Disgaea killed my childhood

Okay, not really.

Generally, the idea that something new in anyway devalues how awesome the original was doesn't hold water. This is no different. And I love Disgaea. It's great. In a lot of ways, Disgaea saved Strategy Role Playing Games (sRPGs). NIS, the publisher, has been churning out mediocre to great sRPGs on PS2/3 and is pretty much the only reason the genre is relevant in anyway, shape or form. But in being the almost sole torchbearer, they have forced new genre conventions that people just don't want to break. And it kills me.

A little history on the sRPG. It is, unlike many other video game genres, an invention of console gaming. Nintendo put the ball in motion, as they did with almost everything for consoles, with a series called Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem begot Langrisser which begot Shining Force. This is when the genre began its golden age, at least in my opinion.

Shining Force, if you've ever heard me talk about video games you should know this, is unquestionably my favorite video game of all time. It took Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy, threw them into a blender and popped out one of the most creative games of all time. It is loaded with secret characters, hidden items and easter eggs. What's more, every character was given personality and it had a story that had legs.

SF, along with FE, pushed the genre forward. They pretty much established every convention along with every innovation. They opened the door for Front Mission, Vandal Hearts, Tactic Ogre. While I never got into FE (mostly because it was a Japan only title until the 00s), I did love me some Shining Force. I have beaten the first game close to a hundred times. That's a lot for someone who hates replaying games. The second one I've probably beaten 10-20 times. The third only 3 times and only the first chapter.

Shining Force III might be the pinnacle of sRPG, but it was dead in the water. It was on the Saturn (a dead platform) and only one part was released in the US. You can now get the other two chapters translated and play them on a Saturn emulator, but it was an epic game. It told a story of war from three different perspectives and you would lead your army against armies would control later in the story. It was truly epic.

Then Camelot, the team that developed the game, jumped ship to Nintendo. They developed the well recieved Golden Sun series and (again, along with Fire Emblem) are largely responsible for sRPGs being handheld dominated development.

The final nail in the coffin for the original console sRPG was Final Fantasy Tactics. It was a game that aped every other sRPG on the market and ripped its story straight from other superior games. It also became the standard for sRPGs and (much like its big brother) ruined the genre. This was the ET for sRPGs. After Tactics, the genre just stagnated. It was a good game, sold well, and somehow managed to keep the genre from ever reaching lofty heights again.

The next wave of consoles (PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast) brought developers that did not see the value in games that weren't pushing graphical boundaries. The sRPG was ignored as a relic of the past. Except for one little Japanese publisher. Nippon Icchi. They created Disgaea, the game that changed all the rules.

NIS and Atlus had had some minor success with sRPGs which had been pushed off to the niche market with dating sims and shoot-em-ups. But NIS developed Disgaea and it changed all the rules. It was about as big an underground hit as the PS2 had. Super rare, super fun and super popular. It created a whole new rule set for a genre that had been big on change. It scrapped a lot of the standard conventions and started from scratch. And it was glorious.

NIS went on to churn out lots of fun, goofy games with solid mechanics. Always low budget, mediocre graphics and worse voice acting, but sRPGs that made you work to beat them. And, always the same. NIS games are great. But they aren't original. Atlus games are even worse, knock offs of the same Disgaea model over and over again. While sure, Grownlanser was still lurking in the shadows and there was a bevy of games on the DS and PSP, console games were stuck with the same NIS games year after year.

So, now we're on the next level of consoles and the next level of sRPGs. I just picked up Record of Agarest War for Xbox 360. And it sure does channel that new Disgaea model of sRPGs, but...BUT there is hope. It is a game that actually has a story (not a great one, mind you, but it is a step in the right direction. It is a game that gives you a reason to play the story mode beyond seeing how super duper you can make a character. It is a game that takes the gameplay outside of the standard grid.

But it isn't enough. A game like Valkyria Chronicles shows that someone understands that sRPGs can be an amazing thing if given enough attention. But VC had its sequel thrust onto the PSP. RoAW gives me hope. A hope that someone can take the Disgaea model and throw it in a blender with Shining Force and create the greatest sRPG of all time.