User Reviews (1 - 11 of 91)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

A hilarious, irreverent and well-done tactical rpg

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 55 / 57
Date: August 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Most rpg games that I have played always have had a serious tone to them. This is understandable since most rpg games, especially those of the fantasy genre, involved defeating a Dark Lord of some sort and saving the world from destruction. This is not the case with ATLUS' Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Disgaea is one of the funniest and most irreverent game I have ever played.

For starters, the main character in the game is a teenage demon by the name of Laharl whose sidekick Edna is a young demoness who seems to be constantly ridiculing Laharl and maybe even plotting behind his back. Laharl is clueless and behaves the way he thinks demon lords should behave, Edna and the rest of his courtiers barely give him his due respect and yet they still follow him for some reason. Weird and unusual cast of characters for an rpg.

With Disgaea being an rpg in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle Tactics, there will be an inordinate amount of jobs you as a player can recruit to join your team. Jobs that can be recruited from can range from stereotypical fantasy fare like wizard, mage, cleric to more out there jobs like being a gunslinger of some type. There is even a a unit character one can recruit that is nothing but demonic servants in the shape of penguins that are called Prinnies and who always say "dood!'.

The levelling system in Disgaea is very extensive. If one had the time and inclination to do so, they can level up every character in their team into the 10000+ level. The same goes for the levels of their items. The good thing about Disgaea is that there are certain levels --- I will leave it up to the new players to figure out which --- that helps immensely in powerleveling a team member in the tens of thousands.

The story for Disgaea is funny and doesn't make sense at times, but I think that may have been a plan of the developers from the beginning. But in the end, the story and its many subplots meld well together and everything starts to make sense. The dialogue ranges from downright funny, some sexual innuendoes thats either very mature or juvenile, and to very poignant and sad. I enjoy the option of keeping the voice-over in its original Japanese voices and using English subtitles. Or one can just go straigh to English voice-overs. More rpg games should make good use of this option. It'll save alot of gamers from having to listen to very bad English dubbing.

The graphics is very simple and some may say dated for a PS2 game. It uses anime-style 2d animations unlike most rpgs that have gone the 3D-animation route. The animation looks very colorful and nice even if it's not 3D. The music ranges from operatic to J-pop in styles. Disgaea is really very simple when it comes to its visuals and audio. It could've been done better, but its a minor quibble when taken in context to the rest of the game.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is a fun time of a game and one that doesn't ever get old or boring. For gamers who enjoy powerleveling their characters and who like to micromanage every detail of their gears and abilities, then this is a game for you. I hope ATLUS will continue with the success they had with this game and make an even better follow-up. I highly recommend.

What is there not to like?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: September 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the best strategy RPG game I remember since FF Tactics.

The gameplay is pretty much standard fare for strategy games. There is a bit of a kink thrown in as all of your characters move first and then all the enemy characters move etc. which allows you more agression but also forces you to be careful as all the enemies will be rushing back at you.

The Geo Panel system is simply wonderful and can make an otherwise easy battle very difficult with various area effects that can include damaging your characters or creating evil clones of them that come after you! Attempting to destroy all the Geo Panels then becomes a sub goal in each level which helps to keep the variety fresh.

Innovation is abound in this title, the most notable being the Item World. This is basically your "random battle" area. You are transported within an item of your chosing where you fight through different levels. You pass one level and you progress to the next etc. Every ten levels you can leave and when you do leave the item levels up based on how far down you went. So it's not just random battles and levelling up, it's also improving your items on the side.

Also added in to Disgaea is a Dark Assembly - basically a Senate in which you pitch ideas such as Improved Countrattack, More Expensive Items in Shops, Raising Military Funds. Each senator can be bribed if necessary allowing you to use your extra items to get some of the sweet bonuses offered via the Assembly.

You also have character creation which is a solid addition. You can create just about anything you kill, bosses excepted. You create them using mana (obtained by killing enemies) and based on how much mana you want to spend are able to raise their base stats. Spending mana to create also affords you infinite character creation so long as you keep on killing.

