Disgaea 4

Introduction

Disgaea 4 is a continuation of a series of games that have gained a cult fan base in the SRPG world. SRPG essentially stands for strategy role playing game. More well-known games in this genre would be Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem.

Gameplay

Disgaea 4 doesn’t disappoint in its superb gameplay developed over the course of the Disgaea series. Like any SRPG it uses a tile/grid system for battle where you have specific characters that do battle, gain experience, and level up. However, unlike many other SRPG’s out there Disgaea 4 adds different dimensions to the battle field with combos, lifting and throwing allies, and much more.

Disgaea 4 is also highly customizable to your game playing style. It has interesting, and sometimes hilarious animations that go with a variety of actions. However all of these can be skipped, characters sped up and moves undone as necessary and depending on what you wish to accomplish. You can also customize your characters and items how you please with an item world, mana world, reincarnations, campaign headquarters, etc. The one downfall to this mass customization is that it creates a complex game style that can take some getting used to. However, given time you can sink deeper and deeper into the various levels and playing styles gamers have in the Disgaea world.

Story

As per usual in the Disgaea series, Disgaea 4 serves up an interesting story with various unique and often humorous characters. Nippon Ichi-the game developers- has mastered the art of storytelling with providing a highly comedic story fueled with ridiculousness, yet somehow always tying it back in to deeper, more serious themes.

Disgaea 4’s story is about a vampire who loses his ability to drink human blood and has become weak because of it. In fact he has become so weak that he took on the worst job in the Netherworld, being a prinny instructor. However, due to various events his students, penguin like creatures called prinnies, are kidnapped and he and his loyal werewolf servant must save them and discover why the prinnies were taken away.

All in all, the humour provided in both this game and all Disgaea games is a refreshing change from the typical serious SRPG plots. It still retains some seriousness but all in all the game is hilarious with its insane characters and references to many gaming terms, such as levels, final bosses, etc.

Graphics

The graphic in Disgaea 4 are phenomenal, especially when compared to the games predecessor Disgaea 3. Both were on the same system (PS3) yet the difference between the looks of the two games is astronomical. Disgaea 3 failed its fans in terms of looks yet Disgaea 4 made up for that disappointment from the series many fans.

Replayability

Disgaea 4 is a highly replayable game as it has at least eight different endings and those don’t even factor in the post-game content. You get to carry over all your levels, characters and money from the previous game, making the decision o go onwards never a detriment. You can unlock new classes and new characters that you may recognize if you’ve played other Disgaea and Nippon Ichi games. In fact the amount of levels and extra stuff you can unlock in the post-game far outmatches the amount of levels and characters you gain during the actual story. This along with new online developments and the fact that you can level every character to 9999 leads to hundreds of hours of gameplay. This is all ignoring the extra downloadable content you can gain from the PlayStation Network as well.

Final Review

This game holds it all, for both casual and hard-core gamers alike. This game is an excellent and fun addition to add to your gaming collection. Whether you are new to the Disgaea series or not, if you pick up a copy of this game you will not be disappointed.