I’ve got a soft spot for Nippon Ichi’s strategy games, though even I kind of find the games made in the interlude between Disgaea 1&2 a bit bland, like unrelated yarns riding on the coattails of the original by mimicking the same ‘moe-Halloween’ style Harada spun into the first one’s graphics. Okay, even Disgaea 2 counted to an extent; I STILL play the first one on occasion, but put 2 on hold at the Geo-Panel themed tower.
Soul Nomad thus far is bucking that trend for me- in place of the usual Tactics gone mad setup the others favored, it offers a squad-based experience making it into some kind of Ogre Battle/Makai Kingdom mashup. It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a game of the genre and sat down to play for over three hours right out of the box, especially a grind-happy N1 game, but play on I did! More than partly because this is so far one of the least grind-happy N1 games I’ve played. I’m half sure immediately after posting this I’ll reach an impasse and need to reach level 70 trillion to pass, but not having to stop and replay a level ad nauseum in order to advance the story makes it a lot easier to actually get into the story. I can’t count how many times I forgot exactly what the hell was going on in the last cutscene after reaching a ‘stumper’ level in the other games in their line. It’s nice to have a strategy game where formation and… strategy play a role.

Inspections are sort of the Item World Du Jour this time out, and they’re not nearly as overwhelming. You can go inside your ‘rooms’ (which determine your formation as well as bonuses) and fight random battles inside them to level up your formations themselves. It’s a sight more immediately useful than unequipping your favorite sword and fighting through ten floors of dungeon before getting it back strengthened.

If it ends up sucking, I’ll let ya know, but so far, I’m digging this Soul Nomad.