Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

"Disgaea Truly Is The Overlord Of Strategy RPG"

''King Krichevskoy, the mighty ruler of the Netherworld...
His long reign came to an abrupt end as the news of his death spread throughout the dark land.
Ambitious demons rose one after another to seize the opportunity, and thus began the age of turbulence and anarchy.
Two years later...''

Can you imagine waking up from a two years nap in Hell and find out that your old man's dead, your crib is looted, all but your most loyal vassals are gone, and to top it off, all these demons are fighting over YOUR rightful throne? So, what would you do, dood? Team up with your devilish vassal, a wannabe ninja angel trainee, Earth's Number One Defender, his busty assistant, and robot sidekick, and a giant Prinny and start busting caps in them demon's asses, that's what! ...Dood!

Nippon Ichi and Atlus' Disgaea: Hour Of Darkness, (It's pronounced ''Dis-Guy-Uh'' according to Atlus.) is a strategy-RPG about Laharl, a dark prince and his road to rightfully claim the throne of the Netherworld's Overlord. The game's light-hearted and amusing story combined with a very involving and deep game play really makes Disgaea worthy of selling your soul for. But before you bargain your eternal soul to be a Prinny, read on to find out why Disgaea is such a great game.

Story: 7/10

''How bold of them! I shall show no mercy... for I am Laharl, the rightful heir to the throne! Haaahahahaha!!!!'' - Laharl

Disgaea's storyline is by no means the most deepest, thought-provoking story ever. It's a very humorous and blithesome tale. The story develops a bit slowly at first, and sometimes appear to be going nowhere, but as the game progresses, the pace picks up and everything comes together. Disgaea is divided into 14 chapters or episodes. Between each episodes is a cute interlude of sorts, consisting of one of the game's characters, usually Etna, dramatically teasing the player about the game's next episode. Of course these teasers are totally off base and makes no sense, but they're amusing.

''Nin, nin, nin, nin.'' - Flonne

That's pretty much Disgaea is in a nutshell; amusing. This game is filled with nutty characters all covered in a sweet chocolaty story. The nutty inside is what propels the story. All the characters are likable and play their role well. Laharl is a smart-mouth young prince hiding a sad past while trying to secure his future. Etna, Laharl's loyal vassal is a spunky girl who has her own past to deal with. Flonne, the nauseatingly cute Angel trainee is sent down from Celestia, the heavenly world on assignment, but stays gets involved in the struggle for Laharl to gain his seat as Overlord. Joined by others, these rat pack work together to unfold a rather intricate conspiracy.

''Oh my god... If those demons find us... They'll use their tentacles to rape me and drain my bodily fluids!'' - Jennifer

As the story unfolds, Disgaea treats us with loads of hilarious scenes and dialogs. Atlus did a great job localizing Disgaea. They chose a great voice cast and skillfully translated and localized the dialogs, though you are free to listen to the original Japanese dub. Disgaea pokes fun at modern Animés, clichés, and pop culture. From Power Rangers, to Hentais, to Lost In Space, and killer pretzels. I can't tell you how many times I've laughed or chuckled while playing Disgaea. It's just such a great game. Kudos to Atlus!

Game play: 8/10

''Oh these flowers are so beautiful, yet so simple. I wish I was like that.'' - Flonne

The game play in Disgaea has to be one of the best reason to play Disgaea. It can be very simple. You can start a chapter, watch the story part, buy supplies, and enter a series of four or five story battles. You can return to your castle between battles and resume fighting until you finished all the story battles and the chapter ends. The procedure begins again next chapter. Throughout the game, Disgaea gives you at least seven characters that join you. And you can go through the entire game with just those seven characters.

But that's not very fun, isn't it? No, dood. We want our money's worth. We want to lose our friends, job, school for this. Trust me, it is possible to sell your soul to Disgaea. You see, this simple game play can scale up to a huge, involving game.

