Disgaea: The First Twenty-Two Hours

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The other day I conversed with two people about the same game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Though an ad or two had competed for my attention, Zelda nearly escaped my notice. These days, I don't cultivate interest in games for which I lack the proper console, even if they were the greatest of all time.

But in my youth, a few games for which I lacked the correct equipment, overwhelmed me with a feverish desire which has yet to relent. These rare gems, which memory has enhanced and made as valuable as gold, were experienced in snippets. As a youth I (and my brothers) owned the Genesis, 64, Cube, and the Xbox. But a close friend owned the SNES, PlayStation 1 and 2, and while there's certainty the sentiment of, the grass is always greener, it seemed as if his games were of greater sophistication and enjoyment.

Over a decade of friendship I mentally compiled a list of single player games exclusive to the PlayStation 1 and 2, that I desired to experience. The catalog was constructed out of games I'd seen my friend play for a few moments. Understandably, when we were together, we played multiplayer games, and any memories of this internal inventory is as illusionary as the events of The Magus.
This brings us to Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, or more appropriately, Disgaea PC, which is actually a port of Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, a modified version of Disgaea: HOD for the PSP. In the deceptive memories I fabricated of years past, this was a treasure among treasures. It doesn't hurt that tactical RPGs are a favorite genre, and another PS holy grail of mine is Final Fantasy Tactics.

So I was overjoyed when Disgaea PC was announced in 2015, and released in 2016 (Disgaea 2 was ported just a few weeks ago). But could it stand up to image I had cultivated over the last two decades?

After twenty-two hours one feels able to comment on the game only in a limited sense, as HowLongToBeat lists the time required to compelte the story of Disgaea at forty-nine hours, but puts a Completionist finish anywhere from four hundred to eight hundred hours. I know I began slowly, and I think I might have left the game running a few times, so I'm sure to pass the forty-nine hour mark, and at this moment I plan to look at some the post-plot content, though we'll see how I feel once I beat it.

What allows a player possibly sink eight hundred hours into Disgaea? The answer is leveling. Everything in Disgaea levels; heroes, items, and even levels have more levels. Heroes max out at level 9999, but they can transmigrate back to level 1, retaining theirs stats, but able to build up again. Potentially a hero can transmigrate 18 or 19 times before they max out. How unnecessary is this? A quick review of gaming forums seems to indicate most players beat the game with heroes at level 100, and no transmigration. But its not just heroes. Items can be leveled up to 100. How unnecessary? Most guides recommend leveling up items only after one has completed the story! And the difficulty of enemies in a level can be increased as well, to ensure more experience for the unending grind.

But as I said, all this appears relatively unnecessary to completing the story. At 22 hours, one hero is level 25, I own a few level ten items, and have completed six of the thirteen/fourteen episodes, all with minimal grinding. Part of the slow down is the near infinite options for hero creation. In the beginning there are ten human classes and five monster classes. More powerful classes can be unlocked by leveling up, while defeated monsters become available to conscript into the ranks. The most powerful class, the Majin, requires the player to have five level two hundred heroes, each of a specific class.
So while some guides recommend a core of 6-8 heroes (ten can be used in any battle), I currently employ sixteen, along with a few story characters who've joined the party. There are two concrete benefits to enlisting more heroes (aside from needing them to unlock better classes). But first let's explain how new soldiers are recruited. Each time a hero kills a foe they gain mana (not to be confused with special points). SP are used to activate spells and abilities. Mana is used as currency in the Dark Assembly, a political mini-game (which has some real depth), to pass policies. These policies include increasing the items available to buy at the shop, transmigrating heroes, and creating new heroes. Each hero has their own mana, and so heroes are created by other heroes. They are referred to as mentor and pupil. Oddly, the pupil does not learn from the master, but the other way around. Master's receive 10% of the stats from each pupil, and they can learn the abilities of their pupil knows.

This final bit is a bit tricky, but not too difficult. To learn an ability the master and pupil must stand next to each other, and the master must cast the spell a few times against a target. The easiest way to learn an ability is to go the tutorial and take shots at the level one enemies.

Since we're talking about abilities, I'll make one or two more comments on them. There are spell casters who use magic of five different types: healing, fire, water, air and star. But it could be said there are only three types of magic. Clerics use healing magic to repair damage to heroes and no other class has healing spells. Each Mage/Skull has access to one of the three elemental magics, and there is almost no distinguishing between them. The only importance of the distinction is each hero/enemy has a weakness to one element and a resistance to another (with the third left as normal effect). Star magic is the exact same as the elemental magic except that no one has any resistance or weakness to it. And here is a fault of Disgaea; where it shows its age and lack of innovation. Almost all spells inflict damage, but with no effects. This is in contrast with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance which had the most intricate, detailed, and unique spell system I'd ever seen in a tactics game.

To provide an example which summarizes the state of magic in Disgaea, the fire Mage learns; Fire, Mega Fire, Magic Boost (cast on ally – increased magic damage), Braveheart (cast on ally – increased attack damage), Giga Fire, Omega Fire, Tera Fire. The other classes function in the same way. Almost all the spells simply increase the damage as a percent of the character's intelligence stat.
There are few other issues with abilities. While non-magic heroes have skills that vary more than the Mages, the diversity is in the area distribution rather than in the effect. Better skills increase the area of effect or the damage. To keep all the area of effects in mind, it's essential to post a bunch of diagrams to the edge of the computer monster, otherwise one is continually moving their character, bringing up the ability, and then readjusting their character, because the angle of effect is off by a space or two. There are a large number of abilities and many different area-of-affect patterns.

The final criticism of abilities and spells is the inability to locate the damage modifiers. Presumably each new ability is stronger than the last, but the game provides no numbers or indicators. After repeated searching, I finally located a walk-through which appears to provide reasonable numbers. Otherwise one is left to trial and error.

These small interface problems, along with the lack of variety in spell effects is certainly not game breaking, but something which a newer game could not get away with.


Well, that's it for the first article on Disgaea. Next week we'll probably take a look at the story and what it does right, along with where it goes off track.

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