Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is the PSP re-release of its PS2 ancestor Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Released in 2006 and to this day it remains strong with its lovable characters, simple yet gripping story and of course its tactical gameplay. In this review I will be delving into the aspects of presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and re-playability.
PresentationIn Disgaea you take the role of a young demon prince in the underworld "Laharl" who is awoken from his slumber by the foxy demon chick called Etna, only to realize that in your long respite your father has passed away. Great right? Drinks all around as you are the new king of the underworld.....unfortunately its not that simple. It seems that along with the former king of the underworld death, there have been numerous contenders for the throne who have ignored Laharl's demon nobility and are trying to claim the throne for themselves.
Being the laid back, childish demon prince Laharl is, he takes a very passive approach to the problem, by raiding castles for fun to stealing from rich demons to pay off the Prinny's pay check (he isn't a fan of spending his own money). Laharl's road to eliminating the contenders leads him on a laughter filled adventure with, angel assassins, exploding penguins and a whole heap of action in the mix.
The good thing about Disgaea's approach on this story is that it takes what could very well be a dark and mysterious story into a light hearted and humerous adventure, even when you grasp hold of Laharl's character you are constantly surprised by what the story throws at you and even when its not surprising it leaves a smile on your face. And for this reason I'm granting it a reasonable....
8/10Reason for the scoring: the reason why it missed out on the two points is that as fun and humorous as the story is, it lacks sufficient depth for the player to be
-fully- gripped and can lead to the player leaving the game for a few days and coming back to it when they feel up to it.
GraphicsBeing a re-release of a relatively old game it retains the older version lack in quality, sure the sprites have been smoothed and improved but it still lags behind other games (even from the 2006 era of gaming). One could compare it to the graphics of Final Fantasy Tactics:War of the Lions, though albeit slightly better.
During the battles the sprites won't bother you that much, you'll be too submersed into the action and tactics to really care about the tree that looks like it was animated by a guy who -really- wanted to get off work early, and the random shadows on the ground (are there there clouds? clouds shaped like a mass of leaves...yet there are no trees.....invisible trees? D:) and If anything the special effects used in the battle system might save some its dignity.
However the artwork used in the cutscenes almost completely makes up for the shortcomings in the sprites, the cute facial expressions used by Laharl will forever leave an imprint in your memory. The artwork also used in the still background images is also reasonably good.
For this reason I am giving it a......
7/10Reasons for the scoring: It missed out on the 3 points simply because it could have done a bit better in sprites and arena development, however considering that the spites don't look awful (improvement on its previous version) and the special effects used in the battle animations are nothing short of cool, also the artwork is amazing.It picked itself off the ground with these points.
SoundAs with any great JRPG its soundtrack is to die for, the music goes perfectly with the scenes and moods of the characters. The link below shows the music that is played during the sad moments of the game and even without playing the game its still a touching piece that captures the moment quite well, this strikes even further into the heart of young gamers as it contrasts the games up-beat nature with a mournful tone.
The voice acting that portrays the characters are done rather well too, if anything they capture the characters personality perfectly. However you do get the occasional cliche voice actor that goes with the classic villain or "mid-boss" hehehe.
One hiccup in the quality of the sound is that not all of the grunts used in the battle system are unique, in fact I remember attacking with a Scout and wondering why it had Laharl's voice. So I can safely assume that some audio files are simply copied onto other characters to save time, which is saddening but hey they can't get everything perfect.
Taking all of that into account I'm giving it a...
9/10Reasons for the scoring: An amazing score for an amazing soundtrack and voice acting, the last extra point could only be achieved if they made every little voice unique to a character....however that would be time consuming but I can't be fully positive.
Gameplay:Contrary to what you might think now, you must be thinking "Jeez Pow, stop bashing on the gameplay....you've been doing that for almost the entire review" well I know I know, but really the gameplay is the best part. Maybe the small aspects like sound and graphics may drag the gameplay down a little, but its the amazing and unique battle system that really is gripping, of course it sports the square movement style that FFT used and in that respect it can be easy to understand if you have played that game before, each character being able to move certain distances depending on class ( a bit like chess....if chess was violent and cool).