''Oh yeah, Prinnies can explode when you throw them.'' - Etna

In Disgaea, there are so many things to do. And it can seem overwhelming. Disgaea boasts a large job system with various classes you can obtain. You can create brawlers, warriors, ninjas, archers, samurais, mages, knights, clerics.. and that's not all. There are hidden classes, that players can try to unlock and master. Not only that, players can create any monsters they've defeated to add to their army. Except for the higher hidden classes, each classes are all equally balanced and can all potentially be powerful allies. Personally, I find mages to be very powerful once at a decent level, able to damage a group of enemies from far away. Don't get me wrong, even though they are equally balanced, each class type have specific specialties. Rogues can throw far and steal, ninjas excel in counter and evade, knights are skilled with swords and magic, and so on. Also, although any class can equip any weapons and armors, they each have specific equipment type(s) that benefits them the most. Players need to be careful, though. It's fun to create 15 or 30 characters, but if you intend to level them all, it can be a handful.

''Who will be born again tonight?''

In addition to being able to create new characters, they can be ''transmigrated'' or reincarnated back to level 1. Now why would you want to bring down a Level 300 Etna back to Level 1? Because transmigrated characters get a higher base state as well as a few extra ability points to further increase their base stats. Not only that, they level up faster. So, Etna will be back in Level 300 in no time at all and she'll have better stats than she was originally. This is a good alternative to just leveling up straight to 600 or 1000 which will take significantly longer.

Disgaea also has other unique features such as the Dark Assembly. Here, players can propose more expensive items, improve stats, open optional areas, etc. In order to gain support, characters can increase ranks by passing battle exams, bribe senators, or kill opposing senators. Who said ''Democracy is dead?''

One more unique feature in Disgaea is the Item World. Players can enter a world that exists in each items, weapons, and armers. Each world consists of randomly generated battlefield and are multiple floors deep. For every floor cleared, the item gains a level. So if you went inside your Power Armor, and cleared 20 floors, your Power Armor gains 20 levels. The higher the level, the higher the stat boosts. While inside an item world, you'll encounter residence of an item that modifies the item's perimeters. They are called Item Specialists. If you defeat them, you can move them from one item to another, allowing total customization of your equipments. This is a great alternative to buying stronger equipments.

''What'd you say?! A horse wiener?! Now THAT'S dangerous! Guys, be on your guard!'' - Laharl

Disgaea's battle system is very unique and can offer a wide variety of strategy to fight. During battles, characters can lift and throw another characters. You can use this method to move across the entire board or lift tough a enemy to keep him from attacking your weak cleric. Or perhaps throw your cleric back away from harm.

Another interesting element in battles is the ability to execute team attacks and combos. If your attacker is adjacent to allies, they can join in on the attack. If well executed, you create many team attacks. Combo attack is when multiple attackers are ordered to attack one enemy consecutively. The benefit is that for each consecutive attack, the attack bonus gets stronger and the enemy's defense gets lowered. If properly executed, you can defeat enemies much stronger than your party. Plus, a high string of team attacks and combos boost the Battle Gauge.

The Battle Gauge is just a way to gain bonuses like money, (the currency is HL) weapons, armors, items, and bonus experience. So the better you execute these combos, the more rewards you get.

Finally, the most significant feature in battle are the Geo Panels. In most battle fields, there are colored tiles or panels littered throughout or covering the entire board. In addition to Geo Panels, there are Geo Symbols. Geo Symbols are prisms that have specific stat altering effects. The effects can be helpful or hurtful. Things like Attack up 50%, Recovery 20%, Enemy X3, Defense Down 50%, etc. If a Geo Symbol is sitting on a colored panel, then all panels that are of the same panel will have whatever effect the Geo Symbol has. And if a character stands on the affected Geo Panel, then their stats are altered until they step away from it. So this adds a whole new element of strategy. Because players can manipulate by lifting and throwing or destroying Geo Symbols. If Geo Symbol is destroyed it can trigger a chain reaction of changing Geo Panels and racking up huge bonuses while damaging enemies. It's quite a sight, really.

''LIFE SIGNS DETECTED... IT IS NOT GORDON. OH $%#@! RUN!!''- Thursday

One small thing I'd like in battle is to be able to interact with the environment. Such as being able to pick up rocks and crates to throw at enemies or to move them to create obstacles like Vandal Heart. I'd also like to be able to burn trees, freeze or melt water and ice to create path, obstacles like Kartia. This would add even more strategic elements into the game. Not that there wasn't enough, I'd just like more.