The graphics are certainly very nice art, although as far as *graphics* go I don't think they are that fancy. But they don't need to be, the cutscenes work to tell the story and the story is still entertaining. A nice break from all the same old "epic quests".

Disgaea brings a lot of innovation to the table for Strategy RPGs, but more importantly it's just a fun game. A good purchase for any RPGers or anyone interested in RPGs, definately a good one to break into the genre with as well!

Amazing, simply amazing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: January 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

To be honest, I bought this game because I liked the box art. Little did I know I was getting so much more. However reminesent of a bad comedy skit, the story somehow holds together and is not only humorous, it is compelling. You are the Prince of Darkness, who has been sleeping in a coffin for 2 years. You awake to find your dad, the king of the netherworld, has died choking on a 'black' pretzel. The netherworld has gone to hell, there are uprisings, battles for power, and anarchy. You then set off on a quest to plunder, loot, and take back the title of king of the netherworld.

Though the gameplay graphics are on the ps1 level, its not bad. Story screens are done in still anime pictures with voice acting to fill dialouge. This would be boring if the dialouge wasnt funny, and if the pictures looked bad. Luckily it has a high level of quality for each of those categories. Spells and other fancy attacks have spectacular effects, and are a joy to watch.

The gameplay itself is innovative and resourceful. You can throw teammates and enemies to attack, or just for strategic movement. Geo panels set up brilliant combo attacks for devasating damage, assuming you can plan them out correctly. Weapons can also level up just as your characters do. You give the item to someone and you go inside the weapon where a dungeon-like situation arises. Defeat it and your weapon gains power and attributes. A very nice feature. If you want better equipment at the shop or more money and the like, you have to take it up with a congress-like group of demons who vote in favor or against you, depending onhow much you bribe them. That right there is hours of enjoyment (or frustration, depending on your patience).

Music is good, it can get repedative and annoying if you listen to the same song for too long, but it doesnt hurt the game. Some of the music is fantastic. Sound effects are excellent, and the voice acting, though a little overdone is of good quality and moves the story along well.

In short, this is a great game worthy of any strategy RPG fans time. Actually, its not just worthy, it demands to be played. The game is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone.

A lot of fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: September 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The first time I saw the review from IGN I knew that I have to get a hold of this game... I did, and boy am I impressed :D well I understand it's way better than FFT since this was made a while back but the innovations Nippon Ichi (published by Atlus) added to the game is way more and fun compared to FFT.

First off you can replay the game all over again with all of your items/lvl/characters etc. intact concerning the game has different endings depending on your actions in the game. Talk about replay value (more info why below).

Second, you have control on how hard the enemies are later in the game so if the bosses are too easy you can go to the dark assembly and make a vote to make the enemies harder or vice versa, same goes with items, special skills, weapons, and locked levels.

Third, character development has never been so diversed as you can upgrade a characters skills through an action called "transmigration" where you can change a characters class ie. a Ronin to a Ranger while keeping some of the original skills max of 95%. Item/weapon upgrades can be done also by going inside them hence called "Item World" where the further down you go inside an item the higher its lvl gets. Can you get to the bottom :D with this you can create a character who knows mostly every skills a character can have, but that is for people who wants to spend a lot of time with it as a character can go all the way to Lvl 10000 no more lvl 100 but all the way to lvl 10000, so you can see how deep this game is even after you finished it.

Fourth, the story line is pretty good as it starts where you get to know each of the characters in the beginning in a funny way and once further down the episodes (14 I believe) you get to see some drama as you uncover certain truths about prince Laharl and his vassals and the changes in them as the story progresses, I was surprised on how they were able to blend comedy and drama without tripping (thank Flonne and Etna for that Laharl is pure evil :) those 2 are there to keep him in check).... a piece or work and pretty good voice acting too I'm impressed. Also the original Japanese audio are all included just for info.

