I find myself waking up early so that I can get a head start on playing Disgaea. People kept sending me e-mail telling me that I needed to play this game. I had never heard of it before but I was willing to take their advice. I decided to use it as a test for the Gamefly service since I wasn’t ready to purchase it. Now I’ll probably just end up keeping it until I can buy it used from them.
The first thing that surprised me is just how funny this game is. The writing and story line are really well done and it has great voice acting as well. This means that jokes that might have been groaners in any other game actually get a laugh because of the talented people they have voicing these characters. The concept is that your dad, the ruler of the underworld died and now demons everywhere are scrambling to take his place. You being the prince are the rightful heir but you accidentally fell asleep for a few years and so now you have to prove you’re the right demon for the job. This means you’ll have to prove how evil you are to the demon high council. It’s a unique hook that makes for some pretty funny situations. In fact the game actually begins with one of the other characters in your group trying to kill you.
The game is designed for you to level up your characters to absolutely insane heights and unleash crazy special moves and magical attacks on unsuspecting monsters. The creatures you fight are actually pretty stupid which makes beating the shit out them surprisingly fun. Setting up massive chain attacks and combos might be frustrating in any other game where the enemies realize what you’re doing and refuse to cooperate. In Disgeaea they often times seem oblivious to the fact that you are even there, much less surrounding them with ice mages and brawlers in an effort to catapult their tiny bodies into the stratosphere where they will be pummeled by a celestial ice God.
I could talk about how great this game is for days but I really just want to go play it right now. Bottom line, Disgaea is fucking awesome and you should get it. I think we might have some readers at Atlus so let me send out a big pat on the back to you guys. You can’t see me right now but I am giving you a standing ovation. You will just have to imagine me standing up clapping since I can’t take a picture or anything. Please imagine me with pants on even though that might not be entirely accurate.
-Gabe out
