Disgaea 2 is a really fun RPG. Fans of the first will definitely not be disappointed and the 3 year wait was worth it.
THE BAD: Outdated graphics. Not too different from the first Disgaea. Final boss wasn't as satisfying.
Disgaea 2 is a very fun strategy RPG that will last as long as you want it to.
GAMEPLAY is excellent. Disgaea 2 remains faithful to the original and has that something special that many of the other Nippon Ichi Soft games (La Pucelle Tactics, Phantom Brave, and Makai Kingdom) seemed to always lack. The plot in Disgaea 2 doesn't have anything to do with the events from the first, but there will be appearances from Prince Laharl, Flonne, and Beauty Queen Etna that fans will enjoy. The crust of Disgaea 2 is in the battle mechanics. During battles, you select up to 10 characters to enter the field and fight enemies. But what makes Disgaea 2 so much fun is that you can manipulate virtually everything. For example, say you want a character to attack an enemy from behind, but the path is being blocked by that enemy, you can simply order another character to lift up the enemy to let your other character through. What's more, you can even take back the order of lifting after your other character has passed and save a turn. In other words, you're only limited by your imagination. Another thing you can do is throw enemies into each other to make a higher level enemy for more experience points, and my personal favorite is having your thief steal the enemy's valuable equipment and re-equip the stolen good on the fly to your advantage.
Moreover, the only noticeable differences in Disgaea 2 are the creatable characters and abilities. In most cases, character classes from the first were either combined or separated creating new classes like Ninjas, samurais, sinners, and beast masters. Each class has their own special abilities making it very crucial to have a wide variety of members in your party.
GRAPHICS are good. Disgaea 2 looks almost identical to the first one except the special moves look even more over the top. The battle scenes are nice to look at except they do lose their impressiveness when the enemy attacks you over and over. Fortunately, most of the special moves are short cut scenes so it isn't a huge problem. The 2D sprites animate well and the characters are fairly detailed, however, sometimes there is confusion and you will be quite shocked when you discovered you killed your own unit.
SOUND is great. The voice acting is Disgaea 2 is top notch and is enjoyable in English or Japanese. That's especially a good thing because there is a lot of it. And fans of the series will recognize many of the memorable tunes from the original.
VALUE is amazing. Disgaea 2 has 13 episodes and will last the average player 30-40 hours. However, that's only if you choose to skip the many side quests, and pass on discovering all the character classes as well as leveling up your characters so they learn all their special moves. If you choose to do this, the game can easily go up to 60-80 hours or more. And even after you beat the game, you still keep all your characters and stats so there is a lot of replay value. Especially if you want to unlock some of the cooler stuff that requires you to be at a much higher level like unlocking Prince Laharl and Flonne or the many alternate endings.
OVERALL Disgaea 2 is just a really fun game. Fans of the first will definitely not be disappointed and the 3 year wait was worth it. This is easily recommendable to any RPG enthusiast and it is most certainly worth owning.