Fifth, Geo Panels, almost forgot those brain burners heh heh. If you want a more (thinking) challenge you can go and work on the geo panels and symbols and create chain hits so your bonus gauge will go up and receive more items after a battle. It's better to learn it in-game as it's a long process to explain how to do it. And when it reads "Strategy RPG" It MEANS it. The further in the game you are, the more you really have to think it through each battle as its not just out hack/slash win type of deal, you have to utilize lifting characters to avoid damages, 4x combo attacks, and area damage management, etc. (you learn this early in the game so its easy to understand) way deeper than FFT. Battle special effects when casting high level spells or skills are just awesome also it also shows some "ahem" air DBZ combos depending on the class you're using.

Sixth, the BAD part about the game (here we go) is the camera angle once in a while as its hard to see some level board when theres tall hills or towers when youre trying to adjust where your character is going to stand, adding a birds eye view or camera tilting would have helped a lot. Also, a higher resolution character images would have made it much better as whenever the camera goes closer the character sprites just starts to get blurry (compliments to anti-aliasing), it would be nice if they are the same resolution as Guilty Gear XX.

There is still more but all of these I typed are all based on me playing the game. I still have 1.5 episodes to go the time I posted this. So far the game hasn't slowed down a bit. So if you're into FFT, Ogre Battle, Hoshigami, Kartia heck Strategy RPGs this is a no brainer.

Why are all truly awesome games sleeper hits?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: April 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Scanning through other reviews, I saw someone had picked up this game due to the box art. I have a similar reason for picking up this game; a whole wave of Disgaea fanart had swept the art site deviantArt, and I thought "These character designs look really cool. I think I'll give it a shot."

I have to say that this game could've been priced at $70 or $80 and, with my opinion I've developed, I still would've purchased it.

I'll say this out front; if you want a game with a deep, thought-provoking storyline with tons of twists, betrayals, and suspense... don't play Disgaea. Go buy Final Fantasy Tactics and have yourself a jolly good time. However, if you're looking for a game with a lighthearted storyline filled to the brim with risque humor and general bashing of lots of pop culture, this game is the game for you.

Very little in the way of a detailed tutorial is given, which is a mixed blessing. First it means you can jump right into the game and get started, but if you're new to the Strategy/RPG Genre you'll probably be a little overwhelmed at first. It plays a little differently than most traditional ones as well. You can have up to 10 characters (either story-influenced ones or created ones) out on a battlefield at once, any type or class. (I have 10 Nekomatas that I use quite often!) You can move them about individually and assign them moves, and you have to tell the game to Excecute them once you've assigned them. Tedious at first, but after an hour or so it becomes automatic (You'll hit Triangle -> X without even thinking about it).

A rather neat feature this game has is a team-attack system. This goes side-by-side with the Master/Pupil system as well. If you have a character, say Laharal (The main character, Demon Prince of the Netherworld) is used to create a Warrior character. If you have Laharl positioned and attacking an enemy with the Warrior ajacent to Laharl, there's a very high chance that the two will both attack at the same time. You can have up to four characters in one combo attack, and some of which are pretty funny, as well as damaging (batting an enemy from the ground to the air, ground to air, etc., or knocking them in the middle of all four and just laying into the sucker).

Another interesting feature of the game is the "Geo Panel" system. In certain maps there will be colored tiles on the ground, and they may or may not have an effect on the battle. Pyramid-shaped gems on a single colored tile will give all of the same colored tile whatever effect they specify. This includes, but isn't limited to, Enemy Boost, Invincibility, Recovery, Atk/Def boost, and so forth. Using Geo Panels to your advantage can make a battle a lot easier, but it can also end up making it a lot tougher, too. Be careful!

The replay value of this game is nigh endless. Why? Well, while Final Fantasy Tactics has Disgaea beat when it comes to storylines, your maximum level in FFT is level 99. Disgaea's maximum level? Nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine. 9999. Not only that, at any point you can reset a character back to level 1. Now WHY would you want to reset a character back to level 1? Well, depending on how much "Mana" you character has (Points racked up from killing enemies), he can keep more and more of its abilities as it resets. Also, a reset level character (called "Transmigrated" in-game) gains stat points much faster than a normal character.

