Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! Review

A lion’s share of the challenge arises from the title’s level design. Despite being able to select, Mega Man-style, your trajectory through Prinny 2‘s stages, every map is saturated with obstacles and foes, making each journey more exasperating than engaging. One stage supplements the conventional horde of swordsmen, tanks, and bomb-dropping bats with a Dark Sun who rains down multiple fire columns every few seconds. Other levels present opponents whose attacks penetrate the game’s floors and walls, increasing the aggravation level even further. Regardless of which route through the game is selected, each successfully completed stage raises the game’s overall difficulty, creating a disheartening Prinnycide during the game’s concluding boss battles. Additionally, the game’s restrictive jump mechanic may irk players accustomed to the delicate mid-air adjustments offered by contemporary platformers. The stalwart protagonist may only broadly alter his flightpath at the midpoint of a double-jump, often sending the stalwart Prinny into a patch of foes.

Yet, beneath the game’s fastidiousness, Dawn of Operation Panties has a number of gratifying elements. Disgaea aficionados are likely to enjoy the game’s flirtatious impetus, where series regular Etna is stripped of her underwear by a furtive collector of rare items. Customary for the series, the Demon Lord places the blame on the prinnies, tasking the Netherworld’s chronic scapegoats with safeguarding her skivvies. Cameos by Flonne, Bok Choy, and Laharl are certain to delight franchise faithfuls, while playing additional levels as Asaki via a free download token (press ∆, □, о, ∆, □, о, × on the “New Game” option on the title screen) is a nice bonus. Hopefully, western players might even see Makai Daikon, Rensha Yousei-san Tsuki, a possessed radish which gives Hero Prinny auto-firing capabilities. Visually, the game seamlessly blends both sprites-based and polygonal graphics, offering a luminous interpretation of the netherworld. Imaginative characters such as bosom-bouncing nymph whose clothes transform into a colony of fluttering bats are likely to capture the hearts of pixel-art junkies. 

For the devoted Disgaea legion, Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! is a bit hard to recommend. Although the title delivers a healthy helping of Netherworld fan service, the game’s difficulty is destined  to goad grid-based strategists. Prinny 2‘s more apt audience might be players with well-honed reflexes, the type of hardcore gamers who complain that game difficulty was been diluted after the release of Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom.