Concept

Dive headfirst into a huge strategy rpg with an endless amount of strategic possibilities. Create your own unique team from a slew of available recruits and level them up to level 99, 999, or if you have no life, and no girlfriend,  then you can even level that prinny up to level 9999! Players can expect to spend hours in the item world grinding, playing a board game to raise recruits aptitude, or just jumping around the base. ” Jumping around the base, really dood?”  Yes!  “But why dood?” Because we can, damn it!

Gameplay

Disgaea 5 is the biggest, baddest, Disgaea title yet! Players have their choice of just playing through the campaign grinding a minimal amount to finish the game, or players can grind like a stripper on prozac and venture into the mass of over leveled endgame content. I’ll delve more into gameplay further down in this review.

Music

Disgaea fans can expect the usual, meaning the music is heavily orchestrated with choirs and god knows what else. There are a few mellow songs in Disgaea 5 including a calming acoustic guitar melody followed by soothing vocals that cleanses the soul.

Story

Save the galaxy from your arch nemesis with your comrades at your side. Along the way, build bonds of trust with your comrades as you help them overcome their personnel dilemmas.

Voice Acting

The voice acting was very high quality, being on par with Disgaea 4. This game was voice acted about eighty percent of the time.

Gameplay Time

A lengthy story mode and endgame content can claim over a hundred hours. If players only intend to play the story mode, they can expect about sixty hours of gameplay time.

Graphics

Disgaea fans most likely know what to expect but for the gamers who live under a rock, let me say that the graphics are insane for a PS4 game! No, I don’t mean insane as in badass, I mean insane as in bad with no ass (like that girl we took to the prom.) The characters are sprites and look even worse during special moves scenes because they have been enlarged. The backgrounds have been improved though since they have added actual movement to them.

In Depth Review

From the first Disgaea game to Disgaea 5, the series hasn’t improved their graphics much. No my (GTA 5 was the shit bro, chest bump, ugh) friend, that isn’t what Disgaea is all about. Instead, the series focuses on gameplay, total gameplay time, and mind numbing statistics. Having to consider recruits aptitude,  what items should be leveled up, and reincarnation, (which starts recruits back at level one but with higher aptitude.) can cause gamers to stare blankly at the TV screen and just jump around the base like a plumber who never actually plumbs. As dull as this sounds, Disgaea still manages to pulls gamers in and doesn’t let go until the mind numbing end. Similar to fishing, Disgaea reels gamers in until we are just mindlessly flopping around on the ground, thus allowing us to experience a whole new world out of the sea, expressionless, mouths ajar, and staring blankly at the beautiful sky that seems to have no end.

Onto the topic of gameplay, Disgaea 5 further expands the Disgaea formula with newly added functions. Some of these functions include a quest shop, innocent farm, and two newly added battle functions; montoss and revenge mode. The quest shop is where players can undertake various quest. Upon completion of these quests, players will receive rewards, sometimes unlocking new recruit classes. The innocent farm allows players to increase their innocents value as well as breeding new innocents. Personally, I found these two newly added mechanics to be overwhelming with all the other things we Disgaea fans have to keep up with. Players continuously swap these innocents in and out of the farm to make room for more innocents that are bred, which can begin to feel lIke a hassle. The quest also feel overwhelming as they are so numerous.

The newly added battle mechanics are a welcome addition however. The monsters in Disgaea can now throw and it’s about damn time I say. The monsters are still somewhat limited when throwing because they can’t end their turn while lifting. The revenge mode was also a welcome addition by many Disgaea fans. In battle, whenever units take damage or die, the revenge gauge fills up on other units present on the battlefield.. When it reaches max, revenge mode automatically activates, boosting units stats. The main characters also have a revenge mode special move at their disposal when they enter revenge mode, which can kick some prinny ass. (What the hell dood.) These new battle functions serve to make the battles that much more fun and strategy involved.

There is quite a bit of DLC available in Disgaea 5. This DLC includes additional characters that can be recruited, such as NISA from Hyperdemension Neptunia, Etna, Flonne, Fuka, and many others. I do have some bad news for Disgaea fans and that’s the fact that you can’t recruit Plenair unless you purchased the DLC season pass…which is no longer available. Yes, I know, This is an outrage, but if my readers send an email stating your discontent as I did, then who knows, NIS may make Plenair available to the rest of us as well.

Closing Comments

Disgaea 5 brings fans exactly what they wanted. A new Disgaea title that only adds to the original formula that we have all come to love; overly silly dialogue that tugs on our heart strings by the end, original characters that are brought to life by superb voice acting, and an endless grind we can lose ourselves in, making us forget the worries of the day.