The Disgaea series is probably my favorite RPG series, or at least one of my favorites. The characters, the stories, the humor and the gameplay are all top-notch. Here, you have a Disgaea game that removes any gameplay aspect from the other games, and instead becomes a visual novel, where you basically just read your way through, changing the events with dialogue choices.

This is a rather weird choice. While the visual novel genre is HUGE in Japan, it barely has a fanbase at all in America, and as such will only appeal to hardcore fans of the series, and nothing else, but I’m pleased, if not REALLY surprised, that they released it here anyways.

So let’s go and see if the huge change of gameplay is any good!

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: NIS America
Date of Release: June 8th 2010
Platforms: Playstation Portable

Genre: Visual Novel
Players: 1
Rated T for Teen (why?)

Presentation
There’s not much to say here. Everything graphically is recycled from previous Disgaea games. The sprites during certain scenes, the big detailed sprites during normal conversations, most of the backgrounds, all are recycled. Except for one minor change: the big detailed sprites are actually animated for certain things which is kinda cool. The sounds are okay. There’s not too much when it comes to sound effects, but most of them are recycled from previous Disgaea games. The music is also mostly taken from the older games, which is nice since the Disgaea series has some really good music. And the voice acting is top-notch too (no recycling in this case, since it’s all new dialogue).

The presentation is really mostly recycling, but in this case I can’t really fault them for doing so. This is what the fans want after all.

Story/Gameplay
Being a Visual Novel sort of game, the story is a very important aspect of the game, and it’s very closely tied to the gameplay. Here, you play as a Prinny. Various things go on, and, after finding out that Etna just bought limited-edition pudding, Laharl explodes (literally), claiming that he’s been assassinated (yeah, he’s weird like that), and cuts the Prinnies’ salary as a result, thinking they did it. Using an artifact he found while cleaning Laharl’s room, the Prinny gets his spirit removed from his body, is able to go back in time, and possess people’s bodies to follow them around. He also gains the power to mind control characters to change what they say or do, affecting how the story progresses. The ultimate goal is to prevent Laharl from exploding, of course, so that the Prinnies can keep their salary. Through all that, you have to find missing pudding, fuel tanks and DVDs that a delivery man mistakenly gave to the wrong people, and dwell through the minds of the Disgaea characters.

Speaking of characters, this game features most of the “main” guys from Disgaea 1, and 2 characters from Disgaea 3. No one from Disgaea 2, but, as you find out in one of the endings, this takes place during the beginning of Disgaea 2. Not too sure where it fits in the timeline in regards to Disgaea 3, but it can take place anywhere in the first half of the game or so, or maybe a bit before.

When there are multiple characters in a room, you can possess whichever one you want (with L and R). Sometimes, during their speech, they’ll be stopped and you’ll have the option to control their minds, or to just continue the conversation normally. When you mind control, you’re given 3 choices and you have a time limit to make your choice. If you pass the time limit, the conversation goes on normally. Depending on the choice you make, different things can happen, sometimes leading to completely different events.

As you possess different people and control their minds, you learn new things about what is happening, and eventually find a way to prevent Laharl from exploding. If you pause the game, you can see a diary, which shows what happened and sometimes gives hints on what to do. There’s also a time table, which shows who are at what area at which time (each “scene” counts as an hour), as well as flags that show which scenes have mind-control opportunities (which are quite important). And as you learn more information about what’s going on, you get extra mind-control opportunities, and access to more scenes.

When you do finally prevent the explosion, Laharl explodes again a few hours later, and it’s time to once again stop him to protect the Prinnies’ salary… again. But here it’s the second “half” of the game, and instead of just one solution, you have a total of 14 endings to get (though one of them is hidden in the first half of the game). Knowing when to possess other characters, what choices to pick when you mind control and various other things can help you get all the endings. Some endings have the same “path”, but change depending on which character you’re possessing at the end.

Whenever you “lose” (Laharl explodes OR you get one of the “bad endings”), you get brought back to the last save point. In the first part it’s right before Laharl attacks the Prinny and sends him out of the castle. When you “lose” during the second half, you’re brought back to right after you prevent Laharl’s first explosion, at the 13th hour of the day.

Overall
The visual novel genre isn’t one I’m very fond of, but take the genre and mix it with the characters, clever dialogues and awesome humor of Disgaea, and I’m pretty satisfied.

It is a rather short game though, taking only a few hours to find half the endings. And when you’re that far, finding the rest is a matter of skipping through the dialog (pressing select does that), stopping only to possess another character or doing some mind-controlling to try combinations you haven’t tried yet. There’s not much length in the gameplay, and not a lot of replay value (once you’ve seen all the endings, there’s nothing that might make you come back to this).

It’s rather entertaining, and fans of the series will love it, but you HAVE to know what you’re getting into before playing.

Only buy this if you’re a hardcore Disgaea fan (not just for the insane leveling either, but a fan of the story). Anything less than a hardcore fan of the franchise will not like this game.

Pros and cons
Pros
- Fun story
- Classic Disgaea humor
- The mind control mechanics let’s you see things you’d never expect the characters to do (like the pudding dance)

Cons
- Even with the 14 endings to find, it’s rather short
- Some people will not like the idea that ALL you do is read
- Very low replay value

The Save Factor
The game has a starting price of $20. Considering the length of the game and the lack of replay value, I’d say the Save Factor for it is about $10(AKA wait for a sell). I had fun with it and I am happy with the purchase, but there’s so little gameplay it’s not really worth spending much more.

jobocan Games, Handheld, Review, psp