That's not all! Your items aren't simply stoic things that you use in Disgaea. No no no, on the contrary. They're their own dungeons! This game has the unique "Item World" dungeon system, which random generates a dungeon to fight through inside of an item. Getting farther and farther into the dungeon levels up the item higher and higher, up to a maximum of 255 (for "Legendary" status items). These leveled up items can make your characters unstopable powerhouses, if you put the time into it.

Initially, you start with only Laharl, the demon prince, Etna, his vassal, and three "Prinnies", penguin-like beings that are a major highlight of the game, dood. However, you can create more characters. A standard few are available in the beginning, like Warriors (Sword/Axe/Spear users), Brawlers (Martial arts users), Skulls and Mages (Magic users), and Clerics (healers), but you can unlock many more classes as you level up the base ones. Also, you have the option to create any monster that you kill in any battle. The more of them you defeat, the less mana they cost to create.

Nippon-Ichi has put together a truly great game. Let's just hope they bring the others over! (Well, we've got Rhapsody and Disgaea... and La Pucelle is coming out [Phantom Brave has been announced for US release! Woohoo!] I'd highly reccommend this game to anyone who enjoys Strategy/RPGs, or wacky humor. Just watch out for those horse weiners, dood.

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: August 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

To start with, the negatives: The graphics in this game are nothing to write home about. You can find graphics like this on some of the later PSone games. Oh, and occasionally, the camera can get annoying...

The Positives: I bought this game yesterday, and I have been absolutely hooked. Like some of the previous reviewers have said, it is like an advanced Final Fantasy Tactics. That is just the start of this game. Combat occurs in a very FFT type setting. That's the simple part of the game.

The game them goes into greater complexity by having to convince various demons through "democratic" voting that you should be able to: create new party members, get new items at the shops, raise money, etc. There is also a chance to level up any item in the game by going into the "item world" and challenging your way through it.

However, for me, my heart was lost to this game by the anime-inspired animation and voice acting.

A tale of betrayal, lust, love, and exploding penguins!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: July 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ahh, the Netherworld... A lovely place full of hellfire, brimstone, angry demons, and Penguins... All this can mean only one thing. You've just stepped into the realm of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

Here's the deal. It seams that King Krechevskoy, a god-like being and ruler of the Netherworld, died two years ago by choking on a pretzel. I kid you not. A pretzel. We'd try to figure that one out, but after all, we've watched Transformers. Anyway, the game begins with Laharl, the rightful heir to the throne, just now finding out that his dad's dead. Seems he's been sleeping the whole time... Talk about a heavy sleeper. Also, demons left and right have been vying for control of the Netherworld. Of course, he's not gonna let that happen, is he? So you go out on a quest to reestablish yourself and your family as the rightful rulers.

That said, let's get into the gameplay. Anyone who's played a tactics RPG will be familiar with some of the basic features. You move your people around a tactical map and command them to attack enemies. Damage bonuses result from hitting enemies from behind, above, or with attacks they're weak against.

That's where the similarities end. In Disgaea you can attack with up to FOUR characters simultaneously, or in waves with each following character getting an increasing bonus to damage. Some enemies can only be killed as such. Lining characters up will often trigger team attacks with up to 4 characters, which look really impressive when you pull them off. You can really pack on the damage if you do this often.

Another element in battle is the often overlooked Geo-Panels. Using them, you can eliminate an entire army by destroying one single panel if they're positioned right. In addition, you can really improve your battle bonus by doing this. That determines how much money you get at the end of the fight and also what items you get for winning. As a matter of fact, there are certain weapons that you can only get in this manner.

