If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Admittedly, the game throws you a brief tutorial but the best way to learn about the details of Disgaea is to just get stuck in. It’s a vast, comprehensive experience that’s deceptively well structured: the story is spaced over fourteen episodes, themselves comprised of about five levels. You don’t need to have invested over a hundred hours to play the storyline from the start, either. Whilst level grinding is the backbone of the franchise, and something you’ll be forced to do within about two hours of starting the game, you can quite comfortably run through the storyline without too much initial comprehension of the game’s more intricate details.

The star of the show is Prince Laharl, who wakes up after a two-year nap to find out his Dad, the Overlord of the Netherworld, has died. He goes off to reclaim the throne, accompanied by his vassal Etna, who may or may not be trying to kill him, and Flonne, an eternally optimistic angel assassin who follows Laharl to see demons can feel love. It’s a self-consciously silly story, with the highlight of its daftness being in the middle of the game when Laharl is being blackmailed with a photograph of himself in a compromising position.

Disgaea is a game that’s at its best when you start scratching under the surface, so it’s after you start your second cycle of the game (everything is carried over) that you start to really get stuck in. It’s full of tiny details, such as every item (even the most basic healing trinket) having its own 100-floor dungeon to potentially peruse. Or how the landscape is littered with coloured Geo Panels which grant various effects to whoever is standing on them. It’s when you start feeling comfortable with the cornucopia of elements that the game starts to really hit the spot. It’s the most significant SRPG released this decade, but it’s very much a game for the previously converted. It lacks the warm invitation that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Tactics series so humbly provides, but instead it gives the player so much more to tinker with.

It would have been nice to see a little bit more made of the innate DS features, however. The top-screen shows a map of the level, but it’s poorly implemented and rarely useful. I’d also liked to have seen an auto-save function: flipping the lid closed to suspend gameplay is second nature on the DS, and forgetting to be devout with the save feature lead to a few embarrassing situations where I had to reload an old save after losing the occasional bout. These are hardly pressing issues, admittedly.

It’s arguable that the PSP version is still the definitive PAL release, but the DS version doesn’t lag far behind. Such a niche title is a rare treasure on Nintendo’s handheld, serving as a meticulously hardcore game on a device where such games are becoming increasingly scarce. It’s a testament to the quality of Disgaea itself that I’ve now played it extensively – and will continue to play it – on three platforms without feeling much in the way of boredom.

Pages: 1 2

Have you downloaded the latest issue from GamerZines yet? Check it out here!