The Disgaea Triple Play Collection – Review

After the Hyperdimension Neptunia Hypercollection bundle, NIS America brings us another collection from perhaps one of their most beloved franchise, namely the Disgaea series. For your entertainment, three classic games were bundled, all alike but very different at the same time. The collection allows long time fans, or newcomers to experience the three different stories of Disgaea 3, Disgaea 4 and the spinoff Disgaea D2. Be sure to dress light, as we’ll be venturing down into the underworld once again. Beware: this review may contain pitchforks.

Story

All three games are set in the middle of the toasty underworld. You’ll always be able to expect an evil plot to develop, while at the same time you’re showered with enough witty remarks and humor to brighten up the mood. As all games are ‘unrelated’, except for Disgaea D2, which is a sequel to the very first Disgaea game, we’ll give short introductions for all three games.

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice revolves around the spoiled-to-death Mao, son of the current overlord of the underworld. Whilst being the son of the overlord brings some status, he is also an honor student at the local demon school. Being an honor student is not that hard for such a villain as Mao, as you’ll just have to skip school all the time, be late and pay as less attention as demonly possible, to receive such a title. Nonetheless, Mao has been researching a peculiar phenomena called ‘heroism’ and is now stoked on becoming a hero, to defeat his father, but at the same time keep his honorary title. Quite the pickle he’s in, you may think. Matters get even more out of hand when the young delinquent (= Demons who follow all the rules by the book) Raspberyl tries to foil his plans of becoming a hero.

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten stars the fallen from grace vampire Valvatorez, who used to be known as a tyrant. Now he spends his days in the netherworld prison as a Prinny instructor. These so called Prinnies are the souls of sinful humans, reincarnated in the underworld, in the form of a penguin which has to end every phrase it speaks with ‘dood’. Nonetheless, even with a job this terrible, Valvatorez vows to become the best Prinny instructor the netherworld has ever seen. With his trusty werewolf servant, Fenrich by his side, he is confident he will once again rise to the top. Fenrich fully supports his master, even though the wolf-ish fiend often tries to feed him human blood, knowing Valvatorez has vowed to never drink any human blood, the fallen tyrant rather spends his days admiring the exquisite blood of sardines. Quite the task at hand, dood.

Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness is the sequel to the very first Disgaea game and will revolve revolves around the newly (self) crowned overlord Laharl. Together with the kind fallen angel Flonne and his arrogant and lazy vassal Etna, Laharl is determined to earn the respect of his underlings and the rest of the demon world. Even though he has the title of overlord, most of the demons do not recognize him as such. Whilst he is demolishing half of the demon world to gain admiration, Flonne happily occupies herself with planting celestial flowers in her own demon world garden. Whilst these flowers are not supposed to grow in the underworld, for some reason the seeds start to sprout and the entire netherworld is suddenly in even more chaos than it originally was.

All of the different stories progress in the same fashion. Right off the bat, the developers made sure that certain character traits were magnified, in order to learn more about what you can expect of them. There will be plenty of conversations, that will shower you with enough story value to wade through. The only minor issue the game has, is that the characters who join your team, often don’t have any story attached to them, making them ‘empty husks’.

Graphics

The light atmosphere can even be found in the graphical style of all three games, even though there’s a fairly big difference between the overall quality of all the titles in the collection. Disgaea 3 looks rather ‘retro’ compared to the other two titles, because Disgaea 4 and D2 both have a cleaner look. All rough edges have been removed, presenting a fun 2D animation style, with the implementation of a 3D object now and then. Nonetheless, there is an option to activate the retro styled graphics, giving a glimpse of how it all used to be.

All characters are colorful and look as if they popped out of a charming anime series(,) about the underworld. There’s a clear comical undertone, which goes hand in hand with the witty storylines the games have to offer. The environments are a bit static compared to the bright characters, but they get the job done, as far as mood setting goes.

Disgaea 3 and 4 both have nearly the same color palette, whilst D2 still heads in the same direction but is not shy to paint a few even brighter colors throughout the levels. Nonetheless, it was an appreciated change of pace, which also indicated that D2 is indeed a ‘spinoff’.