The battle system uses a variety of functions such as team combos, geo tiles, lifting and throwing allies and enemies (yep I said that) and lots and lots of moves for your spritely young hero demon guys to utilize in battle.
Team combos are both a pain in the butt and also the one thing that makes you go "thank you lord" while you lay on your bed playing this game with your arms outstretched to the ceiling. Basically if a comrade of yours is sitting nearby to your attacking character he/she will jump in as the attack is initiated and deal extra damage. Now the beauty of this is that multiple characters can jump in, 4 way attacks can ensue as the enemy is launched into the air by two characters and then back down again......and then back up....and then back down again, until the enemy lays totally destroyed on the floor and can't take anymore, but of course the combos are quite unique and change depending on the classes, the frequency of these attacks also depends on luck. But of course enemies can use this which is rather annoying.
Geo tiles....man when Etna explains this in tutorial I felt like doing this...
Honestly its not -that- complicated but when you first witness it, it can be a little too much to bear. I won't bother explaining it because I already have nightmares about it.
The one problem I faced with this is that during the tutorial of the battle system everything is just thrown at you in one concentrated pile of goo, its not really that spaced out and it isn't simple either. The explanation is lax at best and its better to just hit actions and see what they do to learn. But the confusion doesnt stop there, the demon hospital rewards you for being injured, there is this thing called the item world where you go inside your item and fight 10 levels of enemies to level the item up (oh and btw there are thousands of items) which you are required to do to keep upto date with the strength of the enemies, unless you wish to grind heavily with terrible equipment, then there is also the demon assembly where you create characters....but when you level up enough a class a new class of the same type becomes available.....so do I get the new class? I mean...I already have this one but the new one has slightly better stats....but its really expensive and do I really need another one? With all this crazy crap going on at the same time with minimal explanation its enough to tear your hair out over!
But back into a calm state of mind, you calmly play along with Disgaea's tedious gameplay antics and you proceed....and you see it isn't so bad. The battle system grows on you, you enjoy the frequent visits to the hospital to get patched up and rewarded and the creation system....well you just bear with it because you kind of have to. Its one of those things that you hate, but you love at the exact same time for making you work that extra bit harder to enjoy it, Disgaea ain't going to cuddle you and tell you everything is going to be okay, you got to fend for yourself and sort out your own problems. But you are better for the experience, this also gives you a chance to be condescending to your friends when they play it and say "Man you can't do that...how pathetic, lemme show you how a MAN does it".
For this reason I'm going to give it a....
9/10Reasons for the scoring: Because even with its tediousness and its constant annoying attitude towards the learning aspect of the game, it really isn't that bad. It's complexities become its strong points once you get the hang of it, and this cheekily works in its favor, the game as wholes strong point is the gameplay and they did a good job of it. The only reason it missed out on the last point is because I can't regrow the hair I pulled out, gimme back the hair and the point is yours~
Re-playabilityDisgaea is one of those games that takes so long to complete that if you -can- finish it, you don't want to go back and do it all over again. Since the level cap is around 9999 and you level up as slow as hell, once you get to that unreachable level you may not want to see this game for the rest of your life. Playing again passively isn't an option either, remember what I said about the gameplay....your gonna serious need to work your butt off to get past it, this spits in the eye of the casual gamer and tell them to go back to their Wii.
So as much as I regret to give it a bad score, I must give a...
4/10Reasons for the scoring: If you are prepared to finish every aspect of it and go back because you get a sick pleasure from leveling up, then you may find this game to your liking and replaying will be an awesome experience. However if you are like me and do not want to do that ever....and I mean ever. Playing this once may just be enough, since the game will probably last you a good few months.
SummaryDisgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is a game with a short and lovable story, with a long and testing gameplay element, if you want a game that will last you for a while and keep you laughing and crying along the way then Disgaea is for you. It will make itself a home within your heart, either remembered as that cute little game that made your day or the reason for the rashes on your finger tips and the bags under your eyes.
As a whole I give this game a.....
8.5/10Leave your interesting or funny responses in the comment section below~
