Disagaea: Hour of Darkness Review

Developer	Nippon Ichi
Publisher	Atlus
Genre	Strategy Role-Playing

Although the advent of the next-gen consoles has brought the gaming world many wonderful things, all those flashy graphics has led to the subtle downfall of a genre that's been plugging away since the days of the SNES - the Strategy RPG, or SRPG. A genre that's never prided itself on graphical mastery (although the 2D sprites used for characters pack quite a bit of detail if you pay attention to them), this is a genre that's been masterfully addictive since the games started appearing with Ogre Battle. Luckily, Japanese developers like Nippon Ichi have continued making them, and even more luckily, risk-taking publishers like Atlus have localized them. To those with the patience for a game without screen-shaking explosions, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a windfall; it's one of the deepest SRPGs ever created, and the quirky sense of humor found in the Japanese version has survived the localization process fully intact, puns and all.

Set in the Netherworld, Disgaea is set two years after the death of King Krichevskoy, the ruler of the Netherworld. His son, Laharl, has just awoken after two years of sleep, and he feels that it is his responsibility to regain control of the Netherworld, a Tim Burton-esque vision, from all the various demons and creatures that have come to power while he slept. The story is complex and deep enough to remain engaging, but never too serious to avoid poking fun at itself with some well-placed zany dialogue.

Gameplay - The classic SRPG formula is only slightly altered in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Battles take place on the typical square-grid map, but are conducted so that it is team-turn based as opposed to the traditional character-by-character formula used in many games of this genre. This allows for a few more complexities in the battle system - characters who attack the same enemy in the same string of commands will have their damage increased via a combo, and a character who is standing next to an attacking character may be able to perform an over-the-top team attack, which is an extra thing to think about when placing the characters under your control. Additionally, the game features what's called the Geo system, in which crystals placed upon colored panels on the map can have various effects on a character. A crystal that says Attack 50% that's on a blue panel means that everyone - ally and enemy - standing on a blue panel on the map will have that increase to their attack damage. The Geo system is quite complex, but not so daunting that a casual player will be completely ruined by it (although the game does offer a convenient in-battle help screen to address this and other aspects of the battle system not found in other games.)

One can also lift and throw enemies, allies, and the aforementioned crystals around the map to various effect - if you throw one enemy into another, they'll combine to make a more powerful enemy, while a crystal thrown to a different colored panel will transfer its effects. The battle system has many new facets to it that may seem unfamiliar to new players, but even mastery of these aspects take a backseat to the classic tactics of strategy RPGs - isolating enemies, ganging up on more powerful enemies, sacrificing a character to divert attention, etc. But the extra pieces of the battle system prevent the game from falling into monotony much later in the quest.

Unlike other SRPGs, however, Disgaea offers plenty to do outside of fighting battle after battle to advance the story. Larharl's home base is his father's castle, which you are free to roam around, and do many things. Almost every item you win or purchase has different statistics to it, which can add a lot to a character if attached to an item they're equipped with. The catch? You've got to go through the Item World, 10 levels of randomly generated dungeons, and defeat specialists before you can utilize the item's functions. Once you've defeated the specialists, their corresponding ability can be switched to any item, affecting how that item will affect the statistics of the character that equips it. It seems daunting at first, and indeed, early in the game, the dungeons of the Item World are extremely difficult in all but the most basic of items. But it's extremely worthwhile to go through and power up your characters as much as possible, as some battles are quite difficult.

Another major aspect of the game is the Dark Assembly, a sort of demon congress that you can petition to (and bribe, for accuracy's sake) to make various changes in the game. This can be as simple as creating a new character (either a human character like a brawler or an archer or any one of the MANY monster classes that you fight during the game), to asking the congress to make in-game enemies stronger, to make a wider selection of items available. This all depends on your level of influence, although it helps if you've got extra items available that you can give to members of the Assembly to sway them to your favor. And if the congress votes against you, and you've got enough influence, you can try to persuade them to revote - or you can challenge them outright, killing the ones who didn't vote in your favor. So really, it's only a slightly exaggerated version of real-life politics.

Graphics - I've heard Disgaea's sprite graphics refered to as PSone-ugly, but just because the graphics are 2D, it doesn't mean they're ugly. Battle effects such as spells and special attacks are vibrant and well animated, and most attacks are preceded by an anime-style flash across the screen of the character's face (totally hilarious for the Prinnys, the demon penguins). And the character icons that come up during cutscenes are beautifully done. I mentioned earlier that the Netherworld is quite reminiscent of Tim Burton, and between the varied locations and the huge number of well designed monsters, anyone who's seen The Nightmare Before Christmas within the last year may have deja vu. It's unfortunate that Square got the Disney license, really...

The only real problem with the 2D presentation is that unlike other SRPGs, you're constantly stuck at an isometric angle - there's no increasing or decreasing the angle of vision slightly. This is extremely frustrating in battles, as there are really only 4 perspectives to view the action from, which means that you'll have to spend a bit too much time on selecting some options simply because a tree or a large rock is obstructing the view of your character.

Sound - The voice acting, while slightly overdone, is more than bearable, but even picky gamers will be happy to note that the original Japanese soundtrack is available in addition to the English dubbing. And try and tell me you didn't laugh out loud the first time you hear a Prinny yell "Dood!" before dive-bombing an enemy - there are tons of like-minded sounds that characters utter in battles that are quite funny, although a bit grating after awhile.

Furthering the Tim Burton comparison, Disgaea's musical score is totally mindblowing. Although many tracks are very much similar to those of longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, many of the tracks take that mischevious style of composition and applies it various styles of world music - music enthusiasts may (and should) note an early boss music composition that seems to be loosely based on Mexican mariachi guitar with a quirky synthesizer in the background. Unfortunately, a soundtrack seems to be impossible to find at the moment unless if you're paying for the Japanese limited edition, but we can always dream...

Overall Value - If you speed through the game, you can complete it in about 35-40 hours. However, multiple sidequests, as well as lots of potential fiddling with the item worlds and Dark Assembly, can more then double the length of your playthrough, and three fairly different endings will make the game worth the purchase price. But even beyond those semantics, the game is a quirky, deep and fun experience that any fan of this dying genre should experience at least once. The translation is natural (hats off to Atlus on that point), and the sense of humor that Disgaea carries is unrelentingly brilliant in both languages. Aside from the minor flaw with the angle of the battles screen (who'da thunk that the biggest problem with a 2D game would be the camera angle...), and some well-intentioned sound effects that simply wear out their welcome after the hundredth battle, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a fantastic game that's worth every penny. And how could it not be? It does have demon penguins, after all...

Review by Adam Matlock