Now we know why Disgaea is such a grindfest
There’s nothing like coming out of the Item World holding a shiny new overpowered piece of equipment. Anyone who’s ever played Disgaea is well aware of the grinding that you have to invest in fully leveling an item, as well as the satisfaction of slaughtering tough baddies with one blow. Ever wondered how and why Nippon Ichi let those insane grindfests fly? The answer, my friends, is right here.
There’s nothing like coming out of the Item World holding a shiny new overpowered piece of equipment. Anyone who’s ever played Disgaea is well aware of the grinding that you have to invest in fully leveling an item, as well as the satisfaction of slaughtering tough baddies with one blow.
Ever wondered how and why Nippon Ichi let those insane grindfests fly? The answer, my friends, is right here.
Speaking to Gamasutra about their RPG style, Nippon Ichi COO Souhei Niikawa and Disgaea team development lead Masahiro Yamamoto let us in on what goes on behind the scenes. “Well, RPGs remain a popular genre for the hardcore audience, so I think that RPGs will still be a central part of our strategy,” Niikawa said about their primarily RPG market.
Despite being known mostly for Disgaea, Niikawa also pointed out that they won’t depend on that franchise alone. “Placing our fortunes on nothing but Disgaea wouldn’t be right at all,” he said. “We want to make games that are different from Disgaea, of course, but sell just as well as that.” Their next project, Zettai Hero Kaizou Keikaku (Absolute Hero Modding Project) is expected to follow the Disgaea gameplay, minus the Disgaea name.
Asked about why the Item World goes so far down, the Nippon Ichi execs spill the beans. “I guess you could say it’s when we feel like there’s nothing left to add to the gameplay,” Niikawa said. And after you’ve spend about a hundred hours up and down the Item World, you’ll realize that they kinda put that much in.
Yamamoto adds:
Oh, we never really stop. (laughs) We put so much stuff into each project, and eventually we get to a point where we ask ourselves, “Do we really need all this?”
When a majority of staffers start answering, “I’m not sure” to that question, that’s when we stop. (laughs) That’s pretty much how it works.
When you’ve got a creative team brainstorming on one concept, it’s gonna take a while before you start going dry with ideas. That seems to be Nippon Ichi’s secret to making the grindfests, which really works, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who clocked in at least a hundred hours on those games.
Nippon Ichi’s next project:
Via Gamasutra
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