Creative as hell (quite literally) and fun to boot, Disgaea DS's inner beauty shines through the crusty exterior.
It seems as if the market is constantly flooded with "JRPGs", cliche anime-esque games that involve the power of friendship and crazy hairstyles. While I do take offense to the notion that all anime and RPGs that come from Japan (I refuse to use the term "JRPG", since it is politically incorrect, you negros) are shallow and predictable, I will admit that the main core of these games are like this. However, every once in a while there comes a game that parodies the nature of the genre down to a cue. One of these games is No More Heroes, which mocks action games by involving a teenage punk who rides around in a ridiculously huge motorcycle and battles baseball bat-wielding henchmen with a lightsaber he bought on eBay. Another one of these games...is Disgaea DS.
Story: This is one of the most creative games I've played in a while. The plot involves Prince Laharl, the son of the late Overlord of the Netherworld, King Krichevskoy (who died by choking on black pretzels), who fights to claim his right to the throne. Now this may sound like a stereotypical "zero to hero", "rise up to the challenge" story, but it's not. While this game may have a pretty good story, where it really shines is in its writing. For starters, as I mentioned before, this game takes place in the Netherworld (and no, I don't think it was translators trying to avoid "hell", since Laharl constantly says "hell" and "bastard" and the like), meaning that the characters are demons. That means that you are playing as the bad guys. And don't think that it'll be a "Hell is good, Heaven is bad" plot (well, near the end it steers in that direction, but I digress). The main characters are evil...and they know it. From time to time, Laharl will let out a ridiculously exaggerated evil laugh. When it turns out you kill one of your allies, the royal vassals simply reply "You certainly are clumsy ❤". Laharl dubs a recurring villain "Mid-Boss", to his chagrin. In order to get the Dark Assembly of senators to give in to your demands, you either have to bribe them with countless gifts, or persuade them by force (expect to do the latter very often). Laharl's greatest weaknesses include sexy women and the word "love". Not only does the game milk this, but it also constantly finds great humor in parodying both the Japanese media that this is claimed to be "fodder" of, and the American media that tries to pretend that it's far superior, despite being the same bullcrap in a different package. You gradually come to love the characters for their comedic wrongdoings and their flaws, and while they do mature throughout the game, they are still the same people. The story is the one hook that will motivate you to keep on playing that next level...
Gameplay: ...and thus I get to my next point: the gameplay. This is unlike any other tactical game I've ever played. Whether that's a good thing or not...well, you can decide in a moment. The game is played diagonally, in that instead of moving up, down, left, or right, you move up and left, up and right, and...you get it. At first this is a little irritating, but after a few hours of training yourself to know that up on the D-pad is diagonal-right in the game, then it pretty much becomes natural. An interesting aspect of the game is that it has no limits. Literally. Unlike most Strategy/RPG games, which usually have some cap at which your characters can level, this game has no such cap. You could level up your character to level 25,374, but you'd have to have the patience of a saint to be willing to play for that long. Now the actual gameplay flows as one would expect from a Stragety game: you move all your characters, attack the opponents, then they move, attack you, and so on and so forth. As characters grow, they gain special attacks that are a treat to watch for the first few times around, but then become expected. Now, for the most part, the game flows fine. There are a few problems, though. One of such is that the game is never self explanatory. When you play the damn tutorial stage, they suddenly throw everything at you at once, expecting you to suddenly absorb it all. It'll probably be 75% through the game before you actually manage to fully grasp all of the game's mechanics. However, there is one major gripe that overpowers any of the rest: the game is too fxcking hard. I mean, I can handle difficulty. I like a challenge. For the five minutes I got my hands on Mega Man 9, I didn't scream expletives that would make my mother want to cram two boiling hot elephant penises through her ears; I enjoyed it. I relished the challenge. And when I finally beat it, it gave me a sense of accomplishment. But that's not the case with Disgaea. Sure, getting the Dark Assembly to bend to your demands can be a pain in the ass, but what I'm talking about is the core gameplay. You will most likely be playing the game with a roster of 10 characters (with, aside from 10 story-specific characters that you may or may not use, are all user-creatable with customability up the wazoo, but what the hell am I doing; I'm bashing the game right now, not praising it), each of which will level up at a trudging pace of about a quarter of a level per stage, if you are so lucky. Meanwhile, while it takes you a matter of days to level up, your enemies are leveling up faster than you are. And I don't mean that they're about one level ahead each stage, because I can handle that. I mean that, by the last few chapters, the enemies are increasing in strength by five levels per stage. That's fxcking bullshxt. If it were a matter of tacking intelligent tactics to beat this game, then I wouldn't mind; once I found out the proper solution, I'd say "Oh, of course!", laugh to myself, then play on. But what pisses me off about this game is that it expects you to spent half of the time going back and playing old stages to level grind for hours on end. I can handle a little level grinding before a major boss, but this is fxcking ridiculous. The difficulty of this game is not only mind-blowingly arduous, but tedious and boring to boot, and, like Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation said, maybe this was a satire of the genre; however, when humor comes at the sake of fun gameplay, that just grinds my balls.
