If anyone out there is looking to have fun with a RPG or an anime, then this it the game for you. This is one of those unsung games that only the few who have played it can speak of it's greatness, and all the rest of the population is totally without a clue. It's a shame, as everyone who enjoys RPGs (and anyone who was remotely interested in Final Fantasy Tactics), should really pick up a copy in order to encourage them to make a sequel or similar game.

Disgea starts you out waking up after a two year nap. Your father (the Overlord of the Underworld) has died during your absence. It's up to you to take your father's place and become Overlord yourself. You do this by playing out portions of plot divided up into Episodes. Each Episode is like one small story arc of an anime series. Over time you'll be developing the characters, the landscape of the world, and so on.

Disgea scores well with me by doing basically everything right and only doing one or two things "wrong". I use quotes because those things only feel wrong to me. I've seen other people get past them, and I've seen the opportunity to be able to do those things later on myself. However, let me explain where this game's fun factor lies. First of all, the story is really great, as I've said. It really feels like a fun and quirky anime. Secondly, if you enjoy leveling up in an RPG (but not pointlessly), then this is a game for you. Not only can you level up, but you can level up your weapons as well. How do you do this? You go into the Item World... a randomly generated location of ten levels in an item. Each regular item has 30 total levels, and others have 50 (Silver Rare), and 100 (Gold Rare). As you play through these levels you can beat Specialist. These creatures, when defeated, will raise the power of spirit in your weapon, increasing it's level, and subduing it for your own personal use.

Let me explain. There's a kind of Specialist named Statatition. Having him in your weapon/armour/accessory allows you get more Exp when you defeat a monster. Say he's a Level 7 when you enter the item, and the item has monsters of 6+ Level. That means that throughout the item, every monster in it will be Level 6 or higher. Hopefully, when you show up on one of the map areas, you'll see a monster with a yellow life bar instead of a red one. It'll say "Check!", and will indicate to you that you need to kick his little ass. If you do, then all you have to do is exit the item (using an exit), or finish you're journey to the tenth level. I highly recommend this, as it will allow you to beat up the Item General. Beating him usually gets you a decent item, nice Exp, and really levels up the item nicely. Not to mention once you've beaten him, you can decide to go on or exit the item, and thus saving you an exit. After all, every item has a Spcialists in it, even the exits!

How far can you level up in this game? Well, I said how far items can be leveled, but you yourself can reach at least the tens of thousands in levels, I shit you not. Anyone who enjoys leveling up, this is definately your game. Does it stop there? Not exactly. You can Transmogrify your characters. What does this mean? Well, depending on how much Mana you have, you'll be able to turn your friends and allies into either more advanced versions of the class they are, or a different class all together. Not only that, but you can eventually turn your teammates into monsters or visa versa. I say eventually due to the fact that there's a middle ground. A Prinny (a Penguin-looking monster with bat wings) is a monster that has a human soul inside of it. It's technically both and neither at the same time. If you want to make a human or a monster into the other, you have to make them a Prinny first.

When you Transmogrify, do you get to keep all your levels? The quick answer is no, but that's deceiving. You get to keep a percentage of your former greatness up to 95% depending on how much Mana you put into the Transmogrification. You get to take the character's base stats and add them to the stats you'd previously attained. You can also upgrade or down grade their intelligence. For example, if you spent all your Mana into making a Genius, then when that character is created, along with keeping the 95% of stats, they'll also be learning techniques and getting better stats sooner.

As I said, this game is really fun. It's also really long. I've logged probably about 50+ hours into it thus far, and I have no idea where the end of the game lies. It doesn't grow boring, and you can only pour as much time into it as you feel you need to. There are so many Specialists that you'll spend hours just kicking ass in the Item world. There are ones that allow you to learn a weapon faster, ones that give you more hit points or magic points, ones that make you more resistant to ice or fire, and so on and so on. You can level them all up, have fun doing it, and be able to lay waste to so many more badguys when you finally get back to the game.

