Yesterday I received my Doublejump Books Disgaea 3 strategy guide in the mail. It’s a bit ahead of schedule, at least according to the publisher’s website, but I’m not asking any questions. I don’t buy guides for most games, and NIS games are certainly not most games. They are literally filled to the brim with hours upon hours of ways to make tiny sprites bash enormous numbers out of each other. This may not sound like much fun to most people, but I daresay it is what I live for. Making awesome guides is what the guys at DJB live for. Luckily, they happen to have the same taste in games as me. Great minds… or so they say.

When I play a game, I love knowing how things work behind the scenes. This usually means a breakdown of everything numerically, the language of the gods. The guide includes the numbers behind such important features as stealing, weapon mastery, team attacks, maxing out a character, etc. Knowing how to make the numbers work in your favor can be a huge time-saver.

The second thing I love to have handy when playing a game as massive as Disgaea 3 is lists. If I could, I would lie in an aromatic field of lists all damn day. This is probably one of the most space consuming elements of the guide. Yet with so much data, the lists are extremely organized to help the reader find whatever they want as easy as possible.

The last thing (which I already mentioned) that is important to me, is organization. Especially when it comes to a guide for a game I haven’t even played yet. Spoiling anything for myself would surely result in an attempt to locate and terminate any brain cells affected. The layout of the guide makes it clear what sections to avoid in a case like mine. To get a better idea of the guide’s organization i recommend taking a look at a .PDF preview of it here.

As always, DJB puts their own special touches into their guide. This guide in particular contains some fanart as well as a cute comic. I was a tad disappointed that there wasn’t an interview with NIS America. The Disgaea 2, Phantom Brave, and even Makai Kingdom guides all included interviews with the games creators, which was one of my favorite features. I’ll let it slide since it’s obvious the game sucked up a lot of time.

As I wrote earlier, the pre-order bonus was that the guide’s publisher, djpubba, would sign the cover of each and every guide. If that doesn’t show appreciation, then goddamn, just pay someone to beat the game for you.

Related Entries:
Disgaea 3 Guide Pre-Order Bonus
Three Disgaea 3 Pre-Order Options
All other Kotowari posts relating to Makai Senki Disgaea 3 can be found here.