Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!
You are not prepared, dood!
Over the past week I’ve battled the curious anti-fun nurtured by my 20 unit semesters with Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? for the Playstation Portable. Miraculously, through a thick fog of funk, I found myself actually caring about my crushing defeats, and experiencing tangible frustration — both wth the game itself and my broken square button; of all the buttons that could be sticking, why the one you tap to attack?
Prinny is a 2D sidescrolling action game wherein a bescarfed Prinny is tasked with assembling the legendary Ultra Dessert for Etna by besting a variety of demons and their assorted minions. Obviously, between this outlandish task, the boss fight banter, and the Chefbot 9000, the quirky Disgaea humor is strong with this one, and any fan of the series will be thoroughly entertained, especially with the secret alternate story.
Your prinny is capable of a double jump, a butt stomp, a finicky dash, and slashing attacks that lean heavily on your ability to tap the square button like a madman. Between these rudimentary techniques, you must traverse ten levels — each with a boss fight — without snapping your PSP over your knee in frustration. If you manage to lose all 1000 lives the game gives you (it only took me 202 to beat it) my sources tell me you are pitied upon with Etna’s Prinny Raid skill, but it drains your remaining lives and is thus a desperation attack even then.
If he is on the last boss, this is about two seconds before he throws himself at his PSP, engulfing them both in a furious self-righteous explosion. Dood.
Of course, given the nature of Disgaea, after you beat the game you are still tasked with hours of additional gameplay to unlock the deepest secrets I’ve never had time for. Finding 100 of the 120 Lucky Dolls will net you a battle with Etna, for example, and an entire alternate storyline with new stages, boss fights, and dialogue remains for those tricksy enough to solve all ten jumping puzzles at the home base.
Ultimately it was an enjoyable experience, possibly even worth owning, if not worth paying full price for. If you’re man enough to navigate the murderous levels, if you’re quirky enough to enjoy the humor (yes, the designers noticed that the Chefbot’s model level is at nine-thousand), or if you’re a devoted enough Disgaea fan to move outside the Strategy RPG genre, you’ll find a worthwhile experience in Prinny.
I don’t really want to waste brain cycles developing a rating system and aggregate algorithm so I think I’ll just throw numbers at you:
Graphics: 8
Button Tapping: 10
Gameplay: 7
Humor: 8
Dood: 10
Sound: I don’t know it sounds nice I guess.
Story: 6
Boss Fights: 8
Seedy Internet Underworld Humor: 10
Voice Acting: 7
Ninjas: 9
Downloadable Content: 8 (a few additional stages, one containing Flonne)
Prinnies: 1000
Anti-Button Tapping: 1
Desserts: 10
Jumping Puzzles: 8
Innovation: 4
Japan: 9
Bolivia: 1
Sweden: 6
Jumping: 7
Casuals: 3
Hardcores: 9
Fairweathers: 4
Super Hardcores: 8
Part-Timers: 8
Grandma: 2
Internet: 8
Sexy Time: 3
TOTAL: 12.75 out of 17
This is level 1. Trust me, dood, this is nowhere near what you'll be putting up with.
All images from the NIS website: www.nisamerica.com
Author: