Nippon Ichi (Disgaea, Makai Kingdom, etc.)

For some reason, I am not amused.

I mean, female Celestial Hosts only really appear in one game. Their appearance in 2 and 4 is basically bonus content. So adding a male variant seems, well, kinda bleh to me. Like, the "default" class isn't even a regular recurring class yet, and they are already trying to milk variants?

I guess I kinda get why, with the implied Celestial involvement and all, but it still doesn't make me excited.

They looked ambiguously gendered enough as it was.

That too.

The whole thing about Main Guy B is that he passes as a dude despite using a female only class.

And despite having an entirely female voice in the dubs.

At any rate, at least this has the potential to flesh out Celestia's forces a bit more.

They'll need more than a male variant of their one class for that, but you raise an interesting point. Do you think we'll see more angelic units?

I hope for:
A: More angelic units
B: Gender swaps of all the units (Androids and Majin not withstanding)
C: Lamington as a named unit

Lamington is probably the only major Hour of Darkness character who hasn't made at least one guest appearance afterwards. At most, he is mentioned in passing.

Which is a shame, really.

I'd like to see Lamington again, even if it is only him chilling in Celestia, drinking tea and watching the flowers bloom.

Male androids and female majin would be pretty neat.

Hm... do you think we'll see the return of game-breaking majin?

For some reason, I doubt it.

At most, we might see the design again. (And I hope we do. I love the D1 Majins.)

I'd like it more if Androids and Majins remained counterparts of one another if they were to share an appearance. Let the former keep One Man Army while the latter gets an evility that boosts stats when there's only one opponent on the field, perhaps?^* That would be an X-Dimension stage waiting to happen, come to think of it.

edited 12th Feb '13 7:02:51 PM by Demonfly

This may be just me, but I was actually surprised to learn that Majins in D3 got Revival, as it seemed to make perfect sense for the Android, being a super advance machine and all (self-repairing, etc). I'd let the Android keep that one and let the Majin have something else.

I do like the idea of Majin having One Man Army and the Android having the inverse.

I would prefer Majin women because it doesn't seem fair that women would become superunits by being converted into machines when men are becoming superunits by EVOLVING INTO ABSOLUTE BEINGS WITH SUPER SAIYAN HAIR. I mean, I'm a huge fan of robot girls, but that would just irk me a bit.

Don't forget about the personalities thing which allows multiple evilities per unit type, guys.

Old Neptunia news that I missed. How? I wasn't paying attention until I noticed a wall paper that got me asking the right questions. Anyways, apparently, Neptunia V in Japan has another DLC character planned. Tekken-chan◊. Seriously, I am now wondering has Compile Heart made a name for themselves for turning game companies into Moe Anthropomorphism.

Depends on whether or not Neptunia is considered their flagship series at this point. Otherwise, probably not.

Except this one's a game rather than a game company.

Okay, found the official art of Tekkan-chan◊. And she needs new pants. But she's cute and has nice bling.

Hopefully this is relevant as another Nippon Ichi game, but my wife got me the Wii version of Phantom Brave, We Meet Again. I beat the PS 2 version a few years ago and I'm enjoying jumping back in to the relatively wide-open gameplay (no grid) as well as all of the fun exploits like Failure dungeons and ending your turn on top of the next enemy to force them to lose their next turn. One thing that did strike me was how little they did to adapt it to the Wii. This is a game that was practically begging for the "point at the screen to say where you want to go", but instead the Wiimote is turned into a clumsy wireless controller. Anyone else feel that way?

I haven't yet gone through the Another Marona scenario yet, due to my wife wanting to see the first iteration's cutscenes. She's insisting on the English voicing. It's... it's not as grating as I feared it would be.

...OK, Tekken Girl is adorable.

I remember playing Phantom Brave back in the day. I wasn't any good at it and didn't get very far, but I had fun.

edited 18th Feb '13 7:00:07 AM by Otherarrow

Another Marona was a lot of fun on its own, but it made me lose interest in the postgame. Suddenly my party was full of a bunch of named jackholes I didn't care about and couldn't get rid of and... well... in these hundreds-of-hours postgames, motivation can be a tenuous thing!

The Carona phantom is awesome, though.

edited 18th Feb '13 12:17:34 PM by Durazno

I tried playing Phantom Brave a couple months ago. I just couldn't get into it.

Phantom Brave is a bit of a different duck from the Disgaea games. The departure from the grid system means you get some pathfinding issues (exploitable in some cases, such as using several short movements on slippery worlds to move further, or jumping on top of enemies to trick them into doing nothing on their turn). The attacks being more freeform in their placement, as well as more truly 3-dimensional leads to some interesting quirks when it comes to area attacks. Making it possible to act multiple times in a turn is a bit hard to grasp too, especially since the algorithm for determining order is mildly impenetrable (taking out an enemy who's coming up sometimes results in the list being re-ordered but not always). Lastly, the lack of healing items and lack of inventory means it's much more important to have a good mix of Healers in the party.

Overall, to me, Phantom Brave is to Disgaea what playing with a motion-sensitive controller is to playing with a regular one. The experience was freer, but there was a part of me that really just wanted to fall back on the comfortable reduction of options.

Speaking of mysterious islands, new mechanics and all that other stuff, it seems that the item world is going to get a sizable overhaul soon enough.