Just in time for Christmas, here's another episode from Disgaea 4, brought to you from the guy who looks like he ate Santa Claus. Hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a great New Year.

The Tyrant of Sardines vs. El Presidente

This can be a rough series of battles if you haven't leveled up a diverse team. I found that out the hard way during my first playthrough, as I had concentrated on pretty much only leveling up Valvatorez, Fenrich, and Fuka at that time. Thankfully, each level that you've beat can be replayed as often as you'd like, so hitting up 5-2 a few times with some mages and a couple of warriors helped tremendously, as did the addition of Volcanus's healing and gun skills. Since all character data transfers over through each playthrough, the second go-around was much, much easier, and for a bit of a challenge, I decided not to use Val, who is currently hovering right under level 300 while most of the rest of my team is between level 50-100.

The episode starts with Fenrich and Val declaring that this will be the final push, that they are finally about to face off against President Hugo. We are given a brief reminder of each main character's motivation in battling or meeting with the President. Here's a quick recap:

Valvatorez - Wants answers for the orders of the prinny executions and kidnappings, as well as finding out why the Netherworld has become so neglected.

Fenrich - Keeps his true motivations close to his chest, but claims total obedience for Val, and only wants to see him regain his true power.

Fuka - Wants to become the President in order to stop injustices against prinnies (which she technically should be, if it wasn't for the shortage of prinny outfits)

Desco - Wants to defeat the President on her way to becoming a Final Boss.

Volcanus - Is looking to collect the money leaked to the Netherworld and owed to the heavens.

Emizel - Wants to confront his father to show him he's no longer weak.

Get all that? Good.

Fenrich wishes to assassinate the President quietly, sneaking in under cover without facing down the massive armies of the Corruptorment. Val has none of that nonsense, stating that there would be no honor in that, and the Netherworld would never recognize or follow a new leader if they committed such vile acts. Val and his band of followers are met by the thundering approach of 600,000 demons guarding the President and the Corruptorment. When Fuka and Desco express their fear, Val tells them to buck up, claiming each of them would only have to take 100,000 apiece. The companions are strangely comforted by this and put on brave faces. At the last moment, Val's prinnies show up and inform him and Fenrich that they have amassed an army of their own from each area Val has conquered. Well, that's a relief, eh kids?

Val and his crew plow through a few minions of the Netherworld, coming face to face with the Three Brutes of the Netherworld, led by the Thunder Emperor Psylos. Emizel, ever the slightly cowardly and awed, claims that their power is unrivalled in the Netherworld. So, of course, the team makes short work of them and their bodyguard cronies. Fenrich and Val muse on the meaning of the weakness of the Brutes and the demons in general, coming to no clear conclusion other than something is amiss.

In a quiet moment out of the blue, Desco asks Fuka if she'd ever like to see her father again. Fuka responds flippantly that her father neglected her in favor of his research, and she wanted nothing to do with him. Disgaea isn't exactly subtle in its foreshadowing, but then again, the game is meant to lightly mock most anime and RPG tropes, so take that with a grain of salt.

The gang encounters more bizarrely named groups of high-level bosses, including the Four Devas and the Seven Yakshas. Emizel's growing amazement and proclamations of their insane powers (the Seven Yakshas are supposedly able to send the universe into nothingness in seven days) are met with complete indifference by most of the others, as the demons seem to have lost a ton of their original power. With the last group (the Yakshas) defeated, the group finally makes it to the office of the President.

Hugo and Val greet each other as old enemies, having fought a battle previously that lasted days on end with no clear victor. Hugo shows Valv a grudging amount of respect, but can't believe that he has become a lowly Prinny Instructor. He asks each member of the team what their reasons for fighting are, and laughs in disbelief at the inconsistency of the group. Val claims that his newfound power comes from camraderie, to which Hugo becomes even more incredulous. He transforms into a demon, and the supposed "last battle" is on!

This battle was pretty damn difficult at first, and even on my second playthrough with my B-list characters doing the fighting, it was still fairly tough. I had upped the enemy difficulty a hair or two to match my party's level (thereabouts - it's not an exact science in this game, especially when you can have levels up to 9999). Hugo is aided by magic users and samurai, all of whom can deal hefty amounts of damage quickly. I send out my two primary magic users first, to soften up the forward-most enemies for my warriors to polish off. I also send out a support crew to throw back the magic-users, as they're too valuable to lose right away (which they would have, as they had low amounts of HP). The samurai fall pretty easily, though I do end up losing a fighter in the initial round. After that, things got much rougher. I made the mistake of huddling my troops together to get healed by Volcanus and another healing mage. Another warrior was killed quickly by the enemy magic users, and Hugo advanced slowly upon my party.

Eschewing my planned strategy, I threw my warriors straight at the magic users, bringing them down quickly but inefficiently. My magic users advanced back up a short ways, out of range of Hugo, but also unable to do much. My healers went back into the base panel, and I brought out more big damage dealers, this time in the form of fist-equipped fighters. Hugo killed my initial warriors pretty fast after that, but not before they'd managed to chip his health down to about two-thirds. The other fighters advanced, one on each side, as did the magic users. After that, it was elementary - a couple of Giga Stars, some flashy punch skills, and boom - Hugo was down.

After the battle, Val is disappointed in Hugo, thinking that the battle would have been much more drawn out. He warns the others that Hugo must be about to begin the first of three inevitable final boss transformations, and the team prepares themselves. But Hugo tells Val that this was it, that he had no more power left. The humans had stopped feeding the Netherworld what he calls "fear energy." Due to scientific advancements, demons can't scare humans the way they used to, and so the fear energy that the Netherworld thrives upon was cut off. In order to save the Netherworld, Hugo had struck a deal with a human leader, giving him mastery over the Netherworld as well as test subjects for experimentation in exchange for a bare amount of fear energy. Val and his crew realize that their fight isn't quite over.