Makai Kingdom - Time to play

Recently I scrounged up some time in the middle of my busy college exam studies(truth: should be studying 24/7) to play through one of the more recent release from the Disgaea Series, for those who don't know the background story of this franchise: it revolves around the concept that there exist many worlds(netherworlds) each ruled by a powerful(most of the time not very smart) entity called the Overlord, each release save the remake for other platforms featured a different world/story and naturally a new protagonist but it always revolves around multiple Netherworlds and even starring characters from the other releases as hidden characters/bosses or part of the storyline as a cameo. As a fan of both tactical and rpg games, the combination of both in these games has kept me coming back throughout the releases, what makes this series so appealing to me is mostly the light-hearted stories that while goofy(with impossibly goofier characters) and yet both story and characters are extremely likeable therefore making the player interested in seeing how the story develops through cutscenes before and after each map battle.

If only we can look as "badass" throughout the game

Much power and sheer luck equals ?

A "badass" book?

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome stars Overlord Zeta, considered the most powerful across Netherworlds due to his immense Mana(innate power Overlords possess), on a certain fatidic day a prophecy from the oracle Pram foretold the destruction of his Netherworld and as any decent overlord woulddo (specially a self-proclaimed "Most Badass Freakin' Overlord In The Entire Cosmos"), Overlord Zetta blasted his way into the forbidden library to get to the Sacred Tome known to record everything and thus holding the answer to what threatened his Netherworld, and yet, in a goofy twist of faith, what the Sacred Tome had to say wasn't agreeable with the baddass Overlord as it blamed the Overlord's stupidity as the sole reason for the ruin brought upon his domain, in a fit of rage the Overlord set the book in Hellfire and watched it burn away---only to find out immediately after that the destruction of the Sacred Tome would *gasp* destroy the Netherworld(his) and as a last desperate move the he bound his own soul into the Tome and that's where our adventure begins.

in-between combat scenes

Battle: Unlike the normal Disgaeas which featured grids for movement and attack, Makai Kingdom took on the combat system from Phantom Brave giving player characters the freedom to move within a circle whose size is determined by the characters Mov(movement points), classes and weapon skills remain mostly the same from the other Disgaea games as skills are learned by mastering weapon types and while some classes remain the same, there are a few additions aswell as a couple others not in the game at the same time. While to deploy unit the game uses a similar system as in Phantom brave where you need to confine characters to objects, in Makai Kingdom this is done in the Homebase and the units will not go away after a certain number of turns once summoned, as it happened in Phantom Brave, additionally units can be set into existent buildings that the player already possess at the base, each granting different bonuses to characters housed in them and summoned into battle afterwards from the also summoned house unit. Lastly, the standalone feature not found in any of the other games from the same franchise is the addition of vehicles, they vary in size, shape and purpose but they are moving and generally faster then normal movement from the characters, they can also damage oponents and level up(although the system required for this is different then the characters and possibly more difficult).

Seriously, try it out, can't help but be charmed

Maps: As with it's predecessors, the maps are randomly generated with a feature called "extensions" which are hidden areas of the map oftenly unlocked by killing a key mob or object, save a few pre-set maps at the beginning of certain chapters, most of the RNG maps provide the player with a fresh replay value as each playthrough in the same map will be different both in objects, area and enemies, extensions also provide with a necessity for further strategy as accomplishing all the requirements and opening all areas at the same time might have the player's army quickly overwhelmed.

Finally, for anyone interested in turn-based strategy games this and the others from the same franchise (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Phantom Brave etc...) are definitely something to check out, the light hearted humour/storyline and the combat system are something that make this game noteworthy and interesting to play with