All in all, this game get's me feeling it's 9+. I'm gunna go with a nice comfy 9.5. If I ever end up reviewing the whole game (which would require me to finish it), then I may end up giving it more. I'm several chapters in and have no idea where the ending is.

It's been so long since I was sitting down playing this game, so I imagine this QuickTake will be pretty quick. I didn't get to finish the game, but once again, I am so very near the end. Anyone out there looking for a nice platformer, good story, excellent voice acting, and some of the best third person shooting around? This is definately your game.

I didn't really get to play The Precursor Legacy, but it's basic ending is sumarrized in the beginning of this game. So is the capturing of Jak and the testing of Dark Eco on him. Needless to say, the mood of the game has changed... and the intelligence on the guards in this game are a fair ways above the smarts of the cops in Vice City, relatively speaking. Also, if you piss the guards off a lot, they'll be quicker to come kick your ass, and put more effort into taking you down.

Some of the early levels may be pretty predictable as far as platforming elements go, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun. In fact, it's so refreshing to be able to play a game that is challenging and yet doable at the same time. Prettymuch every mission in the game borders on hard (as far as you skill level at the time), but since you always feel you were so close to beating it when you failed, you go back and try, and probably pull it off... or at least get even closer.

Honestly, this game is a lot of fun, and if I had the time to go back and play it, I would. I wanna finish it because 3 comes out later this year. I want to see how the story leads into the next game.

Huntermun Head Hunts a 8.7 out of 10.

Periodically, you'll end up with a game like this. It's hard to put into words just how much freakin' fun you can have and how pissed off you can get at the same damn time. This game scores points in so many areas... presentatioin, fun, voicing, violence, moves, action, custom team stuff, character stats, easy to learn, fun to play... it makes so many right calls that I'm gunna have to grade it two different times. To do otherwise just wouldn't be fair.

Here, let me explain. The game has "Highly Toxic, Super Uber Insano, Cajon Falvored, Ungodly Psychotic, Double Spicy Midway-style Ketchup". Why there isn't some kind of heart problem warning on the box, or some explination as the the unfairness it can display, I don't know. It's really hard to say how this happened.

Now, I'm gunna go out on a limb and guess that a few of you know not of the Ketchup. To you few innocents, I'm going to explain. Please, close your eyes and scroll down if you don't want your gaming difficulties explained away. If you wish to go on beleiving some games in your past were just that evil or hard, then alright. For everyone else, Ketchup is very simple. In N.B.A. Jam, N.B.A. Hangtime/Showtime, N.F.L. Blitz, Sanfransico Rush, Rush 2, Rush 2049, Crusin' USA/World/Exotica, and so on and so on, there's this thing in the game called catch-up. What it does is makes the computer luckier/faster and makes you more unlucky/slower. In the Rush and Cruisin' games, it worked for your friend. If you're out in front for a whole race, peddle to the medal, your car is slowing a bit, and your friend's is speeding up a bit (if he's the one behind). So, even if your readout says 140, you're probably going about 135. This was even more painful because the computer players were not effected by it. This meant that unless you and your friend were driving one and two in the race, the computer could come up and pass you even if you're at top speed. In the N.B.A. games listed above, it meant that perfect shots could miss, the computer could throw across the court in the last second (all the way across), and land a 3. Weird-ass excuse for difficulty insued, and it could drive you insane. This was a gameplay mentality! What the crap?

