The Design of Disgaea PC

With the recent announcement of the HD remake of the first Disgaea game, I thought I'd go back and revisit the PC port, something I've been meaning to play anyways. Setting aside the 200 hours I had on my PS2 copy, it was time to start over.

Disgaea is a SRPG that was originally released by Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) on the PS2 in 2003. The story is set in a world where angels and demons exist in separate planes of existence from humans; called The Netherworld, and Celestia respectively. The main character, Laharl, has waken up from a two year nap by his right-hand vassal, Etna, and is informed that his father, the Overlord of The Netherworld, has died. This sets forth Laharl's quest for power, attempting to become powerful enough to follow in his father's footsteps. Over the course of the game, the player is tasked with building an army of members from all three worlds, as well as boost your stats up to illogically high levels. Disgaea does not take itself seriously in the slightest, and because of that it has become NIS' most popular series.

When I started this playthough I quickly remembered why I was drawn to this series in the first place. It was far from the best that strategy role playing games had to offer, but during the early 2000's the western market really didn't have much published in the genre. That being said, the age shows in both the graphics and story, with the gameplay still holding up despite the lack of improvements that the later games would implement; this is a port that is as true to the original as possible, with the needed addition of the in-game cursor. Another new addition; right off the bat I got an extra character that wasn't originally playable, Pleinair. For new players this breaks the early game, and takes away a bit of the feeling of the PS2 version. For returning players this is a pleasant surprise that allows faster progression to the mid game, where she smooths out and becomes less broken. Besides the mouse cursor this is the only noticeable new design choice.

The Good:

• The character design still holds up, still being recognizable 15 years later, still being a tad skimpy on some characters (even if they are demons).
• The true mascot character, the Prinny, is such a rediculous concept that it's hard not to love.
• The Soundtrack is memorable, songs show up in later games as reprises.
• The voice acting was a nice design choice, there are plenty of similar games that have the same back and forth type of dialogue that either have voice actors that didn't care, or don't have voice acting entirely.
• The aesthetic is unique and coherent, there's never something that's out of place in the game's world, with corporations and characters that act like they've traveled from other, similar, NIS netherworlds.
• Rebindable keys, this keeps in mind that not every country has the same keyboard layout, and allows the player to use a controller.
• Pleinair is originally a NPC that never moves, but when she joins your party in this version there's a prinny dressed up in a maid's outfit that takes her place in the overworld.
• The over the top animations for the spells add onto the game's theme of not taking itself seriously, and makes combat interesting your first time seeing each one.
• As stated previously, every single number value in the game becomes meaningless after a certain point, the game lets you break it to a certain extent.
• The lift-and-throw feature brings something new to the genre, a self explanatory system that would become a staple of the series' gameplay (Innovation and experimentation with gameplay keeps the genre interesting).
• The character creator for your army is fleshed out; every rank of every character has its own color palette which gives indication on how tough both characters and enemies are. This has the added bonus of giving the player clear feedback that they are progressing and getting more powerful.
• The 2D characters on a 3D playing field is easy on the eyes, makes me wish more games other than Paper Mario has this style of "2.5D".
• The character cut-ins before combo attacks add another layer of personality to each character; something I just really enjoy during battles.

The Bad:

• Unskippable cutscenes. I hate these so much, especially if I've seen the cutscene before.
• Unskippable tutorials. No seriously, I hate these, especially if I've played the game before.
• Both the text speed and walking animations are snail pace slow; this issue is fixed in later games with a speed setting, but unfortunately wasn't included in this port.
• The hard reset on death is annoying; again, something fixed in later games.
• The story teeters on parodying other games, and falling into the cliches it's trying to make fun of.
• Little to no character development, players care about the character based on how they look and their single point of motivation.

The Neutral:

• Overpowered character right off the bat allows for quick progression until later levels.
• Every singe character is one dimensional. I don't know if this is supposed to be a pun, or bad writing.
• Although the grandfather to one of my favorite series, it hasn't aged well enough to justify keeping everything the same in the PC port.
• Gameplay is grind based, this means clearing tons of stages for experience to level up the player's characters. This process is time consuming, and can be a bit tedious (But some people enjoy this type of gameplay due to the sense of achievement that comes along with getting something late-game to end-game).
• Despite the age of the pixel art, it still shows the amount of time and effort that was put into it, a product of its time that will be fixed in the future HD remake.
• The voice acting is available in both Japanese and English, but not the other two languages the game is available in, Chinese and Korean (you'd want to include as many languages as possible, but also have to remember that different markets enjoy different things ).

Final thoughts

If the HD remake re-adds the lost features I keep mentioning, then I'd recommend this as a nice entry point into the series. The contrast between the PC port and the fifth game in the series is like night and day; I honestly cannot wait until the HD remake gives the game the modern treatment that I originally hoped the PC port would have been.