Graphics: Phew...now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's move on to something a bit less infuriating. I don't know what to say about the graphics; they're just...OK. For the Nintendo DS, they're OK. However, I've looked at HoD footage, and noticed that there is little to no difference, graphically. This begs the question, "What the fxck is a PS2 game doing with SNES-level graphics?". Now some may argue that these are N64 graphics, perhaps PS1 graphics...but none would argue that these graphics are of the PS2's capabilities. Now I admit that I am being a tad hypocritical, as my favorite game has...admittedly lousy graphics. At points. The difference, though, is that while FE10 has impressive graphics during cutscenes and battle sequences that mirror the console's capabilities, Disgaea has no such sequences of superb graphical strength. But...then again, I'm reviewing a DS game, not a PS2 game. Overall, the graphics aren't too shabby. I may be jaded by Phantom Hourglass and TWEWY, but taking in perspective most of the DS's library, these graphics are pretty durn good.
Audio: I...feel so-so about the music. Same thing about the graphics; it's not amazing, but it's not bad, either. There are a few catchy tunes, but most of it just sounds like drivel. Then again, most of the music sounds right out of a children's cartoon or an anime series right out of Japan, so maybe this was another instance of the developers making a stab at the culture surrounding this game. To that, I will say that they did a fairly good job, as the music is always upbeat and zany, which kinda clashes against the whole "demons from hell" thing. As it turns out, though, the audio quality dropped dramatically from the PS2 version. While it's not like we're missing orchestrated versions of the themes, they still sound more tin-canned on the DS than they do on the PS2, which, after hearing the much more entertaining sounds on the PS2, is quite a disappointment (and an oddity, really, considering that after seeing what TWEWY did with music, it's hard to believe that the developers were hard pressed to carry over MIDI music). Another problem is the lack of voice actors. Normally I'd say that a game like this doesn't deserve or need voice actors, and it really, really doesn't; the issue, though, is that the PS2 version did have voice acting in almost every single cutscene, whereas this version didn't. And that's a dad-gum shame, considering that Laharl and Mid-Boss have pretty amusing voices.
Length/Replay Value: At around 55-60 hours, I'd say this game checks out as your standard RPG, length-wise. Ignoring the mind-numbing hours you'll be spending level grinding, the game is rather long, with somewhere along the line of 70 different stages, each divided neatly into episodes. Once you beat the game, you can either start playing a short alternate version of the game in which Etna accidentally kills Laharl as he sleeps, causing her to become the main character, or you can play the main quest all over again. Both options involve all of your characters carrying over with whatever stats you left them at, allowing you to play this game over and over and over again until your head explodes. One problem I have, though, is that the game has multiple endings, and it grinds my shxt when I go through all the trouble to beat the game, then, because I messed up one time, I have to watch this depressing ending that basically says "YOU SUCK, KID". Normally I'd be willing to play the game over again to see that ending, but the hell with that; I still have a full laundry list of games I have to beat/review.
Bosses: Usually each episode ends with a story-driven boss. Some of them are easy...most of them are not, leaving your entire team to swarm on them in a hope to peck off even a fraction of damage. Most likely these bosses will be almost twice as strong as you, which can get rather annoying when you get near the end of the game, and one boss is level 80, and the next is level 90, and they just expect you to roll with it.
Multiplayer: There's a function unique to this version, in which you can battle against your friends with your own teams, but I haven't had the time to try it out. While I'm usually skeptical about multiplayer Strategy games, though, this would work out well when it comes to duking it out against each other.
Extras: Other than Etna's Story, the multiplayer function, and around 10 different endings, there's also a guy selling music from the game (but why the hell you'd pay good money for those expensive tracks instead of actual weapons is beyond me), a special room that contains Etna's diary, which lets you in on secrets within the game, and an option for the Prinnies, reincarnated souls having taken the form of penguins and forced to serve in the Netherworld to repent for their sins on Earth while speaking like 13 year old boys on the internet and exploding when tossed, to give commentary over the game's dialogue.
Final Statement: Despite all of its flaws and issues and all of my complaints, Disgaea DS isn't a terrible game; it's not even a bad game. It's very good, but not necessarily the best game out there. It's charming, amusing, clever, and will hopefully pave the way for an (easier) sequel to be ported onto the DS soon enough. While I am partial to certain games with emblems that are on fire when it comes to strategy, this game has warmed me up to the franchise, and I'm open to see what Nippon Ichi has in store for us next.