Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance Review Dood! (PS4)
I still remember my first encounter with Disgaea in a gaming magazine. Right next to all the realistic looking 3D titles the PS2 could push at the time, Disgaea sat alone showing off its 2D sprites and almost chibi artworks. It was not until years later that I got a hold of the first Disgaea for the PSP and have been in love with the franchise ever since. Regardless Disgaea can be an intimidating series for newcomers.
With the popularity of the PlayStation 4, Disgaea 5 will most likely be an entry point in the series for many players, as it is the first Disgaea title for the system. Disgaea was developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software. The first two games came out on the PS2 and quickly got a cult following for their tongue-in-cheek humor and deep complex gameplay. In 2008 Disgaea 3 was released for the PlayStation 3, but it was criticized for its outdated visuals. Disgaea 4 had all the sprites redrawn in a higher resolution to utilize the power of its new hardware. Shortly after, Disgaea D2 was released, which is the continuation of the story from the first title.
All games save for Disgaea D2, also had their respective PSP and Vita ports (and even DS in the case of the first Disgaea). Because of its popularity there was also a number of spin-offs, including two platformers and a visual novel.
The story generally follows a demon lord and his quest to take over the netherworld or get revenge. Despite its dark sounding story it is almost always told in a totally light-hearted and wacky manner. For many this is the selling point of the games. The characters are almost always nonsensical and their quest is never uneventful.
Its humor courses deep through its veins. From its hilarious weapon descriptions to its ridiculous monsters. Disgaea is the only game franchise I know where I can pit an explosive demonic penguin, gun wielding monk, zombie maid and a cross-dressing healer against a pumpkin monster, bunny warrior, dragon and mushroom.
So for you fans out there, does Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance live up to the standard put up by its predecessors? The answer is a whole hearted Yes! It brings various new improvements, polishing the already balanced gameplay.
In Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance the story follows Killia, a scantily clothed mysterious demon who while not eating curry is on his way to kill Void Dark who has been taking over various Netherworlds. In order to succeed in overthrowing Void Dark and his army you join with the forces of various Overlords. Throughout the journey Killia is accompanied by Seraphina, the princess of the Gorgeous Underworld; Red Magnus, a musclehead who just wants to beat up stuff; Christo a suspicious mage of a technologically superior underworld; Usalia, a cute girl on a yellow Prinny, who is cursed to turn into a monster if she doesn’t consume curry; and Zeroken, a smug overlord with an attitude.
The cast of side characters is just as ridiculous this time around. One notable addition is the zombie maid who can use an item per turn and still be able to move and attack, perfect for supporting the team. Think the zombie maids are too nice? Well just give them the trait of yandere and you’ll have them speaking in an awfully creepy voice offering to kill you out of their desperate love.
Disgaea plays like your typical SRPG, where your characters move on a grid in turn based combat. Differentiating it from other titles is the fact that you can pick up both enemies and allies and throw them around the map. Then there are also special Geo Panels that change attributes of tiles on the grid and map specific elements that force you to plan out your attack. Disgaea is all about abusing the system and the game encourages you to do so. Ganging up and using all your techniques to kill off an enemy are a viable options in this game and you are rewarded for trying to cheat the system.
A lot of improvements from Disgaea D2 made their way here. You don’t need to throw in a straight line, but instead you can throw anywhere in a range. This allows for a more uses of tactical throws. The cheat shop is back, so you can for example decide you want less money but more experience points per battle, or even increase the enemy difficulty in order to grind faster.
You no longer need to cancel your move command in order to reposition an ally. This finally allows you to swap the position of two allies without having to wast a turn throwing one or another.
A great new addition are quests. You can select up to 10 optional quests that give you rewards of various degrees. They range from completing a mission in one turn, to killing a number of specific monsters. While they may not be too engaging, they still add a nice quick way to get you more money and gear.
Because the theme of the game is assembling an army to fight Void Dark, you will be capturing prisoners during your conquest. Because you gather such a large number of “allies” throughout the game you will have more characters than you will ever know what to do with. It is here that Disgaea 5 offers a ton of possibilities for your new found prisoners. Once you interrogate your prisoners by beating them, starving them or ignoring them you can then either recruit them, use them to level up your squads or if they are too ugly for anything, you can always extract their essence in order to permanently power up a character.
You can assign your allies to squads that range from capture squads, to support squads, to curry cooking squads. Being in a squad gives that character various boosts.
If you have a few too many allies you can always send them to research new areas of the netherworld. The more you send the higher chance of them successfully completing the mission and bringing back new items and prisoners.
New to Disgaea 5 is the kick-ass “Revenge mode”. If a character or his allies are sufficiently beat up, he enters revenge mode for a short period of time giving him guaranteed critical attacks. Overlords also have a special ability called overload once in revenge mode. This devastating skill can make a huge difference in a lot of battles.
The game goes so far as to feature a curry show this time around, where you can even create your own recipe, by dropping up to 1000 items you don’t need into the pot and hoping you don’t poison your whole party afterwards.
Disgaea is the only series that made me literally enjoy level grinding. It’s less about playing a level over and over until you gain enough experience to beat the next boss, but more about abusing the system. You can throw enemies one onto another and combine them so they gain a much higher level. Some levels even feature Geo panels which level up any enemy by 10% for each turn they spend on it. Kill an over-leveled enemy just at the right moment and you will be able to gain 10-20 levels a time.
Like in the previous installments you even have the option to resurrect your characters. This brings them back to level 1, but allows you to boost a few of their base stats. What this ultimately means is that by the time they reach the level they were they will be much stronger. While this is totally optional it is very easy to get them back up to their previous level because of their weapons and armor. It is quite satisfying being able to beat a boss with one well-placed combo.
There are so many systems and options in this game that I would most likely need a three-part tutorial just to cover the basics. But it’s up to you if you want to utilize all the game has to offer. You can invest as little or as much time as you wish. The amount of options is ridiculous. You can play this like your traditional SRPG, where you just play through for the story and loot, or you can fiddle with each of its systems in order to customize everything until it fits your liking.
There are a massive number of chapters, but if you decide to go into the item world and Chara World and grind up your team, complete all the quests, unlock the hidden treasure in each level, complete all the endings and level up your characters to that ultimate level 9999, you are bound to still be playing by the time Disgaea 6 becomes readily available.
Disgaea 5 uses the redrawn sprites from Disgaea 4 and Disgaea D2 and because of it the game looks amazing, featuring some of the best 2D visuals to date. That said, the sprites can look slightly dated, mainly because everything else looks so crisp. The redone menus, beautiful artworks, and 3D backgrounds are rendered in sharp 1080p, while the sprites end up showing their jagged edges up close. Thankfully the charismatic animations and flashy attack moves really help the presentation as a whole.
As always, the game is fully voiced in all important cutscenes and features both English and Japanese voice tracks. Killia is played by non-other than Mamoru Miyano, the voice behind Death Note’s Kira (no wonder that name sounded familiar). The English voice for Killia is Ben Pronsky, who also worked on multiple Atelier games, D4, Soul Sacrifice and Tales of Zestiria.
While Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance does remain true to its roots by changing and adding very little to its formula, the series has already almost been brought to perfection. For fans it’s a no-brainer, Disgaea 5 features everything you love packaged even better. Newcomers may still have a bit of trouble to get used to all the intricacies of combat and quirky humor but once you do get over the initial bump countless possibilities await.
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