Disgaea 7 is my second attempt at digesting this series. Last time I tried it, it was 5, and I bounced off of it for the reasons I don't really remember.
This one is pretty good though.
It's a tactical JRPG that goes more or less how any tactical JRPG goes: the stages are relatively small, separated into squares with different elevation, you move your units around and try to squash enemy units. It has a few unique gimmicks on top of the usual tactical JRPG combat, but for the most part it will feel familiar if you've played Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre or Fire Emblem before.
The actual fun happens outside of combat.
The game is completely fucking broken, and I mean it in the best way possible. The feeling of getting a weapon that has stats an order of magnitude better than anything else you could possibly have at this stage of the game from the in-game faux gacha is incredible. Realising you can equip three pairs of slippers onto one character and make them move over half the map in one turn is incredible. Finding an infinite action loop within a battle and setting up an overnight farm to get your character to level 9999 is incredible.
And not only the game is completely fucking broken, it knows it is and encourages breaking it. As an example, there is a boon you can get that triples the exp the character receives, but only for the next map, which puts an incentive on finding an aforementioned infinite loop and sticking to it.
As far as I'm concerned, the real game here is not the frankly kind of mediocre TRPG combat, it's figuring out how to snap the game in half with the loudest pop it can possibly make, and it's a ton of fun.
I couldn't tell you a thing about the story. It's something about a band of wacky characters collecting mcguffins throwing around the jokes that mostly don't land. Sometimes there are attempts at drama which feel wholly out of place, and don't last for long. The writing in this game feels very extra, and it seems like the game itself knows this - it offers the player to skip the following VN-esque scene every time they enter the new stage.
The visuals are good. The game has something like a hundred unique animations for the various skills and magic both your and enemy units can use, which I find very impressive. I liked the OST at first, but by the end it got a bit grating - it feels like there's not enough unique tracks for the duration of the game.
I will probably go back and give Disgaea 5 another attempt. I had a lot of fun with 7, and I would be interested to compare the two.
I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys breaking games that are meant to be broken, as long as they don't mind the tactical JRPG kind of combat. There's probably some value for the enjoyers of the lighthearted anime plots as well.
I highly advise any and all completionists to never ever play this game. By the end of it, my item completion was at maybe 10% and I've still got no idea where I was supposed to find the rest - hunting for all of them seems like a complete disaster.
This one is pretty good though.
It's a tactical JRPG that goes more or less how any tactical JRPG goes: the stages are relatively small, separated into squares with different elevation, you move your units around and try to squash enemy units. It has a few unique gimmicks on top of the usual tactical JRPG combat, but for the most part it will feel familiar if you've played Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre or Fire Emblem before.
The actual fun happens outside of combat.
The game is completely fucking broken, and I mean it in the best way possible. The feeling of getting a weapon that has stats an order of magnitude better than anything else you could possibly have at this stage of the game from the in-game faux gacha is incredible. Realising you can equip three pairs of slippers onto one character and make them move over half the map in one turn is incredible. Finding an infinite action loop within a battle and setting up an overnight farm to get your character to level 9999 is incredible.
And not only the game is completely fucking broken, it knows it is and encourages breaking it. As an example, there is a boon you can get that triples the exp the character receives, but only for the next map, which puts an incentive on finding an aforementioned infinite loop and sticking to it.
As far as I'm concerned, the real game here is not the frankly kind of mediocre TRPG combat, it's figuring out how to snap the game in half with the loudest pop it can possibly make, and it's a ton of fun.
I couldn't tell you a thing about the story. It's something about a band of wacky characters collecting mcguffins throwing around the jokes that mostly don't land. Sometimes there are attempts at drama which feel wholly out of place, and don't last for long. The writing in this game feels very extra, and it seems like the game itself knows this - it offers the player to skip the following VN-esque scene every time they enter the new stage.
The visuals are good. The game has something like a hundred unique animations for the various skills and magic both your and enemy units can use, which I find very impressive. I liked the OST at first, but by the end it got a bit grating - it feels like there's not enough unique tracks for the duration of the game.
I will probably go back and give Disgaea 5 another attempt. I had a lot of fun with 7, and I would be interested to compare the two.
I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys breaking games that are meant to be broken, as long as they don't mind the tactical JRPG kind of combat. There's probably some value for the enjoyers of the lighthearted anime plots as well.
I highly advise any and all completionists to never ever play this game. By the end of it, my item completion was at maybe 10% and I've still got no idea where I was supposed to find the rest - hunting for all of them seems like a complete disaster.