Makai Kingdom
Disgaea is the one that started it all and has developed a cult following of gamers (myself included). The game featured an adventure through the Netherworld and focused on a band of hilarious demons with a fun and upbeat atmosphere. Phantom Brave soon followed suit and continued the great tradition started by NIS. A year later it’s time for Makai Kingdom to have its time in the spotlight and it feels like a combination of the two previous games.
Makai Kingdom takes place in the Netherworld and is ripe with demons, outrageous characters and yes, even Prinnies. The story focuses on bad ass freaking overlord Zetta as he tries to keep his realm from being destroyed. Unfortunately for the universe’s most powerful overlord things don’t go as planned and he fuses his soul with a sacred magical book. Naturally this is no way for a power guy like Zetta to live and while he’s the butt of all the other overlords jokes he has to get his binder in gear and recreate his world.
Standing in your way is a fantastic cast of demon lords that are all standout characters. It’s never quite clear which overlord wants to help Zetta and which wants to kill him since they all have their own agendas. They do assist Zetta with recreating some of his netherworld but without arms and legs he’s going to need some underlings to do all the hard work. That’s where you come in.
Gameplay:
The first thing you have to do in order to bring Zetta back to full power is to amass an army of playable characters. To do this you have to create them from scratch while fusing souls with items at your head quarters. See that rock over there? Walk up to it and create a fighter out of it. Maybe you want to make a witch out of a flower? Either way, you can do it and you’ll find more items to bring back home for a lot of variety and options. This plays out relatively similar to the concept from Phantom Brave, but its not as complex. The key here is to look for which items will give you the best attribute percentage and then use that to determine which class of character it’s best suited for.
Once you’ve got your horde of characters its time to enter the many dungeons of Makai Kingdom and level them up. The great thing about NIS games is that you can replay any stage as much as you want to power up your characters. This actually proves necessary more often than not as you create new allies when more classes open up for you. The flow of gameplay is episodic in nature and the story is told via a handful of dungeons at a time. Once you complete one overlord’s challenge you get to move on to the next and a new world will open up for you.
Not everything is completely linear though and there are some free dungeons to explore for items and such. As a character becomes more powerful they can also have Zetta create a stage for them to play, so there is plenty of variety here. To keep things from getting stale just about every stage also features a different landscape or enemy roster when you go back. So that means you can go through a stage like five different times and not have the same experience. Some levels also have characters that are holding keys that unlock even more of an area to keep the fight going longer. Continuing the battle is a good way to net more money, experience and items.
If you haven’t actually tried Phantom Brave, but did get around to trying out Disgaea then you’ll notice the lack of a movement grid that seems to be the standard for strategy RPGs. Makai Kingdom offers up a great degree of freedom in movement and attacking that really works well for the genre. Every character has a circle that they can move freely in depending on their range and the same is true for attacks. After playing with this style of movement I don’t think I could go back to the grid-based system very easily. It would just feel too restricting now.
Characters gain levels as they kill enemies or use particular skills and as they power up they’ll learn new techniques depending what class they are. Leveling up takes a little longer in Makai Kingdom than it did in Disgaea and Phantom Brave, mostly due to the restrictions of fighting lower level enemies instead of progressively harder ones when you repeat stages. You can create dungeons, but they are only as strong as the character that fashions it so powering up is kept in check. That doesn’t mean that you cap out at level 100 though and you can go well over 1,000 if your heart desires.
One of the underlying themes to Makai Kingdom is the ability to summon people and places. You start every round by “inviting” characters or facilities to the battle friend by using the Sacred Tome. You can bring in a specific amount of characters for each fight and once you reach the cap no more are allowed onto the map. The best strategy here is to employ the use of facilities, which are essentially bases that the characters are equipped to. A facility can hold a certain amount of characters and offers special bonuses from more powerful attacks to more experience and money after the fight. As you play you’ll earn more facilities and even some vehicles to use during battle for more firepower at your disposal.
Clearing a stage requires the accumulation of points from killing enemies and their facilities on the map. You don’t just have to defeat a particular opponent or everyone on the board in order to progress. Once you reach the desired amount of points you are asked if you want to call it quits or continue the bloodshed. Keeping the fight going yields more valuable experience and items, just like killing key-wielding characters does.
All in all, Makai Kingdom offers up a great experience for strategy RPG fans and it touches upon a lot of elements found in Phantom Brave and Disgaea. Sometimes thanks to the camera and character position it can often be a little difficult to pull of some maneuvers, but overall the gameplay really is phenomenal here. With over 100 hours of gameplay for the gamer that likes to explore everything and level up there is plenty of digital entertainment here to keep you coming back for a long time.
Graphics:
Unfortunately, while Makai Kingdom feels a lot like previous NIS efforts it also looks like it as well. Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely love the character design and the sprites add a great deal of personality to the game. It’s just that the graphics haven’t really improved over the past couple of years and for all intensive purposes its getting a little stale. These games are great to play, but they need an evolution in the looks department to bring things up to a higher-res presentation.
There is plenty of variety among the characters though and you’ll even recognize some from the last adventure through the netherworld, Disgaea. It’s not exactly a sequel but fans of that game will want to seek out Laharl, Etna and Flonne during the course of the game.
Audio:
The audio for Makai Kingdom is a mixed bag of greatness and average. The voice actors do a marvelous job of portraying the charming personalities of the characters in the various netherworlds. The outlandish overlords stand out among the rest though and offer up a lot of laughs. The music is equally as good and on par with previous NIS efforts, though many of the tracks aren’t that memorable or interesting enough to make me want to run out and get a soundtrack.
Several sound effects are reused (or indistinguishable) from Disgaea and Phantom Brave. The Prinnies still say “Dood!” and attacks still carry out the same end resulting sound. Some of you will be interested to know that the game also features the ability to select between Japanese and English vocals, although the English is arguably better in my opinion.
Conclusion:
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a great NIS strategy RPG and in that regard Makai Kingdom is an instant classic. The amalgamation of gameplay tidbits from Disgaea and Phantom Brave come to the PS2 with an experience that is a must for anyone that liked either of those games. I love the freeform movement and attacking system not to mention delving into the character creation aspect.
Unfortunately the low-res graphics are starting to show their age despite some great art direction and design. NIS is really going to have to kick up the sprite count a notch if they want to push their games into the next generation. The voice work is great and each of the overlords is a real treat to watch and listen to. In the end this is a game for anyone that loved Disgaea and even though it’s not a direct sequel there are several similarities between the two. It’s also more user friendly to newcomers than Phantom Brave was but is involving enough to keep veterans happy. Highly Recommended