No review can completely cover the mind blowing amount of things you can do in this game. You could play it forever.
The story for Disgaea takes place mostly in the dimension of Hell where you play as Laharl, the son of the devil. After a long nap Laharl wakes to find out that his father has choked on a pretzel and that hell has spent the past couple hundred years in chaos as various demons vie for the throne. Suffice it to say that the story has a few interesting twists and turns and is covered in comic relief. The story is more silly then anything else. And depending on how you play the game you'll be subject to several different endings. There are several story characters, but unless the level requires you to use them your free to use who you want in a given battle.
For those of you that have played games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and games like that you'll quickly feel right at home. For those that havn't and have no idea what your getting into then just know that the battle system is insanely deep. Battles take place in an area that has been layed over with a grid. You will control a group of characters (Laharl and others of your choice) against a group of enemies. Each character (enemy and ally) takes up one square. every turn you can preform one action and one movement around the grid. Various attacks take up more then one space on the grid. Ultimately when all the enemies are dead you win. How you do that plays out differently every time.
I could go on forever about the details of the battle system. Suffice it to say that battle is more tactical then most games out there and while you'll get tired of the battle music before too long the but combat itself you'll never really get tired of.
Disgaea has more gameplay depth then most video games out there. Final Fantasy Tactics had an immense amount of depth in it's gamplay. Disgaea aims to one up them and more then does so. Apart from the main story battles you can use any item in the game to open up a 99+ level dungeon. Progressing through each lvl serves to increase the statistics of the item. So for example, if you took the time to level the weakest weapons they could be as powerful as the strongest weapons (unleveled) in the game. Also, when you are inside items you'll come across these creatures called specialists. These specialists serve to give even further bonuses to whatever item they are in. Killing these creatures gives you access to the specialist and the ability to move them from item to item. You get the picture, and this is but one feature in a game piled with them. There is also a character creation system that is equally complex and chalked full of things to do. For example if the character creates a mage, when they stand next to this mage they have access to their spells. And if you cast spells enough like this, the creator character can learn the spells from his creation. So if you wanted to do it you could have Laharl knowing every spell in the game.
It doesn't stop there, the max lvl in Disgaea is 9999 and the stats go insanely high to match. However there is an option to go back to lvl 1 with a fraction of your 9999 stats. So if you work up to 9999 again you'll find yourself much more powerful then you were last time. It goes on and on like this and i could spent hours typing up all the features and complexities of this game.
As far as the visuals go Disgaea is presented in an enjoyable mix of 2d sprites and 3d backgrounds (again, much like Final Fantasy Tactics). And while it doesn't compare to the likes of the big pretty rpgs it has a quirky style all of it's own. The same can be said of the sound. The voice acting is really cheesy and over the top, but somehow it fits and serious voice acting would take away from the feel of the game. The only gripe about the game would be in it's soundtrack. The music becomes very repetitous after a while. And considering that this is a game that demands hundreds of hours you can imagine that it gets really irritating to hear the same loop of music.
All in all, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is easy to recommend to anyone that is looking for a game with depth that will eat months of their life. Anybody that was obsessed with Final Fantasy Tactics, and anybody looking for something quirky and different. If commitment to a game for a few months isn't your thing then this game isn't for you.