I just finished a review of Disgaea PC and wanted to post it here, but I couldn't find an active thread for Disgaea in general. So, post all things Disgaea here. If you want to.
There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.
Unemployment has allowed me to make a lot of questions decisions re: which video games to play. I went into Disgaea - having played the DS port to completion (and reaching level 9999/doing roughly half of the postgame stuff) back in the day - not expecting a whole lot. 62 hours later here I am, thoroughly enjoying the hell out of the Disgaea re-experience (at the cost of my FBI dossier). Hell I would even rank Disgaea in the higher tier of PS2-era JRPGs, somewhere close to Final Fantasy X.
I think most are familiar with Disgaea's reputation for grinding, but I'll go through some of the finer gameplay mechanics [deep breath]:
*Your team consists of a handful of story-related characters, and any number of custom-made characters from a selection of classes (the max that can be deployed on any map is 10). The max level is 9999 but characters have the ability to 'transmigrate', which carries over stat bonuses of said character while reseting their level to 1. The benefits aren't immediately obvious, but once you get to level 70 or so it becomes a very handy tool. Transmigration can be performed as many times as one wishes (leading to the insane seven-digit stats you may have seen from screenshots) and is essential for postgame/side content; it's not strictly required for the main mission (which you can beat around an average of level 70ish if you have a solid team) but it helps.
*The Netherworld might be inhabited by demons but they still have democracy! Characters can make requests from Demon Congress ( at the cost of Mana, which is accumulated through defeating enemies. Your requests range from the mundane (better equipment at the weapon/armor shops) to significant (unlocking entire new maps for sidequests). New "laws" require a majority yea vote, so sometimes you'll have to bribe Demon Congress with items to sway them over. If your proposals fail (as many do) you can either give up or murder everyone to force the vote, as it were. To balance things out most Congress members are level 40 and up, meaning you'll only feasibly pass unpopular laws (more funding, triple experience for the next battle, etc.) once you've spent enough time to be able to beat them
*The Item World. Hoo boy, where do I start? Each piece of equipment, consumables included, have "Specialists" attached to them. These Specialists have different functions ranging from increased attack (gladiators) to elemental resistance to increased experience (statisticians). The number of a particular Specialist depends on their effectiveness; for example having 12 statisticians will raise your experience gained by 12% when equipping its respective weapon/piece of armor. If you go into the Item World itself you can 'level up' your weapons stats as well as "subdue" Specialists, doubling their number and allowing them to be transfered between weapons. For balancing, the level of enemies increases with the power of the weapon you 'dive' into.
*Geo Panels give bonuses like added exp, attack, invincibility etc. on certain titles. They're randomly generated in the Item World (as are the maps) but intentionally set for story/side missions. The Item World itself is a set of RNG-produced maps. It's possible to get screwed over by an unwinnable map, but that only happened to me once. Did that make it any less frustrating? Nope!
The Transmigration-Congress-Item World dynamic leads to a satisfying gameplay loop of, yes, mostly grinding. Herein lies the issue for most: If you don't have the sort of brainworm that can enable hours of grinding, then you probably won't get much out of Disgaea; certainly not the postgame. If you do find solace in grinding, there's a lot to love here. Geo Panels can fundamentally alter your approach to maps and add an incentive to diversify your team. The maps are generally well designed; that being said there are a few that drag out longer than they need to due to Geo Panels (no crossing, no lifting, and invincibility are the bane of my existence). Still, solid overall. The maps use the same kind of Tactics Ogre/FF Tactics height system, but you can throw characters to reach normally inaccessible areas. I don't think the story missions utilize this enough, but it certainly helps speed up the Item World. Throwing can be kind of broken if you use it wisely (you can stack multiple characters on top of each other and make a chain of sorts).
The story and dialog are also of note. While Disgaea's brand of wacky irreverence (this aint yer granmammy's JRPG!) isn't particularly noteworthy today, it was pretty novel for 2003 (games like Earthbound and Moon notwithstanding). Not having the burden of having a preconceived notion of "Disgaea humor" allows it to feel more original. I think for the most part Disgaea knows when and when not to take itself seriously, which is something most scripts forget when they try to go for a more tongue-in-cheek tone. The plot itself is actually quite good: The Netherworld (a kinda-sorta hell analog but with its own laws and institutions) finds itself in a power struggle after the death of King Krichevskoy. His son, Laharl, awakens from a two-year slumber (the result of a seemingly botched assassination attempt) and tries to establish himself as the true successor to the Netherworld's throne. Along the way we're introduced to the angel world of Celestia and the angel-trainee Flonne, who is sent down to assassinate Laharl. By the end they all learn a thing or two about friendship and moral relativity. It's not Metal Gear Solid 2 layers of depth but it's a simple and effective way of telling its story. Similarly, cutscenes usually last no longer than five minutes and are portioned in easily digestible chunks before and/or after each level. Heck, I'd be lying if I said the ending didn't pull the hardened cochlae of my heart. A surprising thumbs up overall.
I still have plenty of postgame content to dive into, and that's where the real meat of the gameplay begins: be prepared for hours of grinding if you dare. My playthrough clocked in at 60 hours, but you could probably beat it within 45 hours or so if you grind efficiently.
While some general QoL issues would be addressed in later entries (my biggest gripes: the menuing can get very tedious, you can't skip the [slow] visual effect of breaking Geo Panels, and the camera angle can only rotate, not zoom in/out), I think Disgaea more or less nailed the core gameplay the first time around. From what I've played, the added mechanics from thereon out range from small-but-appreciated tweaks to, at worst, superfluous layers of micromanagement. Disgaea has enough micromanagement as is, and to that point I think I prefer the first over 4 and 5. As enjoyable as they were (namely 5; 4 faded from my memory long ago) the amount of streamlining (and additional mechanics) made the main story trivially easy and more of a formality for the crazy postgame content that ensues. I'll be playing Disgaea 2, which is supposed to be a markèd improvement over 1, after a brief cooldown period. Anyway, as it stands, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a lovely time all around.
The verdict: On a scale from Never Let Me Down (very, very bad) to Low/"Heroes" (all-time classics), Disgaea earns a Station to Station. A- or B+ depending on my mood.
NOTE: This is not the 'proper' remaster (Disgaea 1 Complete). The Steam port updates the textures but you can choose the original if you so desire. There's also ugly bilinear filters for character sprites. Don't use that. Other than that, same game. I eventually downloaded a mod that updates the sprites with their Remastered counterparts, but it's not entirely thorough. The original spritework is still great however. Also, you can choose between the original UI and a new one that's much crisper visually (though it loses some the charm).
Really though, I wouldnt be too surprised if NIS switched gears and worked on an HD version of 2 and/or 3, as the mainline Disgaea franchise is in a peculiar position right now with 6 and 7
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Topic: The last Disgaea general thread is a decade old and archived so here's a new one I guess.
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