Oh, but it gets worse. As much as Midway invented the modern day take on ketchup (similar devices were in games before then, but never so over the top or near-obvious), EA Games has beaten Midway at their own game. Fatality. It's amazing that N.B.A. Street Vol. 2, with it's complete lack of Ketchup, spawned a game so heavily coated in it. In the last moment, there will be fumbles out the ass... I promise it. Tips, Interceptions, more fumbles, guys without a Gamebreak carrying four guys into the enzone. Insane, statistically improbably crap that is only fun because you know what it is. It's ketchup. It was almost like a trip into the past... all those games I had to kick the snot out of the opposing time, clearing a path through the ketchup, to win in the end, and gloat to the game. "See!? You thought you had me! You were wrong! OH YEAH!!!" You can really get physco trying to best ketchup. Don't worry, though. Then and now, it is possible to beat it and win, but this game has such a huge variety of over-the-top ketchup that even those use to playing Midway games may be given a run for their money. I sure was.

Now, please... as I finish this here, and my rant on Ketchup... please note that I enjoyed the game. I did. I thought it was a blast. N.F.L. Blitz (the arcadey one, not the Pro stuff), wishes it had this kind of control... this fluidity of motion... the Trick-fest you can have running and gunning down a field... being able to Super Power your team using GameBreak (which started in N.B.A. Street, and is greatly welcome in Football), the lack of goofy commontary, but still have the players say stuff. "It's time, it's game time", "My bad guys, my bad", and "Oh, no! They've got GameBreaker!" are lines you'll hear and enjoy. Everything about this game is over the top and fun... except for one minor detail.

See, you can just play Football with basic teams, but you can also make your own. Here in lies the pain. That whole rant I had about Ketchup? You can turn it off... in the regular game mode. It's gone, it doesn't exist, don't count on it to save your ass, it's gone. It's all skill when you just want to play another football team, or play against a freind. So why did I rant? In the challenge mode you use to get stats for your team and players, Ketchup is on (you can see it in the pause screen), and there's no way to turn it off. Maybe EA wanted to make it a challenge. They freakin did. Makes me want to carry a battle axe to their main HQ and explain to them their error.

So, as a game, and as it is, I give it well over a 9. I give it a 9.8. I haven't had this much fun playing football since Blitz 20-03, and even that game was missing a lot of the really kick ass and fun features that this game included... building a team, making custom "uniforms" (it's street ball, so the only thing uniform are your team colors), stat building, tricks, behind the back passing, Gamebreaker... it does all of this right and very well. However, the Ketchup is unmistakable and truely, truely a killer. If you have the patience to get past it, you'll love this game. If it drives you batty, then you are doomed, plain and simple. So, with ketchup included... it drops the games score about 3 points, knocking it down to a 6ish. Ugh.

The truth here is that you just really cannot find a better Hockey game out there, unless you're more into the Sim side of things. N.H.L. Hitz Pro does so much right in so many catagories that it's hard to even say where they made a mistake.

The AI is not only really good, and the difficulties true to their names, but each and every variable is customizable in the game. This is true for wether you want more or less fights, length of them, how often you get called for checking or high-sticking, wether you get called for any fouls, or no fouls, how strick the Refs are, what camera you're playing at, what your button configuration, and so on and so on. If there is anything in the game you don't like, then go into the options, find it, and fix it.

This is the only Arcadey Hockey game I can name offhand with a really fun Season mode. It's fun because you begin the Season as some rag-tag team you get to slap together and improve the stats of, and when it comes around to Season, you replace an N.H.L. Team and get put into the normal lineup of everything. Going through a Season had been fun before, but now you get to do it with your own team. Now it's really fun.

The impact of hits and plays, and the amount of teamwork you can pull off is really great. The detail on the players, the ice, the fully polliganal crowd... it all works into the overall great presentation. In fact, if I had one very small, almost meaningless gripe about the game, it would be that the sound settings are default for the music to be off during games. To be honest, this could be a personal preference, but since the game's soundtrack is really good, really kick ass, and adds to the overall feel of the game, I highly recommend going in and turning it on.

Simply put, if you love Hockey, or Arcade Sports (or both), then this is a game for you. It scores high in all the right places, and it's fun as both single and multiplayer. How many Arcade-style games can you say are fun single player? —Don't answer that. 9.3 out of 10.