile, Flonne is freaking out. She fears she'll be dismissed for this if the Seraph hears, and Etna says that she should just quit now and become a demon. Flonne yells "NOOO!!! and prays for Lamington's guidance.

We end with Laharl still chanting.

Episode 5 - Laharl's Challenge END

No stat recap today- I've actually finished past this, and I'll finish the writeup soon.

Laharl's entire entourage seems to be made of backstabbers. It's a miracle his vassals haven't killed each other yet. Also, it's a shame the bonus Prinny commentary in the DS version isn't unlocked until you've actually beaten the game because it tends to be very funny.

Vulcanus:"...Still, this demon den is so filthy...it reeks of evil."

Prinny:"So do you, dood."

edited 30th Oct '10 5:10:45 PM by Fluid

If I remember correctly, you don't need to beat the game to get the Prinny Commentary - you just have to receive an ending, even a Non-Standard Game Over will do.

^ That's right. The fastest way to get it, I believe, is to lose your first fight with Mid-Boss (though any fight with him will do), prompting a Bad Ending.

Any fight with Mid-Boss will do, but the first one is a pain in the ass because he's got that Archer and Mage standing on those Enemy Boost x3 Geo Panels.

Meh, I've heard that you can do that, though I opted not to. Something to keep in mind however, though.

In any case, sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been participating in Na No Wri Mo while simultaneously prepping two different submissions to literary journals (one of which I still haven't finished writing...) so I haven't had much time to log my progress. Suffice it to say, it'll come the moment I have time to get the words down.