"Disgaea: Hour of Darkness" is a game available originally on the PS2 and now on the DS. It's a turn-based tactical game, along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics; the game is consists of battles separated by bits of plot, and there are sidequests and optional battles you can undertake to help build up your characters. Each battle is a turn-based affair; you move your characters around the grid and make them take actions, then "End Turn" and your enemies do the same. Given that this is a Japanese fantasy-RPG-ish game set in "the Netherworld", all your characters are supposedly demons, although they look like humans with pointy ears. You can recruit various character classes, including warriors, clerics, fire/ice/wind mages, angels, various monsters, space marines and demonic penguins. (Did I mention the bizarre but often hilarious sense of humor?)
Okay, enough background. I enjoy Disgaea a lot and heartily recommend it, but in this post I want to talk about the Geo Panels system. Geo Panels and Geo Symbols are a couple of game mechanics in Disgaea, and they add wrinkles to the gameplay, sometimes to the extent of being a minigame in themselves. You don't have to interact with them very much, but if you want, you can spend a lot of time playing with them.
The basic idea is that each battlefield is divided into squares, and some of these squares have a particular colored glow. The glowing squares are called Geo Panels. There are six colors: red, green, blue, purple, yellow and cyan. (The colors aren't functionally different; all that matters is that red does not equal green, etc..)
Geo Panels on their own don't do anything, you need Geo Symbols for that. A Geo Symbol is an object that sits on the battlefield. It has a certain effect associated with it, like "Attack Bonus +50". Here's the trick: When a Geo Symbol sits on a Geo Panel, all Geo Panels of the same color receive that same bonus. So, if a red Geo Panel has an Atk+50 Geo Symbol sitting on it, all red Geo Panels become Atk+50 squares; any character standing on that Panel receives the bonus.
One purpose the Geo Panels and Symbols serve is to create uniquely interesting battlefields for the fixed "plot" battles. One map has a large area of "Damage 20%" Panels--run through it quickly and try to defeat the enemies before you die. One map is covered with "Invincibility" except for one tiny area--you have to get the enemies there and then kill them.
At this point it's probably worth mentioning one of the other neat features of the Disgaea combat system. All your humanoid characters can perform a special pair of actions: "Lift", then "Throw". (Monsters can't, but you really don't have to use monster characters in your battles.) This is just what it sounds like--If your character is next to another character, or an enemy, or a Geo Symbol, you can lift it and throw it to a nearby square.
Lifting enables all sorts of tricks, but there are some that are particularly useful with Geo Panels:
* Lift a beneficial Geo Symbol and throw it onto a Panel to provide the bonus to your characters.
* Lift a detrimental Geo Symbol (one that hurts or penalizes your characters, or one that supports the enemies) and throw it onto a square without a Panel.
* Lift an enemy and throw it onto (or off of) a Panel. (This is how you solve the map covered with Invincibility I mentioned above.)
Geo Symbols can also be destroyed, either by attacking them (as you would an enemy) or by throwing an enemy onto them. And this is where things get really interesting. You see, each Geo Symbol also has a color; any of the six colors matching the Geo Panels, or additionally "Null". When a Geo Symbol is destroyed, and it is on a Geo Panel, all the Geo Panels of that color change color to that of the Symbol. A Null symbol will destroy all Panels of the appropriate color, turning them into ordinary non-Panel map squares.
So, for example, let's say one map has the following setup: Green Geo Panels, red Geo Panels, a Null symbol providing Invincibility resting on a green Panel and a green Geo Symbol providing "Ally Damage 20%" resting on a red Panel. Having your characters stand on the red Panels is a bad idea, as they'll be damaged every turn. But if you destroy the green Symbol, then all the red Panels will turn green. Suddenly you'll have a wide swath of green Panels, all of which are provided Invincibility by the Null Symbol resting on the green Panel. After that, if you destroy the Null Symbol, all the Panels will be destroyed. (How do you destroy an Invincibility symbol? Throw an enemy on top of it.)
But wait, there's more!
When you destroy a Geo Symbol and it changes the colors of some Panels, this color change happens in a stately spiraling manner. Each Panel flares up with a surge of energy of the appropriate color--and this flare damages anything that might be standing on that Panel. So, you can cause mini-explosions under enemies if you position them correctly. Also, every time a Panel changes color, that increases your "Bonus Gauge" by a tiny amount, giving you a chance for an extra item once you clear the level. And if you can Null all Panels, you get an extra bonus on top of that--usually three or four more items as treasure.
But wait, there's more! A Panel changing color with a Symbol on it is a special case. Some Symbols may have a lot of hit points and be hard to destroy, but any Symbol resting on a Panel that changes color will always be destroyed, and it will in turn start changing colors once the previous color change is finished.
Here's where it starts getting really interesting. Let's say you have red Panels, green Panels, a red Symbol and a Null Symbol. Put both Symbols on the green Panels and destroy the red Symbol. All the green Panels will turn red, and this also activates the Null symbol; once all the Panels are red, the Null symbol will activate and nullify all red Panels. (The "Null effect" waits for the previous color change to end, then it "sees" that the Panel the Null symbol was on is now red, so it nullifies red Panels.) And since all the Panels are now red, all Panels will be nullfied. Super bonus!
One of the things you can do in Disgaea is explore Item Worlds; these are sequences of randomly generated maps. This is where the Geo Panels really come into their own, because each randomly generated map also has a randomly generated combination of Geo Panels and Symbols. Not entirely random, though, because there is always a way to cause a color-change chain to nullify all Panels. (However, some of the more esoteric and restrictive Symbol effects like No Color Change can make it impossible, but that's quite rare.)
So you play through the Item World and you find yourself planning sequences like this:
* Yellow Symbol on red
* Green Symbol on red
* Cyan Symbol on yellow
* Blue Symbol on green
* Purple Symbol on cyan
* Null Symbol on blue
Hit yellow, red becomes yellow, green activates, yellow becomes green, cyan activates, green becomes cyan, blue activates, cyan becomes blue, purple activates, blue becomes purple, null destroys everything. ULTRA COMBO!
Of course, in order to pull off something like that, you have to send your characters all around the map to throw Symbols onto the proper colors...while surviving enemy attacks but not killing off all the enemies, because that will end the map. And when some of these Symbols provide effects like "Invincibility", "Warp this character to another Panel of this color" or "Create an enemy Clone of this character"...
Well that's just good, brain-bending fun!