There’s also a distinct difference between Disgaea 3, D2 and 4 in how animations are handled. Disgaea 3 for example, is a lot choppier during the ‘visual novel’ scenes that happen when talking, compared to the fourth installment. In Disgaea 4 animations are more fluent and there is a lot more happening during conversations.

Sound

The games published by NIS America often have a great voice cast to support the voice acting of the game in question. In this case, you’ll be able to enjoy convincing, humor packed conversations scattered throughout the different stories. All of the voices feel as if they were truly ‘designed’ for the character they are bringing to life.

An adventurous soundtrack is an easy way to describe the music of the three different installments of Disgaea. Be it when roaming through the central overworld or during the combat sequences, there will be a proper tune for the right situation. Perhaps you could describe a big portion of the soundtrack as ‘classical’ as well.

Gameplay

All of the Disgaea games are strategy RPG games, where combat is performed on a grid, with turn based mechanics. Whilst most functions will point themselves out, it’s clear that the series evolved over time, adding their own original quirks to the mix.

In all three games you’ll have a central overworld, which serves as your ‘base of operations’. In this hub you’ll be able to find the proper necessities, such as weapons, consumables, the infirmary, trainers for new skills and so on. At the start of the game, all of these shops are unopened, and they will need to be unlocked as you progress through the story of the games.

During combat, things will get a bit different. You’ll fight team based combat, meaning you’ll have to control more than one character, if you wish to win the battle at hand. You’ll have to deploy your team from the ‘demonic portal’, after that you can give them commands, such as move, attack, special skills, defend, lift, throw and so on. A character is always able to move first and then perform any of the other actions. During combat, you’ll be able to let your characters attack after using the ‘execute’ command, which will not end your turn just yet. By doing so, you can still adjust certain strategies, if some of your attacks were less/more effective as expected. Winning battles will reward you with money (HL), experience and mana.

Combat does not always follow the same simple formula, as you’ll encounter enemies on higher ground of ‘geo’ areas, which are specificly colored zones with certain conditions when entering such a zone. For the first problem, you’ll be able to lift certain objects to create a platform or even lift and throw players at the enemy on higher grounds. For the mechanic with the different zones, you’ll sometimes have to use your wit in order to deactivate these zones, by destroying certain mechanisms etc.

Disgaea 3 only had simple lift and throw mechanics, where you could only lift one object at a time (as a humanoid character). Disgaea 4 broadened this mechanic, by being able to stack characters on top of each other, creating a tower which unlocks new special moves. Disgaea D2 allows you to ride monster characters, which defends the rider from damage, when attacked. If attacked, the monster will take the hits, ensuring the safekeeping of some of your stronger characters.

As the combat happens in a team based fashion, you’ll be able to manage your warriors afterwards. You’ll be able to add new team members, their strength depending on the mana you have earned during combat. Several different small avatars are available for your new team members, but these are quite slim and many other NPCS throughout the world(s) will share the same skin as your warriors.

Each of the games has their its own original mechanics, making them all different from one another. For example, Disgaea 3 uses a classroom to manage your team preferences and combos, whilst Disgaea D2 has a ‘cheat shop’, which can alter the rewards you receive after combat. It’s certainly fun to explore all of the different features, but it would be a bit too lengthy to mention them all.

All of the games have a proper tutorial to get you started. Each of the tutorial missions handles a different aspect of combat, before throwing you into actual dangerous situations. Nonetheless, it’s important to keep track of the weapon proficiencies of all your team members, whilst keeping their gear up to date, as well as keeping your healing items fully stocked.

Conclusion

The Disgaea Triple Play Collection proves to be an amusing addition if you’re a fan of the Disgaea universe or have already played any of the other titles. For newcomers, all of the games offer a decent tutorial to get you going, opening up the netherworld for even more players. Other than that, you’ll have three great stories to enjoy, with enough action and funny situations for hours on end. The cute graphics and the witty voice acting will only add to the overall atmosphere. Some mechanics might feel a bit dated, but that’s pretty much about it. Dress light, things are about to get toasty.

ThaMofo

Visit My Website / View My Other Posts