In 2003, Atlas brought the game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness to our shores, created by the virtually unknown developer NIS. It’s quirky style, humor, and storyline quickly created a fan base for the developer. Despite the game having a seemingly simple interface, the charm of the game won many people over. Since then North America has been blessed with several games that attempt to improve on the foundation of Disgaea.

One of NIS’s earlier games, Rhapsody, had not matched the popularity that the developers wanted. It too was a tactical grid RPG, something made famous by Squaresoft when it released the game Final Fantasy Tactics. Sticking to what could be believed as an outdated interface, the company continued to build on the engine, leaping forward with each game. They have rebuilt the market for tactical RPG’s, while not focusing on solely on game-play and graphics, but trying to entertain with a rich storyline as well. From La Pucelle, to Disgaea, to Phantom Brave, we are now going to look at the latest creation from NIS, Makai Kingdom.

The game starts out with Zetta -- a self proclaimed ‘Badass Freaking Overlord’ -- going into a temple, believed to be the home the ‘The Sacred Tome’. With an attempt to confirm a prophecy given to him by an oracle, he goes after the forbidden tome to find out the vision of him losing his kingdom was true. Immediately after entering the temple he is attacked by an assassin sent by one of his many enemies, and with Zetta being the most powerful overlord ever known, he quickly dispatches the assassin. He would then look into the Sacred Tome.

The book, bothersome in it’s own right, began to insult the powerful overlord, and without a second thought, he set the Sacred Tome ablaze.

That was his biggest mistake.

After setting fire to the sacred tome, he found that his kingdom and very being were quickly being destroyed along with the book. The only way he could fathom survival was to spiritually bind his spirit into the tome to prevent their destruction, but in doing so he loses his body and kingdom. Now without a body, he sets out to regain it, along with his kingdom. He would soon learn from his oracle that he would need to rebuild his kingdom before he could once more have his body.

This game is slightly more mature than former games by NIS, as it features more adult relationships between characters, as well as curse words, but nothing more offensive than what you’d find in Chris Rock movie.

You may be wondering about what is new about this game, over the older ones. Transmigration is back, however it’s more like the confine process of Phantom Brave. This time when you confine a character it is permanent. Each item has statistics that it will improve others, while possibly weakening it’s counterparts. Depending strictly on what character you prefer, you may have them a strong character with higher defence, but lower magical abilities, simply by choosing a rock. On the other hand, if you would like a character with higher magical ability, you may consider using a plant, like a flower.

This allows considerable customization for your characters, as you can transmigrate a character over and over. The training of abilities from multiple character classes, which could lead to a adept character for all situations. With this customization comes its biggest flaw, as it is overly complicated, and does not offer rich benefits of training with other classes. You could give magical abilities to a Warrior, but without equipping items to boost the magical stat these abilities become useless. For the most part you cannot have effective combination characters.

Now in regards to game-play, obviously this game is tactical, which means it is turn based. In previous incarnations of their work, before Phantom Brave, everything had been set up on a simplistic, though enjoyable, grid system. This is removed in this game, and as such allows the characters to move in a radius. A nice change is that you can move, attack, then move again with the same character. This means that they are not stuck in the same spot after their attack, allowing them to float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee. Sadly though, with the lack of the standard grid system it is impossible to box an enemy in, or negate their ability to move.

This game is based on point totals. Points may be collected from enemies or items. To collect points from items all you need to do is pick them up, or even destroy them to get their points, while with enemies you must destroy them. There are also key objects, and when these are destroyed, it unlocks stronger areas of the map. This makes it an excellent way to level up.