Also, the leveling system could use a little work. Characters can raise their skill levels by using them, but to raise their overall level, they must deal the final blow of an enemy. Only a successful kill will earn that character, and only that character the enemy's experience points. This can cause problems for your offensively weak characters such as a cleric. The way around it is to have your weak character participate in a team attack that kills the enemy. In team attacks, experiences are divided among team attack participants. Still, I'd prefer Disgaea distribute experiences based on actions, like Arc The Lad or Final Fantasy Tactics.

Finally, the enemy AI isn't the most complicated. They are predictable and consistent. For example they will always attack the nearest weakest character. You can lure a tough boss or enemy one at a time and just gang up on him with team attacks and combos. If it weren't for the Geo Panels, there really wouldn't be any variation in strategy.

Speaking of variations, there aren't any in terms of winning conditions. It's just ''defeat all enemies'' I'd like some variety in mission objectives. Such as ''Last 5 rounds, Kill all enemies in 5 turns, Protect ally!, Use only magic,'' etc

''Don't worry. It's still possible to beat this game with minimal knowledge.'' - Anita

As you can see, Disgaea can be very complicated and involving. Now, the game does contain tutorials for every feature I mentioned, but somehow, I still think they could have done what Square did with Final Fantasy Tactics and created a dedicated full blown tutorial with more thorough explanation. Nonetheless, I really like the fact that Disgaea is so flexible. If you wanted, you could keep things real simple and follow the game's linear main plot with just your core 7 characters. But if you're more adventurous, you can choose to the many nonlinear side quests, transmigrate instead of pure leveling, create an army of 70+ allies of humanoids and monsters, level up your items instead of just buying generic ones, and so on. This is what Disgaea different and shines.

Graphics: 7/10

''G-get your sexy body away from me!!'' - Laharl

Despite being a Playstation 2 game, Disgaea looks more like a Playstation game. The graphics aren't mind-blowing. But it isn't terrible either. Disgaea uses clean detailed sprites and 3-D isometric backgrounds, very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. For scene dialogs, a wide variety of drawn Animé portraits along with top notch voice acting are used to convey the story and emotions. During battles, the sprite animations are fluid and smooth. Spells are all done pretty well. Characters' weapons reflect not only the type equipped, but different kinds within the type. However the sprite models for generic characters and monsters aren't as varied, relying on color differences to indicate different character class within a type.

Sound/Music: 8/10

''We're going on a picnic! La la la!'' - Gordon

A lot of people say the music is OK, pretty decent, nothing great. And overall, they're right. It ain't something you'd want to buy the soundtrack for. But Disgaea does have quite a few catchy tunes including ''The Invasion From Within'' by Tsunami Bomb. All of the music were at least decent. None were terrible.

The voice acting, as already mentioned were very well done. All of the voices fit their assigned character. And when voice acting is done this well, it is much easier to be attached to the game's characters, to care about them. Atlus wisely chose to give players the choice of hearing the dialogs in English or Japanese. I've never tried the Japanese track. I normally prefer Japanese tracks, but since Atlus did a great job on the English track, there was no reason to go Japanese.

Replay Value: 9/10

''I have obtained ultimate speed all while training, and training, and training in 1,000 ton boxers!'' - Mid-Boss

Read the Game play section. Now read it again. Yep, Disgaea has a New Game+ mode after you finish it. New Game+ allows you to start a new game with the same stats you worked so hard for before finishing Disgaea the first time. You're going to need the New Game+ because Disgaea has seven multiple endings. Add in tons of involving option side quests and secret characters, Disgaea has high replay value. Besides,. I'd want to hear Flonne snore again.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided to create a challenge of some kind alá Final Fantasy Tactics where one must unlock and master every class, weapons, skills, max all levels, stats, item quantities, capture all monster, complete all side quests, have every equipment a maxed out Legend item.. That... would certainly take an eternity in Hell to achieve. But since you're the Netherworld's Overlord...

Overall: 9/10

''Overlord! Overlord! Overlord!!'' - Laharl

With a funny and feel good story, great characters, awesome and innovative game play, Disgaea is truly the Overlord of all Strategy Games. I strongly recommend you go out and get Disgaea. Because like all Atlus games, it will be very rare soon. Then you'd really have to sell your soul to get one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/03, Updated 10/07/03