DOOD! Disgaea 5 is coming out on the Switch next week! May 23rd to be exact. Guess what? We have a review for you today! I have put 20 hours into it and I am only at the 4th Act and I have another 12 to go for the main story. I have dived into the item world and traveled far enough to see what’s new and I have also completed the side stories that unlock the protagonists from the previous games. Here are my thoughts….

 

The story:

Let me start out by saying, not all Disgaea game stories are super memorable. I can remember the 1st, 2nd, and 4th stories but not so much the 3rd (not sure why). Anyway, this isn’t a bad thing. The story is not really the point of these games.

Regardless, in this game the main characters are Killia, the wanderer, and Seraphina, the Overlord of Gorgeous (the richest netherworld). Side characters include: Red Magnus, the Scorching flame Overlord; Christo, the Overlord of a certain giant netherworld (hehehe); and that’s all I know, for now. I think I am about to meet another side character that involves a yellow Prinny but I have yet to learn if they join the group. There’s also an annoying kid named Zeroken, I don’t know if he joins either, but he has made several appearances fighting the same enemy as me.

The story revolves around the main group fighting against the army, The Lost, of the most powerful overlord, Void Dark, who is trying to take over all netherworlds. Killia and company want to: 1) Kill Void Dark for revenge 2) Kill Void Dark because he ruined their life style 3) Kill Void Dark to prove they are the strongest…You get the gist right? They want to kill Void Dark for various reasons. Long story short, the group creates the Rebel Army and recruit more overlords to fight against Void Dark. If you you feel that there are lots of overlords in this game, you’re right! But there is a reason for that which I will explain in the next part…

Game play:

Disgaea 5 brings more of the same from previous games with some new additions (of course) some for the better and some for the meh. The reason there are so many Overlords is because in D5 we get a new mechanic called Overload, a unique move that only Overlords can use and is specialized to the overlord. For example, Seraphina’s Overload is called Balor Gaze which when used causes male demons to become infatuated with Sera and fight each other for a while. Overload can only be used after filling a new gauge introduced in D5, the revenge gauge. The revenge gauge is filled every time a team member is hit and or defeated. Once filled, all attacks will critical hit and you can use certain attacks like Overload. The one drawback to this is that enemies can also go into revenge mode which makes them more difficult to face but also makes them drop certain items if defeated which makes it worth it to have enemies go into revenge mode.

The training ground from D4/Clubs from D3 are back in the form of squads. Different squads do different things like share XP and Share Mana, these are still pretty useful to help level up characters you hardly use. The assembly is back, nothing much changed here as far as I can tell sbut one thing did change: you can no longer create characters using mana. There is now a recruiter for this and it uses money! This is good and bad in that some characters are more expensive than others to recruit. Making them strong is also more expensive but this makes sense. Before, it was a ton of mana needed. Now, it’s a ton of cash.

The item world of course is back with more of the same but with some additions. As you may or may not know, the item world is used to strengthen items by traveling through randomly generated dungeons and diving as deep as possible. Invaders still exist which, if memory serves, were first introduced in D2? Anyway, there are also now leveling fish which add an extra level to the item if you finish the map while you are lifting the fish. There are bottles that drop scrolls if you defeat them and then there’s these bunny creatures that give you random prizes for beating them, like extra XP. Finally, there’s this stork thingy that some times drops by and drops an egg that could have any of the things mentioned above OR a super strong baddie that enhances your item if you beat them. I ran away because I met a level 250 monster and I was only level 20, so yeah….

Too long? Didn’t read? D5 has lots of familiar elements with just enough new and enhanced ones to keep it fresh, at least in my mind.

DLC:

D5 Complete doesn’t have any technically because it’s complete. Personally, I didn’t buy D5 for PS4 but I know what is DLC, so was it worth it at the time? Probably? I mean I’ll admit I am a super big Disgaea fan, I mean my nickname on here is DarkLaharl for goodness sake! I always love playing these games and I have dumped hours and hours into all them and I have bought pretty much every re-release that was on the PSP just to enjoy them again and on the go! So you can bet I love D5 for it being on the switch where I can take it anywhere or play on my TV…where was I….oh right, DLC. I probably would have bought it; I love all the previous protagonists so I would have gotten all those characters, Laharl, Etna, Flonne, Valvatorez, Rozlain, etc. The stories you play to unlock these guys are pretty fun too. The fact that it is complete in D5 makes it all the sweeter.

Overall, if you are a Disgaea fan, like myself, I know you will enjoy this game as well. Never played it before? You would definitely enjoy it if you like: Turn based games, super long games that can give you 100+ hours past the actual story, strategy games. The graphics are not super high quality but that doesn’t matter; the graphics have hardly changed from Hour of Darkness and that’s OK. Disgaea doesn’t need them. If you want crazy HD graphics in your turn based strategy then go play Final Fantasy.

If I had to give D5 a score, it would get an 9/10 from me. What about you? did you play this already on the PS4? Are you waiting for it on the Switch? Let us know in the comments Dood!