Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome
Developer(s) Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher(s) Nippon Ichi Software
Koei
Director(s) Shinichi Ikeda
Designer(s) Yoshitsuna Kobayashi
Series Disgaea
Platform(s) PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
Release date(s)

PlayStation 2

  • JP March 17, 2005
  • NA July 26, 2005
  • EU October 25, 2005

PlayStation Portable

  • JP October 6, 2011
Genre(s) Tactical RPG
Mode(s) Single player

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome, released in Japan as Phantom Kingdom (ファントム・キングダム Fantomu Kingudamu), is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was released in 2005. An enhanced port of the game for PlayStation Portable titled Phantom Kingdom Portable was released in Japan on the 6th of October 2011. It included a new scenario called "Papa is the Strongest Overlord in the Universe" and added battles with Valvatorez and Fenrich from Disgaea 4.

Plot

The story's protagonist is a self-proclaimed "Bad-ass Freakin' Overlord" named Lord Zetta, who attempts to prevent the destruction of his netherworld prophesized by Pram the Oracle. After discovering the Sacred Tome, Zetta finds a passage claiming that his own stupidity would be the downfall of his Netherworld. Infuriated, he burns the book, only to remember immediately afterwards that destroying the book would destroy his world. He quickly responds by confining his soul to the Sacred Tome and ventures to rewrite his world into existence by having the other Overlords of Netherworlds write wishes within his pages.

Characters

Overlords

New Characters

Gameplay

The gameplay is somewhat similar to the gameplay found in Phantom Brave and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, other games created by Nippon Ichi. The characters summoned in battle have freedom to move within a circle set by the characters' movement points. Victory is achieved by scoring a set amount of points, which are given by interacting with items on the map, discovering extension maps, and eliminating enemies. Several of the classes from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness exist in this game as well, such as Warrior and Mage, but some of the equivalents of previous classes are different. Some classes also have distinctions between sexes.

There are a variety of weapon types, each with their own expansive sets. Characters can equip armor and various other accessories to aid in combat. Each class has four weapon types in which they are proficient, and can learn new moves to use in combat as characters master the weapons.

Vehicles are a new addition from previous Nippon Ichi games. They are similar to moving, battle-capable buildings. They vary in size, shape, and purpose, but are generally faster than travelling on foot. Vehicles can damage opponents and can level-up. However, levelling a vehicle is different from levelling a character. Leveling up high ranked vehicles is difficult, and in actuality, impossible to raise them to 9999, as the cost will effectively be more than the player can ever make.

Many of maps are randomly generated. While, in many cases, the first map in a storyline mission is pre-set, the "extensions" to the map are often randomly generated. The randomly generated maps creates the potential to have vastly different situations even when replaying the same map. Within the game, there are two separate types of extensions: "Locked" and "Secret". While both extensions can be revealed by throwing something out of bounds into the extension, "Locked" extensions can also be unlocked by destroying a specific unit on the field, which is marked with an icon saying "Key".

Once an extension is revealed, there may occasionally be "special events" which occur as soon as the extension is unlocked. While many special events simply affect the enemies that appear in the extension, others will paralyze everyone on the battlefield, put everyone to sleep, or other effects.

Setting

The game's characters hail from alternate universes, which Pram describes very clearly at the beginning of the game:

"There is, of course, more than one universe. In one such world, in the corner of a backwater galaxy, humans rule over a senseless planet. However, that's about as important as a speck of dust in this pluralistic cosmos. Here in the Netherworld, things work the same way."

Even though many of the characters come from different worlds, all of the universes and their characters exist within the same story continuity.

Makai Kingdom's multiverse helps expand on some of the elements of alternate dimensions mentioned in Nippon Ichi's other games centered around demonic Overlords, Disgaea. Every universe has its own Netherworld, therefore many Overlords exist in this continuity to vie for power.

In Makai Kingdom, characters from previous Nippon Ichi games (Disgaea and Phantom Brave) may make appearances as challengers to Lord Zetta. The characters from Disgaea, i.e. Laharl, Etna and Flonne, are treated basically the same as the other Overlord story-characters - they hail from another Netherworld and are seeking power, revenge, or 'love and justice'. The characters who arrive in Zetta's Netherworld from the Phantom Brave world are transported there by a powerful being from the Phantom Brave story.

External links

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