Deep turn-based strategy outweighs the atrocious story
Let's get this out of the way first - if happy-go-lucky anime makes you want to tear your hair out, steer well clear of this and any Disgaea game. Fans of anime or those who are only slightly annoyed by it will find a deep, addictive strategy RPG to add to their collection, but the cheesy dialogue and atrociously cutesy characters might be enough to turn away many prospective gamers.
GRAPHICS
Apart from some nice spell effects and the occasional flashy combat animation, Disgaea's pretty effin' ugly. The series isn't known for its beauty. The sparseness of the environments and battlefields tend to benefit the gameplay - you'll rarely have problems keeping yourself focused on the combat - but at various points, I found myself wondering how much effort it really would take to spiff up the graphics just a bit. Character animations are okay, but there's nothing here that stands out.
It also bears mentioning that you may want to crank the sound way down around mature company when playing this game. The teensy-tiny voices are as annoying as anime-styled characters can get, and the music generally is a bit grinding.
GAMEPLAY
"But Sparky," you're asking, "why did you rate this game with a solid 3.5 out of 5 if you're ragging on it so much?" Good question - and the answer is simple. For fans of turn-based strategy RPG's, Disgaea is the mecca of insanely deep gameplay, customization, and replayability. Beginners should be able to get their feet wet with this entry into the series, but I'd highly recommend starting with something like Final Fantasy Tactics A2 before delving into this one, not because A2 is a superior game, but because it's sort of an introductory primer to the basics of Disgaea. Gamers could just rip through the main story, doing a bit of level grinding here and there, or you can spend hundreds of hours exploring Item Worlds, building up characters, passing bills, and grinding to that ultimate goal of a team of level 9999 characters. Yes, it's that crazy.
OVERALL
Once I found myself hooked on Disgaea, I was lost. All the crappy anime stylings, all the annoying characters, all the peppy little side-characters, they just sort of withered into the background as I power-leveled my Prinnies past level 500. People label Disgaea as being hardcore- it's not, really, but it has the elements that a hardcore gamer loves. You can get as much (or as little) depth from this game as you'd like, and that's the true joy of the series. Take a spin, play it through once, and then get yourself strapped in, because once this game ends, it's only truly begun. You'll have characters powerful enough to begin to experiment with the Item Worlds, you'll be able to afford better weapons and armor, and you'll discover the joy of discovering new and mightier classes and abilities. Though I've deducted points from the score for its characters and dialogue, you shouldn't miss out on this gem of a game.