There are numerous other aspects that open up later in this game that can keep you hooked for years, if you're a dedicated RPG fan. There's the Item World, where you actually fight inside weapons and armor to make them stronger. Also there's a Dark Assembly, where you can propose bills ranging from upgrading the shops to the ever-coveted Prinny Day. That's not even mentioning that there's around 150 classes and monsters to create your characters from. Almost everything's custom here.

With the type of music score that only Nippon Ichi and Atlus could bring you, you know you're in for an interesting and entertaining experience.

However, there are a few downsides. The main game is a bit short, only lasting about 30 hours. And the enemies in the later areas, especially the sidequests get really powerful realy fast (we're talking the thousands for levels here). Also, the graphics might not appeal to the younger generation of video game fans - the type of people that look more at the game's eye candy rather than the quality of the game itself. However, those are minor in the long run.

All in all, this is a fun game that you can get, beat, and go back to every once in awhile. With an entertaining story, great music, and a unique twist on the Tactics Engine of today, Dosgaea should appeal to RPG fans nationwide. SBaby gives Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for the PS2 a
5 out of 5. Dooooooooooooooood!!!!!

Excellent Game--Killer of Final Fantasy Tactics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I rented this game thinking to test drive it before I got it for a friend who likes this Genre. Now I own it, you do the math.
This is an excellent game the graphics are excellent, the characters are amusing (explosive penguins rule) The possiblities are endless.

Story excellent
The story basically revolves around your character Laharl whose father was the ruler of the underworld after two years you wake up from a nap and realize Other Demons have the audacity to try to claim your throne. This of course can not be tolerated

Characters Excellent
Your character is well done, and the enemies and your teammates are all well done characters. Most are quite well rounded esp one of the angels and your second in command. (sorry trying not to give spoilers so no names)

Graphics/Cutscenes Excellent
Were beautifully done very pleasant backgrounds and the cutscenes are top notch often with your characters as a cartoon in front of a background of the battlefield you are about to stand on. Oddly though sometimes the characters spoke as well as being subtitled other times they didn't seemed kind odd to me but wasn't neccesarily a bad thing just strange, the real important stuff is usually said.

Music Very Good
This was quite nice I enjoyed it and it was usually appropriate to background and story.

Replay Perfect
You can level your characters to level 1000 and there are literally limitless levels I think that counts as pretty replayable.

Gameplay Excellent

After a quick read of the manual you will have a firm enough grasp to play easily, may take a while to master all the idiosynchracies but most of them are pretty optional if you want to deprive yourself of the fun.
(still a good thing though because I can't tell you how many times I have stopped playing a game before beating it because I got sick of it--FFX comes to mind)

Perhaps the Best Game I Have Ever Played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have played many games in my life, but this one is about as good as they get. I'm sure you can read any other posted review to realize that this game is special so I'll focus this review on people who wouldn't like this game.

If you don't like role-playing games, featuring turn-based combat, tons of stats, weapons, modifiers, spells and character classes, this is definately not for you.

If you don't like to do the same thing over and over again (Like fighting battles just to level up characters), this might not be the game for you.

If you don't like loosely knit storylines, you might want to consider twice. While Disgaea has a very good story, the game is not very tightly wound around the storyline, and many chapters in the game don't do much to advance the plot or character development.

If you like flashy games with up to date 3D graphics; Disgaea uses sprites layered on rendered landscapes, so while the graphic is crisp and clean, it looks more like a cartoon than Doom 3.

If it helps you make up your mind any more: I'm a very stingy buyer when it comes to single player games. I normally rent or borrow these kind of games as they tend to have no replay value once you have beaten it. For Disgaea, I've played about 120 hours of the game using someone else's disk, and now I'm going to buy myself a copy. Since I already have a copy to play with, I won't open this one, it'll just be my tribute to Atlus (Maker Disgaea).

Best tactic game I've played.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This little nitch game is perfect if you don't mind putting in 100+ hours into building up your characters and weapons, If you're looking for a new strategy game look no further, but if instant action is your thing maybe you should keep moving.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions